The Will of the Many
The Will of the Many has been doing the rounds of the BookTubers I follow for some months, with mostly positive reviews. I thought it might make a potentially good Christmas present for someone, but I've become wary of buying books for people without reading them first - so I thought I'd read it first!
And, overall, I thought it was really good.
It's set in a fantasy world that loosely based on Ancient Rome, but with a magic system where people cede their 'Will' (essentially life force) to people further up in the hierarchy, which is then used to do various types of magic. The protagonist, Vis, is an orphan, trying to avoid getting sucked into the machinations of the political system - but he very much fails to do that!
I'm not sure the worldbuilding entirely works without any unexplained holes (but then the worldbuilding in my books never does, either, so who am I to criticise?) and there were some sections that dragged a bit. But it had a very effective emotional throughline that totally got to me. I enjoyed the range of different characters. And, even though the book had a teenage protagonist and a lot of the story took place at an elite school, it never felt like a standard YA book in terms of the writing style and the plot layering.
And then there was an unexpected cliffhanger ending that opened things up in very intriguing ways - and now I have to wait ages for the next book in the series! Gah!
A great read, though!