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Brakebills College is not your average college, and Quentin Coldwater is not your average high school senior. And one very cold November day, a day in which Quentin should have been sitting down to an interview to get himself into Princeton, the two will meet and things will never be the same again.

Quentin is not the happiest boy on the planet. For all the smarts he has, he’s just never really all that happy. He’s in love with a girl who doesn’t love him, and completely obsessed with a world that doesn’t exist: Fillory. But he has the brains to get into Princeton, so he walks into his interview….. and finds the professor is dead.

A mysterious paramedic on the scene hands Quentin an envelope. When he opens it, he discovers it is a manuscript; the next book in the Fillory series. There is a note tucked into it, and the note floats away from him, with Quentin chasing it all the way to Brakebills.

Brakebills College is a magic college. For those who have the skill, it becomes their home for five years of study. Some students don’t pass the entrance exam, others will drop out in later years for various reasons. Quentin hopes to find the happiness here that he doesn’t feel in the normal world. Time flows differently here, and he makes new friends, ones who understand him, a girl who loves him.

When classes have ended and there is nothing to distract him any longer, Quentin’s attitude slips back to his earlier days. Nothing makes him happy. He still wants to escape to Fillory, the magical land of childhood books.

And then he gets the chance.

A good half of The Magicians takes place in Brakebills College, where Quentin learns to cast spells, makes friends (and enemies) with fellow students. He rarely goes home for the holidays (his parents are under a spell thinking he goes to some elusive private academy), and discovers all the things most college students do: sex, alcohol, boredom. There’s just magic involved. I have to be honest, I felt that school-time went on much longer than it should have for a book that promotes actually getting to visit Fillory, Grossman’s “Narnia” tribute.

By the time I got through the school years and hit the “I’m a moody 20-something” section of the book, where Quentin & friends have graduated from Brakebills and are living life in the real world, I was getting bored. When was I going to Fillory? When would I get to see the characters who’ve been referenced throughout this entire book? I didn’t want to read about the students lazing about, high on drugs and experimenting. And then one of Quentin’s friends came bursting through the door during a most awkward scene for poor Quentin. We were finally going to Fillory.

But this wasn’t an immediate thing either. I had to read about them making preparations for going, learning and creating darker spells to defend themselves. It was taking forever at this point, and I just wanted to get to the good part.

Eventually we got there, to Fillory. It took Quentin’s temper to get us there, but we did. And what could have really been the majority of the book was crammed into a very quickly paced less than 100 page adventure, filled with dark magics and startling revelations. I felt almost robbed by the time we got there. There was all this build up, the students talking about what had happened in the other five books. But the very end of the story, where everything was revealed to Quentin, and his personal realizations, almost made up for it all.

Did I like the book? Yes, it was fairly enjoyable, even if it did seem to take forever to get to the good part. I wish there was a little more originality to it though. As a reader of fantasy novels, I was waiting for something unique to hit me over the head and say “Wow!” but that never really happened. There is only so much you can do with “paying homage” to Harry Potter (which I have never read) and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia. But Grossman does spin a tale that did have me reading until the very last page, which is a very good sign.

The Magicians will be hitting stores in August 2009.