Quentin didn’t spend any time in Brooklyn that summer because his parents didn’t live there anymore. Abruptly and without consulting him, they’d sold off their Park Slope town house

Well why should they consult Q? They don’t have any kind of relationship with him.

Also, Q, you are a whole-ass adult at this point. If you want to go to Brooklyn, go to Brooklyn.

When Quentin arrived home for summer vacation […] his parents were alarmed at his gaunt appearance, his hollow, shell-shocked eyes, his haunted demeanor. But their curiosity about him was, as always, mild enough to be easily manageable

Seriously, these people sound like Q’s landlords more than his parents. And yet, they also insist on having breakfast every morning to make small talk even though he tries to avoid them?

While Q is out wandering the town out of boredom, Julia finds him. She’s all dirty and unsteady and mad at him, and it quickly comes out that she was tested for Brakebills but didn’t make the cut.

Honestly, Julia, you’re better off. Literally any college is more interesting than Brakebills, and it’ll teach you more useful things, too.

Quentin saw. He could see everything. No wonder she’d been so altered the last time he saw her. That one glimpse through the curtain, of the world behind the world, had knocked her completely out of orbit. She’d seen it once, and she couldn’t let go. Brakebills had ruined her.

Again, this would be a lot more plausible if ANYTHING FUCKING INTERESTING HAD HAPPENED IN THIS BOOK. During the test, all she would have seen was a fancy big house and a bullshit test full of gibberish.

But, despite how utterly dull it is, Julia is absolutely desperate to go to Brakebills. She even managed to teach herself a bit of small, useless magic. Q agrees to tell the staff that she still remembers the test and she wants to go to school, but he only agrees because he assumes they’ll wipe her mind better this time and she’ll be better off for it.

Q goes back to his boring ass college that he somehow thinks is the bee’s knees anyway, and he and Alice get in a long nerdy convo about the Fillory books. Then they have sex and I guess they’re in love now? I’m pretty sure this is only the third or fourth on-page conversation they’ve had, but sure, whatever.

The three older Physical students all graduated.

The passage from Brakebills to the outside world was a well-traveled one. There was an extensive network of magicians operating in the wider world, and, being magicians, they were in no danger of starving. They could do more or less whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t interfere with one another. The real problem was figuring out to their own satisfaction what that was. Some of the student body went into public service – quietly promoting the success of humanitarian causes, or subtly propping up the balance of various failing ecosystems, or participating in the governance of magical society, such as it was.

That…is at once so boring and also opens up SO MANY QUESTIONS.

I mean, Brakebills has nothing that a regular college might use to set up their students in the wider world. They’re not allowed to tell anyone about the school, so how do they get into any…just any jobs, anywhere? Do they use magic to fake up some credentials? There’s no intern or work study programs, and no mentor programs so they’ve never met any of these other magicians. They’ve had bare-bones in the way of socialization, and NO instruction in anything other than magic.

God, someone without a single day of humanities training, told for five years that they’re better than everyone else because smarts, getting involved in humanitarian causes? I can’t tell if that would be worse than what we have now or if it’s secretly the cause of our current society.

Also Q spontaneously finds out dragons are real. In his second-to-last year of school

This school sucks.

Then there’s a whole chapter retelling the story of some girl that fell in love with a teacher, had an affair, got dumped, and tried to change her appearance to get the teacher back. The whole time there’s an uncomfortable amount of misogyny directed at Emma (the student) mocking her appearance, her behavior, her reaction to another student getting a crush on her, etc. Just. Nonstop. Everything is Emma’s fault, but the teacher that had an affair with her, oh, he’s called Mr. Sexy and much is made of his magical abilities.

Anyway, Emma’s attempts to change her appearance go horribly wrong.

Even Quentin knew that using magic to alter one’s physical appearance never ended well. In the world of magical theory it was a dead spot: something about the inextricable, recursive connection between your face and who you were – your soul, for lack of a better word – made it hellishly difficult and fatally unpredictable.

This feels like one brick in the foundational worldview that leads to things like “makeup is false advertising” and “women are duplicitous by nature.” It’s not really doing anything besides hanging out, being gross, and letting you know what kind of mindset this book is based on but…

…it is doing all those things, so. Ew.

Anyway, the other student gets turned into a niffin but we’re not told what that is because AS USUAL Q is a useless character who knows nothing.

After, Alice starts crying because she figures out the male student was her dead brother (or “dead” brother?) and she claims Janet told the story to hurt her. Alice goes on about how Janet is such a horrible person which…I mean, would have been nice to see before now? Assuming it’s even true?

How can this book have so many words and yet be this utterly bad at conveying any important information?