MixedBookforumLev Grossman’s third novel, The Magicians, pulls liberally from a grab bag of very familiar fantasy tropes ... Grossman has a light, pleasant prose style, and he can occasionally be very funny ... The Magicians never quite reaches that level of transcendence. Much of the problem is tonal: Grossman has written both an adult coming-of-age tale—rife with vivid scenes of sex, drugs, and heartbreak—and a whimsical yarn about forest creatures. The subjects aren’t mutually exclusive, and yet when stirred together so haphazardly, the effect is jarring. More damaging still is the plot, which takes about 150 pages to gain any steam.
