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The Will of The Many

James Islington. High Fantasy

"You let them stand on your shoulders, all for the dream of one day being able to stand atop others. Even when you know, deep down, that it is an illusion. As unattainable for most of you as it is selfish."

How I wish I could.. read it for the first time again. After months away from fantasy, this was the book I returned to and it felt like a quiet reward. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys high fantasy infused with Roman-inspired culture especially those who appreciate academic settings woven into the world-building. Game strong on this one! I enjoy the main character just as much as the story itself. And I can say this is one of those rare books that didn’t bore me within the first hundred pages (and yes, I do judge a book by its cover and its first hundred pages, by the way) There’s just.. a perfect kind of rhythm to the journey.

For me, the main character didn’t need some dramatic arc of development as they were already solid, grounded, and portrayed well. And not just the lead; the side characters too I’d even call them strong and purposeful companions, added such story to the whole experience. Beyond the fantasy elements, the book touches so gently and powerfully on what it means to be human. No matter how many years pass, grief, emotion, and feeling are ever waiting to be uncovered where it’s simply a matter of whether we allow ourselves to feel them. I loved how the book gave space for grief as how it showed me something I haven’t yet experienced firsthand, yet somehow still let me feel it, acted like the pain were already mine. Sure, the story left me with many questions, but in the best way possible and I can already sense that the series will come together beautifully. An easy five stars for the first book and I’ve high hopes for what’s to come. It’s easy to read, easy to sink into, and the ending gave me the kind of thrill I hadn’t realised I’d been waiting for.

The clarity.. isn’t really clarity. Not in the usual sense. It’s as if the story uncovers something and that’s been quietly waiting for you to catch up, like a truth half-glimpsed in the corner of your eye. It’s packed with much story, much feeling, that you end up finishing it in one sitting or at least, I did. Even if it meant staying up all day and all night (but then again, aren’t we all willing to do that for a good book?)

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Madonna in a Fur Coat

Sabahattin Ali. Classic Literary Fiction | Romance Tragedy.

“A soul too large for its pages.”

The very first book I reached for when I decided to step outside the familiar world, and somehow, it found me at the exact moment I needed it. I’d seen people talk about it: quiet mentions, soft praise, and it stirred something that felt emotional and unnameable. I usually don’t mind reading reviews or even spoilers before starting a story, but this time I let myself go in mostly blind, thinking I would meet a simple narrative, something thoughtful yet contained, but what I found within its not-so-many pages brought me to tears, real ones, with tissues beside me and a silence that lingered long after the final line.

The story doesn’t rush, nor does it try to impress with twists or turns, it simply is unfolding in a rhythm that feels more like memory than fiction, a meditation on love, loneliness, and how we carry things we never fully get to keep. There’s something about the way it lets love exist as part of life without needing it to last forever, and something deeply moving in how it speaks to those who yearn, not just for people, but for moments, for meanings, for something just out of reach.

Reading from the perspective of a man who loved so purely and so truthfully, with a tenderness that didn’t need to be dramatic to feel real, made the entire experience feel like watching a soul speak in the quiet, private way that souls do when they’re not performing for anyone else. Some say this is a book about yearning, I think it’s more than that; it’s about seeing clearly in a world that often blinds us with expectation, and about continuing to live even after something within us has quietly come to a stop. It’s strange how quickly I finished it and how easily the pages slipped past, and yet how heavily it has stayed, like a moment paused in time that never fully unpauses, a love so far and so still, but somehow always near.

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Intermezzo

Sally Rooney. Contemporary | Literary Fiction

“Grief and routine. Ordinary.”

Surprisingly this is the only Sally Rooney I’ve fully absorbed from beginning to end. I didn’t finish Normal People not because it was poorly written, but rather because it struck a chord too close to home. It felt like holding up a mirror I wasn’t ready to look into. But with Intermezzo, for once, I wasn’t tangled in her usual punctuation style. It felt clearer, almost gentler to read, even when the themes weren’t.

