This is the second book in a row that I'm rating three stars because I really didn't like it, and then really liked it, and so the rating is the average of those two extremes. Weird. 
 Everyone describes this book as "Harry Potter for adults" or "Harry Potter meets The Chronicles of Narnia", and I can see why. But I'll go one further; this book is Harry Potter for adults meets The Chronicles of Narnia meets The Secret History by Donna Tartt ... which was ALSO a book about pretentious selfish self-absorbed whiny privileged young adults who drink too much, sleep with each other, and are bored and therefore miserable. Was that harsh? Sorry not sorry. 
 Quentin Coldwater is the reason I would have one-starred this book, prior to the surprisingly amazing ending. There's a certain type of unsympathetic character that I have zero tolerance for, and unfortunately, Quentin as written in this book falls squarely into it. 
 However, I genuinely loved the last 100 pages or so. By the end, I couldn't help thinking "is this really the same book? What the hell just happened? That was awesome!" 
 I intend on reading the second book at some point, which is not what I thought I'd be writing for most of the book. But now I'm invested, and I want to see what happens. I'm just really, really hopeful that this book was Quentin's long and painful coming-of-age story, and he'll actually be a decent character in the following installments.