Book review #2 – The Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand
Felicia Taylor
Matt Thomas
English 9
04-14-08
Book Review #2 – The Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand
This exquisite novel is about a young boy named Nathaniel who is a magician’s assistant in London, England. He studied all about the demons that do the work for magicians and by the age of eleven he has read every book plus some that his master has told him to read. It is at this time that he meets a rival magician to his master; Simon Lovelace.
Nathaniel unintelligently provokes Lovelace by calling him a sore loser and Lovelace punishes him. This leads Nathaniel to want revenge against him and decides to summon a level fourteen djinni named Bartimaeus.
He charges this djinni to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace and a frantic search for the item ensues. After a fair amount of twists and turns in the plot Nathaniel’s master and his master’s wife get killed and it’s all his fault. But it’s ok because he uncovers a plan to kill the Prime Minister and saves the day, woo hoo!
I really like the Bartimaeus chapters in this book because he has such a defined personality; his sarcasm and just the way it seems to me like he carries himself throughout the story just get me, I really enjoy it. It’s not just Bartimaeus either; almost all of the characters in this book are very well developed, to the point that they are real to me, I can put a face to a name at any given moment, yet I imagined all of it. It just seems so real that I didn’t realize it was my imagination, I guess. So basically what I like is the personality this book has.
