The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

462 pages

"Nathaniel is eleven years old and a magician's apprentice, learning the traditional arts of magic. All is well until he has a life-changing encounter with Simon Lovelace, a magician of unrivaled ruthlessness and ambition. When Lovelace brutally humiliates Nathaniel in public, Nathaniel decides to speed up his education, teaching himself spells way beyond his years. With revenge on his mind, he masters one of the toughest spells of all and summons Bartimaeus, a five-thousand-year-old djinni, to assist him. But summoning Bartimaeus and controlling him are two different things entirely, and when Nathaniel sends the djinni out to steal Lovelace's greatest treasure, the Amulet of Samarkand, he finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion." -Dust Jacket

This book was okay. It's supposed to take place in a modern-day London but it didn't feel very modern, as compared to Harry Potter's modern-day London. Maybe the movies helped out with that a bit. This story felt more like it was happening in a different century except for the black limos the magicians ride in. Nathaniel lives in a house that is old, he dresses old, his master's appearance is old so the story feels a bit old.

Nathaniel is a whiner. His behavior throughout the whole story is pretty much one big magical tantrum. He's smart and he wants people to recognize and praise him for it. He wants to get even with a powerful magician whose basically given him a public spanking and so he does some reckless things that set even more reckless things in motion. I didn't like his character much at all.

Bartimaeus, on the other hand, is arrogant yet actually likable. His footnotes were at first annoying and then entertaining. They're basically side comments. He provides some comic relief in this whine fest.

I liked how the author switched points of view throughout the story. Had the story been told strictly from Nathaniel's POV I would have stopped reading. Bartimaeus feels like the main character anyway. He's been around a long time and has learned a thing or two. Some of his observations of humans were pretty insightful. I'm going to read the other two books in the hopes that Nathaniel will grow up. He has potential, both magical and otherwise, but he's got to develop a moral center and be motivated by something other than revenge for me to like him. He needs to learn from his mistakes. Bartimaeus gives him some advice at the end of this first book that hopefully he'll follow.