Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I finally finished. Every time I thought about reading this book I would get the children's song "This is the Song that Never Ends" stuck in my head.

There were two characters I actually liked and since they were both minor characters until the end of the book they weren't in it very much.

Oh lord, this was a monster of a book. I can't believe I've finally actually finished! But it was definitely a wild ride and really amazing and I enjoyed almost every moment of it. I loved all the characters and the relationships between them, and the man with the thistle-down hair is so subtly sadistic (and not so subtle at times) and I don't know this book is just so amazing and original and I've never seen anything like it before. It's a whole alternate world that you could get lost in, and the made up footnotes just helped to round out the world and made it real. Also, the writing itself was amazing. Equal parts snarky and sarcastic and just delightful overall and basically I kept describing this book as "Jane Austen meets magic" to people who asked me about it because that's what it was.

Also I really liked the ending - I thought it was fitting for everyone, and it was just so satisfying. There wasn't a character's end that I felt like didn't work or that I wanted something different/more from. (Though now I just want more stories of Strange and Norrell doing magic together and being contentious buddies who work together despite their disagreements. Like buddy cops, but buddy magicians!)

Anyway, I guess this book was so long that there really isn't any way for me to organize this review in any way that makes much sense, so it's just going to stay as mostly incoherent thoughts and flail. I just feel so accomplished!

Stodgy. But I did finish it.