NaNo donations, and The Magicians

The time to start planning my NaNo novel has arrived, and I have indeed begun the process. Now that I'm unemployed, I have a whole lot of time on my hands with which to write. Hopefully, by the time November comes, I will not be unemployed, but at least I can utilize the free time for something productive.
Last year, when I successfully completed NaNo, I made the decision to donate a couple bucks to them in an effort to help keep the program going. Donations are what OLL (the Office of Letters and Light, the charity that runs NaNo) run off of. Aside from paying their staff to keep the website running smoothly during the high traffic times in November, they also get the program into schools, encouraging kids and adults alike to write.
So basically, if you would like to donate something, and in turn earn the right to heckle the shit out of me this November about completing my novel, awesome! If you don't want to/cant donate, I guess you can still heckle me. Surprisingly, its very motivating.
Donate here.

 Onto other things now. Perhaps a book review?

As a general rule, I try to stay away from books that seem to get a lot of hype in the media. It is my experience that they are never as good as they are made out to be. Reading The Magicians By Lev Grossman only further proved my point. I don't mean to say it was terrible. The characters were splendid, although in some cases quite undeveloped. The plot had its good points, although it wasn't the most original Ive ever read. Okay, Ill come right out and say it, does he think he is the first to write a book about normal people magically entering another world? And lets be clear on this, Brakebills pretty much IS Hogwarts, and Fillroy pretty much IS Narnia.
That judgement aside, I could see people liking this book. And I can see why it seemed to get some media attention. I just generally didn't like it. I feel like the author sped through certain time periods, which yes, a lot of authors do to progress the plot. But he speed through parts I think would have been more entertaining then parts he spent a lot of time on. All in all, I will not be reading another book by Lev Grossman. In my opinion, it just came a little to close to using someone else's ideas and ruining them. Try coming up with your own fantasy worlds, Mr. Grossman.