Just finished Lev Grossman's very entertaining The Magicians. My misgivings out the way first: even accounting for unlikable character tropes, some instances still feel a bit much, like overgoosing on being a different kind of fantasy, and the casually leering description at the outset gets a tad uncomfortable in an extra-textual way. That asides, the way a normal YA fantasy arc gets undercut throughout by darker real-world problems and subversive psychological pinnings, especially on the effect of childhood's fantasy informing adults' outlook, is pretty nifty and well-executed. And even that surface arc is able to stand alone as engaging fantasy on its own too. 4/5