The novel, at its core, is about grief. It rests quietly between two brothersㅡPeter and Ivanㅡeach stumbling through their own strange silences and aches. The way the book navigates their mourning feels raw and private, like you’re intruding on a conversation that was never meant to be overheard. But what lingered for me most was the way women were written into this griefㅡas if they were vessels, placeholders, or temporary answers to something unresolved within the brothers.

Peter’s perspective, I’ll admit, didn’t speak to me as much. I tempted to pass his chapters, my attention always yearning to return to Ivan. Perhaps it’s because I’m the youngest in my own familyㅡhis inner world felt more honest, impulsive, maybe even reckless, but tender in a way that felt unfiltered. His grief felt wild and unscripted. Peter, on the other hand, felt indecisive, particularly in the way he moved through his relationships. There’s a love triangle that written, but it didn’t hold me. I didn’t feel pulled in, I only felt frustrated. The hesitancy, the lack of clarity, it made me ache not for him, but for the women caught in between.

Ivan’s love, howeverㅡif I can even call it thatㅡfelt like a gust of something pure. He is impulsive, yes, but there’s something in the way he desires and aches that made sense within his grief. His longing doesn’t feel clean or admirable, but it feels honest. Rooney writes this tension between wanting and mourning so well in himㅡthe way grief interrupts desire, or perhaps, the way desire becomes the only thing keeping a person from being fully swallowed by loss.

This novel didn’t comfort me, but it did remind me of the quiet, strange ways people carry pain. How it’s never the same for anyone. And sometimes, the people closest to you, like a brother (sister for me) are still just strangers standing beside you in the same storm, holding different kinds of umbrellas. This book was the one I could finally stay with without feeling lost. And that says more than I thought it would.

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Song of Silver, Flame Like Night (Book One) / Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White (Book Two)

Amélie Wen Zhao. Fantasy | Mythopoeic Fiction

"They are not chosen by destiny. They choose each other, again and again, even when the world asks them not to.”

Quite taken with the first book. It read with ease, the prose painting those scenes that seemed to lift off the page and settle gently in the mind’s eye. The atmosphere almost felt rich dipped in starlight and memory. The protagonist, perhaps bold yet quietly tender, was decently written, a character whose strength came not just from power, but from how deeply she felt, how fiercely she held onto hope.

The supporting cast didn’t always receive the attention I had hoped for. Their stories lingered, sure, flickering like shadows behind a curtain. There were hints: glimmers of purpose and emotion that helped stitch the larger tale together. It was clear that the narrative stayed close to its centre, to the main character’s journey and the path carved out for her by heritage, grief, and defiance. The romance, though, not quite the slow-burning ache I had expected, arrived like a quiet hush. A soft kind of bloom, almost hesitant in its beginning, blossomed into something far more desperate and tangled as the story goes. There were threads of power, longing, and unspoken need woven into their every shared glance. The conclusion came a touch too swiftly for my liking, I was undeniably drawn to their relationship, the tenderness between them, the aching pauses, the kisses that felt like confessions. That kind of intimacy, brief butsincere, is always what lingers most for me.

At times, the writing felt a little rough around the edges as a certain lack of polish in places, and some arcs yearned for deeper roots. As a duology I expected a bit more layering, perhaps more complexity..? in how events and relationships are written. I believe the story might have stood just as well, perhaps even more poignantly as a standalone because once again, the second book didn’t immediately capture me. I paused and left it untouched for a time but then something tugged me back. Though, once I returned, it wrapped itself around me since I read the rest in a single breath. My grasp of the folklore woven through the narrative is admittedly limited, but the way magic and myth were imagined felt both refreshing and powerful like water flowing over stones long forgotten.

And the ending, it was something. For all its flaws, it reached in and touched a thread I didn’t expect it to find.

The world-building draws from Chinese mythology, philosophy, and some of the history, offering an experience that feels both refreshing and reverent. I appreciate the quiet depth in the cultural and linguistic nuance: not just in the magic system, but in the way names, memories, and meanings are honoured. If you’re drawn to Asian-inspired fantasy or stories rooted in cultural resistance, you may well find something similar here. Wanderers who loved Daughter of the Moon Goddess, or tales that carry both beauty and ache, may feel right at home in these pages.