Nathaniel is a young magician with great talent, ambition, unquenchable curiosity, and the desire to go far in England's magician-centric government. He's also got an axe to grind with Simon Lovelace, a superstar magician who publicly humiliated Nathaniel. Enter Bartimaeus, a smart-mouthed djinn Nathaniel summons to swipe the mysterious Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace. As expected, things don't go entirely to plan, and Nathaniel and Bartimaeus are manage to get in one pickle after another as they're held together by an almost-unbreakable bond.
This is the first book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, which I'd been curious about for quite some time. One of the things I liked about this was that the narration switched back and forth between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, the latter of whom used footnotes (he claimed as a way to relate the story on multiple planes of existence, though I think it was just to annoy the reader. I was certainly annoyed.). But I did like the switching points of view. As someone who has become so used to the world of Harry Potter, it was a little weird for me to read about Stroud's version of the education of young magicians (though considering that Stroud pokes fun at the notion of a boarding school for magicians, I'm probably not the first to have that sensation). I also really liked that Nathaniel isn't your typical golden boy hero (I would totally sort him into Slytherin if he was in that world, which he's not) and I loved the humor. I'll definitely be checking out the rest of the series.
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