cody_crumley's reviews
126 reviews

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor

Go to review page

adventurous emotional informative reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Go to review page

adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

“Keep in mind that many people have died for their beliefs; it's actually quite common. The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe.”

One of the things that I have enjoyed getting back into reading is covering series that I either missed out on or tried to get into and for some reason or another just did not. One of the biggest ones I had on my list was the Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paloni. Reading through the first book in the series, I can see why teenager me struggled with the initial attempt to read it. Even with it being presented as a Young Adult novel series, it has a lot of heavy lore, that can be deep to digest and tough to keep straight. Overall I think this is a good introduction to the world, with hoping that the next books in the series help resolve and smooth out some of the rougher edges.

One of the most impressive things is that Paloni was only fifteen when he first wrote this story. Even with some of my misgivings and critiques of it, that remains being the most impressive thing. The fact that he had such an imagination and breadth of knowledge to not only create this fantasy world, but to come up with language and history that feels lived in is incredible.

There is a lot of influence with popular media that he would have been reading and watching at that age. The main two that becomes very apparent as you read through is Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Brom is essentially Obi-Wan, even down to the hidden identity. Eragon is Luke, a farm boy who has hidden magic abilities. The Urgals are Orcs, even with how they are organized just like in LotR. While it is not a bad thing and even following the hero’s journey as much as he does, I do hope that later books start to establish their own identity more and rely on tropes from other media less.

One of those pillars that I think Eragon does a great job creating that could be used going forward on that path is the magic system. Having everything be language based and have those words mean so much is great. He does a fantastic job explaining why the “words of power” matter so much and stresses the importance early on. 

Overall I think this does a solid job of establishing what this world is, and really sets the stage for what could be an epic New Adult fantasy world if the right decisions are made. 
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The Will of the Many by James Islington

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"Greed is by definition the moral ruler of the Hierarchy, Diago. All decisions are based upon it. It is not the strong who benefit in their system, no matter what they say it is the weak. It is the ones willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, to rise. It rewards avarice and is so steeped in a wrong way of thinking that those within it cannot even see it."

There is always a nervous feeling when I decide to tackle one of BookTok’s darlings that is popping up on my FYP pretty much every video. You can’t help but have your expectations set extremely high when people whose opinions you trust when it comes to books almost universally give something 5/5. Thankfully the nervous feeling with “The Will of the Many” was completely unfounded, leading me into an early contender for my favorite book for 2024. 

“The Will of the Many” follows Vis, a war orphan from the island nation of Suus, who was supposed to follow in his father’s footsteps as the next in line to rule. That all changed when the Catan Hierarchy conquered and murdered his family. What follows his Vis’ journey of avenging what happened to his family while balancing the asks of his adoptive “family” to discover the mystery at the Hierarchy academy. 

Something that I think is the major standout from author James Islington is how amazing of a main character POV that Vis is. From his internal first person internal monologues to him working out and problem solving, he comes across as one of the most natural characters I have read. The fine line of making him not feel perfect but also not feel ignorant is walked perfectly. His interactions and intentions align incredibly well with his internal motivations. Vis really is one of the best written characters I have read in a long time. 

Islington does not waste all of his great writing on Vis, it is spread around to the supporting cast as well. There are some many great supporting characters that I am not going to name all of them, but once the story gets to the academy and becomes a “school” setting, they all really shine.

Another major tent pole in the start of this new serious is the political climate and maneuvering that serves as the looming backdrop to Vis’ narrative. As I have seen with other books that have similar narrative beats (Red Rising for example) sometimes world building that comes with establishing a new universe can sometimes take more than the first book to really establish itself. Islington does not need that, he really sets the tone early on with what has happened and the continued fallout of the Hierarchy’s conquest. He smartly uses the Hierarchy’s real world counterpart (The Roman Empire) to help establish his in-world history, so even as the reader it’s a new world, there still is a familiar feeling that helps you follow along. As a history minor, this really scratched a certain itch that fictional books rarely due. 

I also listened to the audiobook in different stages and it is solid listen. The narrator handles Vis and the others well and I actually found it to be helpful with the pronouncing of the really hard Roman-style naming conventions.

The story is broken up into three distinct parts, and while I found the first two parts to be stronger than the third, the ending of this story with a epilogue cliffhanger that had me wide-eyed at 1AM when I finally finished has me craving the follow up immediately. If you think you might be interested in this book, please don’t look up anything and just delve right in. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

“I believed the universe was completely random, and that's what eluded us. Because we all want to believe we are fundamental in some way. We are our own myths, our own legends. We give things reason. We are reasonable creatures and so everything must have its place, its purpose — but we are also egoistical creatures, and so we give ourselves reasons that don't exist”

Something I am wanting to work on in 2024 is going back to series I started last year to close off a lot of the loose threads I have going, so I decided to start with the Atlas Paradox, Olvie Blake’s follow up before the third and final boom in the trilogy comes out this month.

If you did not enjoy The Atlas Six because of how vague and grey the plot is or how most of the characters can be seen extremely unlikeable, then you will dislike this story. Blake doubles down on the vagueness of it all with the plot and power concepts becoming even more complicated and complex by introducing things like time travel or multiverses into an already complicated magical world.

