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I just finished this book and searched here to see if anyone else read it. This is the most direct thread I found. I have to say my own reaction was a lot more meh than yours.
The sort of humor you noted did not lighten the mood. It was as if the humor was completely sucked out of a Harry Potter novel. Everything was so dry and colorless.
Even though the story is told through action and dialog it felt like it was "told to us, not shown." I found most of it to be remote, cold, and lacked immediacy. Probably because our protagonist is a self-absorbed angsty teen who who never gets better. Sure, he eventually takes responsibility for his actions but I did not sense any growth. He just formed an emotional barrier to numb his pain.
All of his fluency in magic, and his working toward it, was vaguely masturbatory. He never reached out to help those in the world around him.
I actually liked that Grossman presented magic as a grind. That was refreshing. I can sense the writer's loving effort in this. They was quite a bit of intentional satire. Some scenes were quite touching, delicate, and authentic. I am not saying it was poorly written, just hard to be sympathetic to the protagonist. But after I finished this book I am left asking if he added anything to the genre. I am not certain he did. I am not totally down on this book but I am not anticipating the next book(s) as much as I expected to. There certainly are some five-of-five star fans of this book but I'm rating it a three.
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