It’s been a long time since I read a book without the next book in the series being readily available to me. What a bittersweet feeling.

It took me a long time to write about this book because I didn’t really know where to start. I wanted to start back from page one when I finished it because there was so much happening, I was sure I missed something. It is such a singular story; even when it follows the fantasy tropes we all know and love, it does it in such a fresh way that it all seems natural. 

The world James Islington builds doesn’t exist — but it so easily could. And in so many ways, it does. It’s inspired by the Roman world, and my Classics brain loved the Latin intermixed with mythology blurring to the supernatural. 

That’s the fun of the story — a new magical world. But the magic itself is, in most ways, not fun at all. Basically, the rich and powerful pull the Will out of those lower than them on the social totem pole. Those in prison have just about all of their Will sucked from them so that they’re barely alive — and completely unable to attempt escape. 

The story is an incredibly complex, thought-provoking look at systems of power, the perpetuation of injustice, what it means to build a society on exploitation, and what it means to be an individual complicit in the system.

Like I said, it could easily be about the real world. I wish those problems only existed in a fantasy world that ceased to exist when I put the book down.

Vis, the main character, is a teenage orphan who refuses to cede his Will. And this isn’t a normal thing — especially for a boy. From the outset of the book, Vis has been whipped repeatedly for his refusal.

It makes more sense when you find out who he is because he’s not just any old orphan. Vis is the orphaned prince of a country colonized by the Hierarchy. They don’t know he survived, so they’ve never looked for him, yet through an incredible series of events, he becomes the hero of the Hierarchy — not a spoiler really, that basically starts the book — under a new identity of course. 

Vis is one of the best protagonists I’ve read in a long time. He is angry and proud. He is hard working and loyal. Yet he is also soft-hearted towards the people who need it.

The only thing more impressive than the characters Islington writes is the ambition of the story itself. Any system that harms a certain group to the direct advantage of another is being critiqued in this book. But colonization? Capitalism? It is so clear that this is a commentary on these systems. It may not seem so obvious because it’s a fantasy book. But on the other hand, Orwell’s Animal Farm was full of a bunch of talking animals and people picked up what he was trying to say. 

“They ask something small of you. A thing you would prefer not to do, but is not so terrible. You think you are working your way up, but in fact they are changing you. Molding you into what they think you should be, one compromise at a time.”

When we meet Vis, he is angry and hardened. Throughout the story, we see him do what he has to do to survive, blur the lines where he feels he must, draw the line on others for the same reason. We also see him defend and help those who benefit from the Hierarchy because he likes them as a person or simply because they are a person and he can’t let them die.

He learns that people within a system can suffer from it, but that their silence is also a very powerful statement.

He attends a school that lauds itself for its democratic fairness for those who would enter. Yet once he’s inside, he learns of the systemic injustice that keeps the poor — the ones who cede their Will to feed their family — out, while preparing, training, and educating the wealthy children with everything they would need to do well. The wealthy children are handed the answers to every quiz after getting a full night’s sleep and having a filling breakfast, while the poor children are beaten and starved and then are told they just need to work harder to find out the answers, while the books to study from aren’t in any of their libraries. 

And then they wonder why the rich think the poor are dumb, are less than them, and are simply unworthy. Why the poor often think that of themselves. If you think that problem is something Islington created for his magical, fictional world, I’d ask that you read up on the state of education in America. 

The only problem with the story is how much I wish it were real. The problems the story addresses are very real, but the idea that one boy can work really hard and fix it? That’s the real fantasy Islington writes.

Sad thought, I know. 

Maybe that’s what I love about these kinds of stories. They make it seem possible. Fixing it all. Making it all better.

Book two in the series is out — I think a third will be coming — but I can’t wait to get back into this world because the plot twist in the LITERALLY last two pages was completely insane and I have no idea what is going to happen.