Before I started reading the book I had heard that it was a sort of an adult version of Harry Potter. The parallels between the two stories are very clear, but comparing them like that also seems like a disservice to The Magicians since the books are different in all the important areas.
The Magicians is a story about a young boy, tired of ordinary life, who learns that magic is real and then goes to a school where he learns more about it. This is the part that is similar to Harry Potter, but that is also where the similarities end. Instead of the happy feeling of endless possibilities that the Harry Potter books have, The Magicians focuses on what happens when dreams come true and they're not really what you had hoped for.
This is one of the first books I read with this focus, on dreams not being all that good once they become reality, and I found it very refreshing and interesting. There is no doubt that the book at times is a bit depressive and nihilistic, but it was still very enjoyable to read.
I never really liked the main character, since he is too depressive and self destructive for that, but he worked great as a main character since he used his self destructive tendencies to drag the plot forward in a very convincing fashion. This use of the main character's temper and destructive tendencies was very apparent after reading the Hunger Games, where the main character has the same tendencies, but there those characteristics are never used to advance the plot.
The biggest problem in the book that I find is that at times the lore seems underdeveloped, and there are a few characters which we are given very little information about even though they fill important roles in the story. There is a sequel to this book though, The Magician King, which might solve a few of those problems.
