The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Kind of cross between Harry Potter meets the Chronicals of Narnia. Or imagine if Harry Potter goes to college without the boarding school. Quentin believes in magic, he re-reads the Fillory books over and over and practices magic tricks in his spare time. But where will his hobby take him? It hasn't helped him get the girl or be popular. Quentin is on his way to a college interview when he discovers the interviewee deseased. After he calls 911 he is given a letter from the paramedic and finds himself pulled into a magical world and examination. After he passes he is informed he has been selected to attend a Brakebills a secret magician university that only accepts 20 students a year.
About half the book focuses on his 4 years at Brakebills and the friendships he developes. Quentin and his parents are distant and neither seems to miss the others so visits home become shorter and fewer. During one of his last visits home he meets up with his highschool crush who has radically changed into a crazy goth girl and somehow knows that Brakebill is a magic school. It just re-enforces his belief that he is no longer a part of the normal world. After a grueling semester in the South pole where Quentin transforms into the magician he hopes to become he settles in NYC with the gang from Brakebills and life just becomes one big party. Days seem to blend together with nothing ever changing and Quentin becomes to feel despair at his choices and wondering what purpose his life has. He then makes a choice, one that he will regret for the rest of his life that changes everything.
A former classmate from Brakebills, Penny, has hunted them down in NYC and brought a magic button that will take them to the neverworld and then to Fillory. So a quest has been thrown and they all go without thinking about the consequences or cost. The rest of the book is in Fillory and becomes a graphic battle of kill or be killed and Quentin must decide if the cost is worth it.
I enjoyed the majority of the book but did find myself wanting to shake the narrator, Quentin, as seems to whine and dwell on the negative. But I did find the story interesting and enjoyed remembering parts that reminded me of the Chronicles of Narnia. I listened to it on CD and did find that I had to skip some of the more graphic parts.