Bartimaeus is back. He doesn’t really want to be, but Nathaniel (now 14, and known publicly as John Mandrake) is a bit over his head. The Resistance (which we learn more about) is causing trouble, and Nathaniel is responsible for tracking them down but it’s more than that: there’s a strange entity out there wreaking havoc on London. And, only Nathaniel (with Bartimaeus’s help) can track it down.
Sounds a bit pretentious doesn’t it?
It is… a 14-year-old magician and a 5,000 year old djinn have the power to stop whatever-it-is (a golem) from destroying London. But it works, mostly because Bartimaeus is such a fun narrator. Like the the first book, the chapters flip back and forth between narrators: Bartimaeus, Nathaniel, and this time we include Kitty, a member of the Resistance. Nathaniel is still clueless and arrogant (perhaps even more so), caught up in the pomp and politics of London magic. But Kitty is the real find here. She adds depth and detail to what I felt was a bit of a whim in the first book (there were a couple of times when I wished I had read the two closer together, but it wasn’t often). She was interesting, and her exploits with the Resistance group had some emotional pull. It added a perspective to the whole magical world that was missing in Amulet.
Given all that, though, this book has a really slow start. (As did the first one, if I remember right.) Bartimaeus doesn’t show up until 10 or more chapters in, and the story really doesn’t get really interesting until Part Four. All of which is a detriment to keeping readers, especially younger ones, interested. (M, for all her enjoyment of the first one, bailed on this, and has no interest in picking it up again.) But once it gets interesting, it gets really interesting. There’s a mystery (who’s the government traitor — I guessed it…), there’s a devious plot (but having guessed the traitor, there’s a deeper mystery: the traitor’s a puppet, who’s holding the strings?), the mysterious people that figured in the first book show up again. How on earth is Nathaniel (and Bartimaeus, for you know he’ll show up yet again) going to unravel the underlying plot within a plot? Or is he going to fall prey to it, too? How does Kitty figure into all of this?
I suppose I’ll just have to read the next one to find out.
The Book Nut 
Interesting—sounds like kind of a wacky series.
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It’s been about ten months since I read these books, but if I remember correctly…the second one is my least favorite of the bunch. But I enjoyed them all really. It was just that the second book introduces new characters, and a new narrator if memory serves me. So it takes a bit of set up to get that story going. But I think the series ends well. No spoilers here to the fate of anyone or anything in this fantasy world. But I definitely thought it was a strong read.
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I don’t remember it being a slow start, for some reason, but its been awhile. I loved what Kitty and her story brought to the adventure; it made enduring Nathaniel a little easier, and helped flesh out Bartimaeus (no pun intended…). The third book is definitely the strongest; I’m eager to know what you think of it!
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the only reason i kept reading it was Bartimeaus(sp?). I actually found kitty a little boring, but she played a vital role in the book. Nat is a brat basically and a really unattractive charecter, but you could connect yourself with him easily.
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