The Magicians is a 2009 fantasy novel by Lev Grossman. It tells the story of Quentin Coldwater, a 17-year-old high school student living in Brooklyn, New York. Despite coming from a solid, middle-class home, having good friends, and doing well at school, Quentin is unhappy with his life. As a boy, he read a series of fictional fantasy books, the Fillory and Further series, by fictional author Christopher Plover. These books have led Quentin to believe that a better life is out there and that he just has to find it.

The person who is to conduct Quentin’s college interview for Princeton passes away just as Quentin is about to arrive to the interview; he and his friend, James, are the first ones to come upon the body. Quentin encounters a female paramedic at the scene, and the paramedic gives Quentin an envelope. When Quentin opens the envelope, he finds a notebook entitled “The Magicians,” and a small piece of paper tucked into the pages. The wind gets a hold of the folded notepaper and carries it into a garden. Quentin follows the notepaper to the garden, but as he enters, everything becomes quiet and the air starts to warm. Quentin closes his eyes and when he opens them, he finds he is standing beneath a hot summer sky, staring across a very deep and green lawn at an old Victorian building. This sets the stage for a course of events that will radically alter Quentin’s life. 

Upon entering the house, he is greeted by a young man named Eliot, who tells him he is at Brakebills College and then guides him through a maze of hedges to meet Professor Fogg. Professor Fogg asks Quentin if he is interested in taking the school's entrance exam. Though reluctant at first, Quentin eventually agrees. Quentin finds most of the exam similar to any other exam, but some questions have a strange quality about them. Nevertheless, and to his surprise, Quentin passes and moves on to the next stage of testing. This stage involves performing magic. Under pressure, Quentin digs deep and unleashes magic that impresses Fogg and the other professors. They immediately offer Quentin a place at Brakebills College and Quentin accepts.

Life at Brakebills is a far cry from the dreary and melancholy life Quentin left behind in Brooklyn. Quentin feels a sense of optimism and joy at Brakebills that is deeper and more fulfilling than he’s felt before. Though initially ignored by Eliot after classes start, Quentin later becomes good friends with him, along with two other students, Janet and Josh. Quentin also meets Alice, a gifted, shy student he eventually falls in love with, and William (who goes by Penny), with whom Quentin has a complicated friendship with.

Quentin, Alice, and Penny show great potential as magicians. All three are offered a chance to advance ahead to the second year of schooling, as long as they pass the final exam. Quentin and Alice pass, but Penny does not. As the second year of school progresses, Quentin gets to know Alice better, including the fact that she is a fan of the Fillory and Further series.

Second Year quickly turns into Third Year for Quentin and Alice. In Third Year, students are tested to determine which discipline of magic they belong to. Quentin and Alice are assigned to the Physical Kids, with Physical being the branch of magic concerned with augmenting energy and other natural matter. Joining the Physical Kids allows Quentin to renew his friendship with Eliot and to meet Janet and Josh. Being a member of the Physical Kids gives Quentin the feeling that he’s no longer an outsider.

Quentin's idyllic world begins to unravel while playing a prank on Professor March. Quentin causes Professor March's spell to be corrupted, which allows a malevolent entity known as the Beast to enter the classroom. The Beast paralyzes everyone in Quentin's class for hours and kills a classmate of Quentin’s before disappearing.

Fourth Year arrives. Quentin, Alice, and other Fourth- and Fifth-Year students go to Brakebills South, an affiliated campus at the South Pole. At Brakebills South, they meet Professor Mayakovsky, who imposes on Quentin and the others students an intense form of study that includes taking away their voices and assigning them individual cells in which to incessantly practice the craft of magic until it becomes a part of them. At the end of the semester, Quentin and Alice take the final exam, which consists of walking to the South Pole naked and without food or any other resources, save for their magic. After a tortuous and mind-numbing journey, both Quentin and Alice succeed and are sent back to Brakebills in New York.

Quentin and Alice become closer and begin sleeping together. At the end of semester, Eliot, Janet, and Josh graduate, leaving Quentin and Alice as the last two of the group. Quentin and Alice enter Fifth Year; as graduation approaches, a sense of apprehension for the future and longing for the past begin to take hold of them, though for Quentin more than for Alice. Both graduate.

