Buy The Will of the Many
FORMAT/INFO: The Will of the Many was published May 23rd, 2023. It is 630 pages long and published in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Three years ago, Vis Telimus was orphaned when the Catenan Republic invaded his homeland and killed his family. Since then, he's been on the run and in hiding, doing his best to avoid taking part in an integral part of Republic society: the ceding of Will. It's a tradition aided by technology where a person literally gifts part of their willpower to another, giving the recipient enhanced strength and speed. Vis has avoided this fate for years - but an offer from a mysterious stranger may change everything. Vis is offered the chance to go undercover at the Republic's elite academy, in exchange for solving a murder that took place there. But more than one faction wants to use Vis for their aims, and it will take all of Vis's cunning to keep himself alive as he dives into the maze of secrets hidden on the academy's island.
The Will of the Many is a well-executed, if familiar, story of intrigue and plots at a nation's elite academy - familiar, that is, until a jaw-dropping finale. For most of the book, I always had a rough sense of where the plot was going. It's your classic scrappy orphan underdog who gets thrown into the deep end of a special academy, where competition is cut-throat and sometimes deadly. It's a trope I love quite a bit, so I fully enjoyed that aspect of the story.
The thing I bumped against is that Vis is not your true underdog. Because of his background, he is actually fairly well-educated in everything from rhetoric to combat; what he doesn't know already, he easily picks up without too much issue. He seems to easily read people and knows how to manipulate them, and we rarely see him make a true misstep.
I am a person who loves competent characters. But I love them when they exist in conflict with actual friction in the plot. I want to see them on their back foot, or for things to go horribly wrong. And things never TRULY go horribly wrong for Vis. He might be in danger, yes, but you know there's always another ace up his sleeve. It just seemed like a lot for a seventeen-year-old to be good at, and it took me out of the story a bit.
But even so, I did like the layers of intrigue in the story. There are multiple factions all exerting pressure on Vis. He has to figure out how to walk the fine line of giving everybody just enough of what they're asking for that he doesn't fully commit to their cause, but they leave him alone so that he can pursue his own goals. That was where the most tension came from, and were some of the parts of the story I enjoyed the most.
But hands down the best part of the book is the absolutely bonkers final pages of The Will of the Many. It's safe to say I genuinely have no idea how the story is going to play out in the sequel. It's possible that the author purposely kept this a fairly familiar plot to onboard the readers into this world before veering into a wildly different kind of story. It's safe to say that this is one of those books where how things go in the sequel could have me revising my opinion of The Will of the Many, for better or for worse.
CONCLUSION: The Will of the Many is an excellent story for those who love an academy trope. It's got mystery, intrigue, rivalries, and a deadly competition. But above all else, what's got me coming back is the ending because I truly cannot wait to see what happens next.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Three years ago, Vis Telimus was orphaned when the Catenan Republic invaded his homeland and killed his family. Since then, he's been on the run and in hiding, doing his best to avoid taking part in an integral part of Republic society: the ceding of Will. It's a tradition aided by technology where a person literally gifts part of their willpower to another, giving the recipient enhanced strength and speed. Vis has avoided this fate for years - but an offer from a mysterious stranger may change everything. Vis is offered the chance to go undercover at the Republic's elite academy, in exchange for solving a murder that took place there. But more than one faction wants to use Vis for their aims, and it will take all of Vis's cunning to keep himself alive as he dives into the maze of secrets hidden on the academy's island.
The Will of the Many is a well-executed, if familiar, story of intrigue and plots at a nation's elite academy - familiar, that is, until a jaw-dropping finale. For most of the book, I always had a rough sense of where the plot was going. It's your classic scrappy orphan underdog who gets thrown into the deep end of a special academy, where competition is cut-throat and sometimes deadly. It's a trope I love quite a bit, so I fully enjoyed that aspect of the story.
The thing I bumped against is that Vis is not your true underdog. Because of his background, he is actually fairly well-educated in everything from rhetoric to combat; what he doesn't know already, he easily picks up without too much issue. He seems to easily read people and knows how to manipulate them, and we rarely see him make a true misstep.
I am a person who loves competent characters. But I love them when they exist in conflict with actual friction in the plot. I want to see them on their back foot, or for things to go horribly wrong. And things never TRULY go horribly wrong for Vis. He might be in danger, yes, but you know there's always another ace up his sleeve. It just seemed like a lot for a seventeen-year-old to be good at, and it took me out of the story a bit.
But even so, I did like the layers of intrigue in the story. There are multiple factions all exerting pressure on Vis. He has to figure out how to walk the fine line of giving everybody just enough of what they're asking for that he doesn't fully commit to their cause, but they leave him alone so that he can pursue his own goals. That was where the most tension came from, and were some of the parts of the story I enjoyed the most.
But hands down the best part of the book is the absolutely bonkers final pages of The Will of the Many. It's safe to say I genuinely have no idea how the story is going to play out in the sequel. It's possible that the author purposely kept this a fairly familiar plot to onboard the readers into this world before veering into a wildly different kind of story. It's safe to say that this is one of those books where how things go in the sequel could have me revising my opinion of The Will of the Many, for better or for worse.
CONCLUSION: The Will of the Many is an excellent story for those who love an academy trope. It's got mystery, intrigue, rivalries, and a deadly competition. But above all else, what's got me coming back is the ending because I truly cannot wait to see what happens next.
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