After the disaster of Lost Symbol I found some welcome respite in Jonathan Stroud’s book. It is definitely better than Lost Symbol. If you are a Harry Potter fan then you’ll definitely like this book(- though it’s not as intricate as Harry Potter). Also this book(as written in the back-cover) “is a roller-coaster ride of magic, adventure, and political skulduggery,” in which fates of a magician, a djinni, and a commoner explosively collide. Though this is second book of “The Bartimaeus Trilogy”, I found no trouble in starting right in the middle even though I haven’t read book-I i.e “The Amulet of Samarkand.”

I found Stroud’s narrative to be refreshingly new. The book is unlike any other I have read before. The way he changes narrative style according to each character/chapter is quite unique. The book delves into several subtle political issues which might be worth pondering ourselves. It does so in such a manner that we don’t feel overly depressed on something. What I liked in the book was the slow transformation of a kid who is ambitious and wants to become a great magician. He starts out fine but slowly starts overestimating his own abilities and starts sucking up to higher authorities to gain their favor undermining even the authority of his own mentor. By the end of the book he changes from a well-meaning guy to a lonely, but powerful official with no friends and only enemies; in other words he grows up(not age-wise rather attitude wise) .

The pace is fast but not unusually so. The content is also not ‘adult’ to speak of, but is definitely worth a read. Also lest you think the book is dark and gloomy, let me assure you it is not so- Bartimaeus the djinn will see to that. So I’ll definitely recommend that you read this book. Meanwhile I’ll try to get my hands on the other two books of this trilogy.

The ratings….

overall: 8⁄10

content: 3⁄5 (after all its a kid story)

pace: fast