Quentin and Alice move to Manhattan. Quentin has trouble adapting to the outside world and begins to lose himself in alcohol and partying with Eliot. This causes Quentin's relationship with Alice to deteriorate. After a party, Quentin sleeps with Janet, which greatly angers Alice. Penny's sudden arrival further complicates the relationship between Quentin and Alice. Alice uses one of Penny’s buttons to take Quentin to the Neitherlands, an interdimensional space used to get to the realm of the Fillory and Further novels. Penny joins them by using his ability to teleport between dimensions.   

Upon their return, Quentin, Alice and Penny tell Eliot and the others about the Neitherlands. Eventually, the group begins to make plans to travel to Fillory. While they are making their preparations, Alice sleeps with Penny. When the group arrives in Fillory, they meet a water nymph who gives them an ivory horn as a gift, telling them to use it if in trouble. Quentin is beginning to feel optimistic that Fillory will finally solve all his problems. His hopes soon fade, however, when a praying mantis shoots an arrow at him. Quentin is saved by Penny, who catches the arrow. The group then spot a birch tree walking to toward a pub and decide to follow it.

In the pub, Quentin buys a bear named Humbledrum a beer, and they find out from the bear that he has seen the Watcherwoman. They also talk to Farvel, the Birch tree, who tells them they must go to Ember's Tomb and retrieve a crown; this will anoint them the Kings and Queens of Fillory. They leave the next day, and are joined by two guides, Dint and Fen. When they arrive at Ember's Tomb, the group encounters a series of battles that greatly test their strength and commitment to complete the quest. During a brief interlude, Quentin and Alice finally talk, and she tells Quentin that the only reason she came to Fillory was to protect him. Quentin kisses her in response.

Despite the overwhelming numbers against them, the group makes it to Ember's Tomb. They meet Ember, one of the rams in the Fillory stories. Quentin soon discovers that Ember is a prisoner and decides to help him by blowing the horn the water nymph gave them. Blowing the horn brings the Beast; The Beast then reveals that he is Martin Chatwin, a magician and former King of Fillory, and that he has come for the magic buttons. Quentin and the others refuse to give him the buttons, and a battle ensues. The Beast/Chatwick seriously injures Quentin. Quentin, thinking he is about to die, is surprised when Alice takes the gun that Janet brought from the real world and shoots the Beast, who is staggered but not subdued. Alice realizes the one way to defeat the Beast is by transforming herself into a niffin, an entity comprised wholly of magical energy. As a niffin, Alice kills the Beast and then dies, just as her brother had years before.

In the aftermath of the battle, Eliot and the others take Quentin to a monastery occupied by centaurs; Quentin heals over the next half-year. He can't stop thinking about Alice and feels responsible for her death. While in the monastery, Quentin also finds the notebook “The Magicians” and determines that it was written by Jane Chatwin. The notebook mentions that Jane was given a pocket watch that can control time. Quentin realizes that Jane Chatwin must have been the Watcherwoman. As he finishes reading the notebook, Quentin is surprised to see the paramedic from the start of the novel standing in the room. He realizes that the paramedic is Jane Chatwin.

Quentin tries to convince Chatwin to use the watch to go back in time and prevent everything that has happened. Jane refuses and smashes the watch. After Jane departs, Quentin sees, by chance, a white stag, and is told that the stag is the Questing Beast. Quentin decides to go in search of the stag. He manages to eventually catch up to it and, after shooting the animal with an arrow, is granted three wishes. Quentin's first wish is to restore Penny's hands, but the white stag cannot because the creature cannot locate Penny. Quentin then asks that Alice be brought back to life, but the white stag tells Quentin that doing so is beyond its powers. The stag does grant Quentin's final wish, though, and sends Quentin back to New York.

In New York, Quentin has given up magic and now works as an accountant. He finds out from Anais, Josh's girlfriend, that Penny decided to stay in the Neitherlands. Quentin spends most of his time drinking and letting himself be distracted by life in New York. He has accepted that living a meaningless and purposeless life is all that is left for him until the startling arrival of Eliot, Janet, and Julia floating outside his shattered office window. They have come to invite Quentin to join them in Fillory as one of the land’s kings. After thinking about Alice and looking at the globe used to shatter his window, Quentin steps out of the window.