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SarahKat

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SarahKat is Currently Reading

SarahKat is currently reading

The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)

by James Islington (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: fantasy, currently-reading

read in June 2025

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SarahKat said: " This was so good. I had seen this pop up on a lot of booktoks and things and everyone was saying it was amazing. I went in hesitantly of course because sometimes what the general public loves is not for me. This is not overhyped. A new favorite for s This was so good. I had seen this pop up on a lot of booktoks and things and everyone was saying it was amazing. I went in hesitantly of course because sometimes what the general public loves is not for me. This is not overhyped. A new favorite for sure.

The characters are compelling, the plot is great and it never slows down. It's a lot like Name of the Wind, which is a good thing. Rarely do I finish a book and immediately want to start over from the beginning but I could easily do that with this one.

Attempt at a plot synopsis for my memory if I don't have a chance to re-read before book 2 comes out:
(view spoiler)[At the beginning, Vis is working in a prison full of people condemned to "Sappers." This is a prison where people are attached to these things and Will is ceded from them to the Hierarchy. Ulciscor shows up there and talks to one of the prisoners with Vis there and Vis accidentally falls on a Sapper but isn't affected. If I remember correctly it's because he's never done some ritual type thing that most people have done. He also won't cede or accept Will from anyone. He's actually the prince of Suus, which is an island nation that was conquered by the Hierarchy and he's just trying to survive at this point.
Ulciscor tracks him down to the orphanage where he lives and adopts him in order to send him through the Academy. He wants Vis to find out what actually happened to his brother, Caeror, who was said to have killed himself there but Ulciscor believes he was murdered, possibly by the Principalis, Veridius. The Academy (and Hierarchy itself) is set up in a pyramid, with lots of people at level 7, and becoming fewer and fewer as you get higher in the pyramid. Outside of the academy, people are ceding Will to their higher-ups, meaning the top person in each pyramid has a TON of power.
Before the academy, they go to a thing called the naumachia where the rebel group, the Anguis attacks. Some people from Suus that Vis knows are in this group and they want him to help them overthrow the Hierarchy. He isn't interested, but he ends up killing the guy who is psychically exploding people. This gets him some attention and makes a name for himself, Catenicus.
Vis starts at level 7 and meets his new bestie, Callidus. He moves up to class 6 really quickly because of all his princely training, he knows a lot of stuff already. The class 6 Praeceptor hates him so he won't let him move up to class 5. Ulciscor and Relucia (Ulciscor's wife and ALSO an Anguis rebel) have a kid in class 4 killed so there is space for him to move up. Because the 6 Praeceptor is a jerk, he has to fight another kid in class 6 for the spot with these rock-em-sock-em robot things. He used to brawl for money so he just attacks the kid and knocks him out cold, winning his spot. From there he moves up to class 4 quickly.
During this time, he's made friends with Eidhin, who he punched at the beginning. Eidhin is from another nation the Hierarchy conquered and admits to him that he hates them. He also has found a few different ruins that lead to some unknown super secret *things*. Dead bodies, words he's never heard like Luceum and Obiteum (something like that). He's practicing the labyrinth all the time because Ulciscor has told him to run the crazy ruin one with revenants in it or he will send him to a Sapper.
Relucia has tasked him with spying on a Military meeting on Suus when class 3 and Vis go to the island for time off. He hears that Military is actually in on some of the Anguis attacks because they want Religion to look weak. He also saves Emmissa from certain death when she goes swimming in a lagoon with a riptide. They become involved.
To get into class 3, he baits Belli into a game of Foundation. If he wins, he gets her class 3 spot. When he's about to win, he tells her he'll call it a draw if she gives back some papers she stole from Callidus. The reason Callidus is in 7 is because he took these papers from his dad (in the Censor's office) to show her that kids were dying in the Iudicium, the end test thing for class 3. She took them and told him to drop to 7 or she'd tell that he took them. She gives them to Callidus on a break but then Vis beats her anyway, moving into class 3. The class 3 Praeceptor doesn't like him either, and moves the Iudicium up.
The Iudicium is crazy. The goal is to get the heart of Jovan and put it back in the statue. The Anguis infiltrate and kill all of the safety teams who are supposed to be keeping them safe, and a ton of the kids. Vis runs the ruin labyrinth thing there and succeeds. Belli is in there dead because Viridius made her go in. Something happens there "some kind of rot" to his arm and they cut it off to save it. Emmissa tries to kill him, someone says because of the blood. Oh and he has a alupi friend, Diago (which is his real name). Callidus dies :(
Vis wins the Iudicium and gets Dominus of the Academy and gets to choose where to go after graduation. He chooses the Censor's office even though everyone wants him to do other things, or he could go somewhere far away and stay out of it. But he wants to make a difference. At the very end he's "copied" and Caeror is leading him through some other world. It seems like parallel universe or something. (hide spoiler)]

Buddy read ...more "

Jun 20, 2025 12:40PM · see review

SarahKat is currently reading

The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)

by Liu Cixin (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: scifi, currently-reading

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Dec 29, 2025 02:51PM

SarahKat is currently reading

Matilda

by Roald Dahl

bookshelves: dads-bookshelf, currently-reading

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Dec 09, 2025 12:30PM

See all 4 books that SarahKat is reading…

SarahKat’s Notes & Highlights

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

15 highlights

This is why I am continuing my travels—not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself

Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

1 note & 2 highlights
The Husband's Secret

by Liane Moriarty

6 highlights

See SarahKat’s 5 books with notes and highlights…

SarahKat’s Quotes

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

tags: haunting

665 likes

“If God is supposed to be merciful,' [Arthur] retorted, 'I don't see why He shouldn't allow people to stumble into heaven, just as well as climb there”
― T.H. White

21 likes

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

tags: description, language, power-of-words, words

3990 likes

“But the Alim laughed at this. 'And we know who they are. Allah have pity on the Anglicans! Samad, when the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intellect go away,' said the Alim, shaking his head. 'And one third of his religion.”
― Zadie Smith

6 likes

“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

tags: atheism, religion, skeptic

3592 likes

More of SarahKat’s quotes…