Just a few quick comments about this book for someone still thinking about whether to read it.returnreturnThe jacket blurb "Harry Potter for adults..." is just plain misleading, unless Harry Potter is the only fantasy novel involving humans from present-day earth attending school that you've read. If you want short pithy phrases "Catcher in the Rye meets Narnia" is a far more apt description.returnreturnVarious reviews on LibraryThing accuse Lev Grossman of ripping off CS Lewis' Narnia. No. He's parodying it; or asking the question, what if something like Narnia were real? Grossman is clearly very aware of the Narnia canon, but he detaches it from its Christian allegorical background. In some senses he's doing for Narnia what Marion Zimmer Bradly did for Arthurian legend.returnreturnHTH.