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While I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series, The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye did not live up to my expectations. Nathaniel is 14, and is going through an awkward stage in his life. This teenage angst combined with the fact that he has lost sight of his morals while moving up in the government made him a rather annoying character to read. While the chapters that were told from his point of view were interesting, that was more due to what was happening to Nathaniel, as opposed to how he reacted to the events.

I was also hoping for more camaraderie between the characters. Nathaniel and Bartimaeus bicker quite a bit, just as in the last book, but they didn't exhibit a lot of team work while trying to bring down the Resistance. The one character interaction I was interested in (Kitty and Bartimaeus) was too brief and located at the end of the book. The relationship those characters had was what I wanted to see between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus.

Some people will probably say, yes, Anna, that's the point of this novel, and perhaps the third one will be about them all coming together and growing up and sticking to their ideals. Well, whatever. It was too much of a drag for me, personally, which is a shame because I thought the first book was pretty fab.

The plot was great, but dragged on a bit at the beginning. Altogether, not a terrible book, but definitely a let down.