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The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Sequence)

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Despite this general feeling that The Amulet doesn’t take itself too seriously, there are a lot of serious topics in this one- if you want to read it that way. Bartimaeus attempts to kill the mysterious bearded mercenary, who has become alerted to Nathaniel's plot by the delicatessen people whose van was stolen as a disguise. They are bred for government, are not allowed to themselves breed, and thus take on apprentices instead to further the magical profession.

It probably isn’t a format I will do back to often but it had made me more open to trying other stories told in this format. The graphic novel adaptation of the first volume in the best-selling Bartimaeus sequence makes the series more accessible to readers without taking away any of the wit and magic.

The audio version includes the footnotes as part of the main narrative but they blend in too well, taking away half the fun of the series. I particularly liked it when the creators let him be angsty and vulnerable and sad like an actual young kid rather than trying to turn him into a "stoic" or "manly" figure.

To cap off the distant, flat narrative, and the distracting footnotes, Nathaniel and Bartimaeus are so remarkably unsympathetic, I felt none of the usual drive to finish a book as soon as possible because I really didn’t care much about what was going to happen to them. Some of the footnotes are entertaining, but halfway through the book I was so sick of Bartimaeus’ self-satisfied, conceited remarks that I wanted to scream every time I saw a superscript. The amulet was found by a Russian archaeologist in the 1950s, and through a series of events found its way into the hands of the British Imperial Government. After this, Bartimaeus, disguised as Lovelace's girlfriend Amanda, distracts Lovelace and allows Nathaniel to steal the amulet. The outside world remains ignorant of his heroic acts, yet Nathaniel is satisfied with a true magician's lifestyle under a new master, Jessica Whitwell.So, I’ve done it a bit backwards, I read Lockwood and Co first, loved it and moved onto this which I also really enjoyed.

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