The Magician King

The Magician King by Lev Grossman, 400 pages

The follow-up to Grossman's The Magicians picks up two years after the first book ended (um, big spoiler alert now if you haven't read The Magicians), with Quentin and three of his friends settling into their roles as the kings and queens of Fillory, a magical land that they had long thought of as fictitious. Quentin, however, is starting to get the itch for adventure again, and boards a boat out to the far reaches of Fillory to see what he can find. What follows is a world-hopping (and by "world hopping" I mean "between worlds") adventure that sends Quentin into the highest highs and lowest lows. Mixed in is the backstory of Julia, Quentin's friend from before Brakebills (the magic college he attended) who appeared at the end of the first book as a powerful hedge witch and future queen of Fillory.

This is a fun series, though it's definitely a darker, more grown up fantasy tale than Narnia and Hogwarts, which, unfairly or not, it's often compared to. The mix of foreign magical lands and pop culture references, along with the sex and drugs and darkness, make this a one-of-a-kind universe. I'm excited to read the third book.