The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)
by Lev Grossman
God. I had issues with this one (male heroes who struggle with hubris and despair and make you want to smack them are the protagonists of about a third of all fantasy novels, from Earthsea to those Young Merlin books I used to read), but it also ate my brain and I couldn't put it down. The manic riffs on Harry Potter and Narnia carry you along at a breakneck pace, but the book doesn't rest too heavily on them; it's also hyperactively original and surprising.
The plot is bizarre, a total rollercoaster. Minds change and change back and change again. And then change back. It's complicated when you think it's going to be simple and straightforward when you've been trained to think that there's no way it could ever be that simple. Questions remain unanswered, depths are hinted at but remain unexplored. But it works, and it pulls together into something surprisingly unified.
It's hard to tell the difference sometimes between writing an obnoxious sexist teenage boy protagonist and actually being sexist, but I think The Magicians probably falls into the former category. Exception: I really don't love that the two gay male characters are