Where this book shines is in the character work. The POVs all feel distinct and I enjoy the fact that most id not all of the characters do not fall into the traditional “good or bad” character designs. Every single character has shades of grey and show their true feelings in naturally flawed ways. One example of this is Perisa, the telepath who uses seduction to exert her control. The difference between what she does to Dalton (continuing from The Atlas Six) to the scene with Nico shows the layers each character has. 

The plot does falter under the various vagueness of it all, but I still found it relatively enjoyable, even if sometimes it was inscrutable to decipher during many times of the book.

I think this is going to be a book where you will either love it or hate it, there will be not many who fall in the in between. For me, I lean towards the prior, but Blake will have their work cut out for them to stick landing of this trilogy in the final book that is coming soon 

*Also I went back and forth between the digital copy and the audiobook. The audiobook I found helpful with deciphering key moments and the overall performances and production was top notch*
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne

Go to review page

emotional reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

“Love blinds. We have both tried to give our sons, not what they needed, but what we needed. We’ve been so busy trying to rewrite our own pasts, we’ve blighted their present.

The foundation that the play adaptation sets starts solid, with expanding on the famous epilogue of the Deathly Hallows, it cracks and budges underneath the weight of the original series and hamstrung by the limitations of the medium that this story is told in 

I think the characters have an interesting setup, especially with Albus and Scorpius. Showing Albus being put in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor, and Scorpius being much more timid and booksmart then his father all presents interesting options that I wish were given another book series, even if it was just a one-off book. Showing how Harry and the others handle being parents, becoming the age of the people that they looked up to and having the power to try and correct the mistakes that happened to them is great but just not given the detail or length needed to properly explore those themes. 

I do think the overarching time turner plot is kinda hokey, as is the “Voldemort had a child” thread. Especially with them saying he had it with Bellatrix, which seems completely out of character for Voldemort, who through the book series never showed any interest in love or relationships that were not master/servant level. It just seemed like a convenient way to have an antagonist without having to put in a lot of work to establish new characters. 

Overall, while I think this story would be great to see in play form, listening to the audiobook and reading the script book leaves a lot to be desired and makes me wish for more. 
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“There are languages without words and violence is one of them” 

This book feels longer than the actual page count would indicate, and usually that would mean that the story dragged or felt extremely repetitive. Neither of those are the case with “Once There Were Wolves”. It is a book that I think will sit with me months after I finish it, just to ruminate on the message and meaning behind it. 

The 250ish pages of this book cover a lot of ground. You have the present day that is following Inti who is trying to reintroduce wolves into the moorlands of Scotland while fighting against the local population that is completely against the idea. 

What Charlotte McConaghy does that is extremely interesting is goes back and forth through different time periods in Inti’s life, showing how she became this kinda hard nosed, tough women from the gentle, nature loving kid she started out as. 

The first time period is when her and her twin Aggie were younger and being sent off to live with their father (who is a “live off the land” type) by their mother (a cop/detective who handles domestic violence cases). The father has trouble remembering, and has the signs of dementia. Because of this, he ends up striking Aggie, and this is the first time that violence causes Inti to change how she views things. 

I don’t want to spoil all of the key emotional moments in this book, bit the emotional trauma that is on display resonates throughout the whole story. Whether it is family, violence, emotional, or any other type of trauma and abuse, those moments we go through shape our mind and personality as we grow into adults. While we might be higher on the food chain, humans are not that much different from animals. “Once There Were Wolves” does a fantastic job of showcasing that. 

While I wish there were a few more answers or information (like why does their mom not know about Aggie for example). The overall picture and narrative works really well and is accomplishes what it sets out to do: tell an emotional story to showcase how trauma affects who we become. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Go to review page

dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Go to review page

challenging emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

“The beauty of the House is immeasurable; it’s kindness infinite”

The story of “Piranesi” that Clarke takes us on is very much like the labyrinth where the setting is; it is endless and has many twists and turns throughout the structure. The end goal is not what is important but how we get here is. 

Clarke really drives home this point by making everything the “The House” and allegory or a hidden meaning. Whether if is a reference to C.S Lewis novels “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe or “The Magician’s; if you want to deeper many there is stuff there, though I think if you are not as observant and easily distracted these deeper connections might be lost to the process of figure out what the hell is going. 

I can easily say there is no other book like it! The story is through the journals of Piranesi, who writes entries for everyday, tracking the tides of the water. 

Even the name give to the MC by us a reference to a painter by the same name who would paint labyrinth. Clarke makes every detail matter.

While I enjoyed this book, it is a tough book to get into. The onboarding is pretty much non-existent, which is going to be a make or break it point for a lot of people. If you are someone who thinks they might want to give it a shot, I would make it a priority not to read anything about the plot before opening it., you should experience it as fresh as possible without getting caught by spoilers. 

The only thing that did not “wow” was how quick the ending kinda happened. It is hard to build on. Also shout out the voices for they chose to narrate the audio, who turns out to be Chiwetel Eijofor. Does not try to draw attention to himself and does an amazing job!

While this is not a book for everyone, if you want to give it a shot and how you focus on history and literature, then make it at the top of your 2024 books to read list.