I was half way through one book and had to put it down because I grew tired of it and I was handed this one, so I started it right away. I've heard good reviews of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (which he is known for) and when I looked up his Codex Alera series I got mixed reviews. Since I haven't read any of his books, I could not expect anything with this series and see what I thought about Butcher without any prior knowledge.I really enjoyed the storyline of Tavi, the only boy of his kind, without a fury (poor kid) and Amara, the girl Cursor. I found myself getting excited to find out that the next chapter was about one of those characters. There were some good fighting scenes and a lot of character development (many had names that started with B). I got to one extremely good chapter, involving Tavi and the Keepers (around chapter 30). Sadly that was the only portion of the book where I couldn't put it down. I guess I'm not into books that deal with politics and war.
I liked the way Butcher used magic in this book and you grow to love certian characters over others. I didn't like that one guy basically died twice and then was brought back to life both times. Even though I liked that particular character, I thought it would have been okay to let one of the main characters die (since this book has 10, and that's probably exaggerating a bit). Just the fact that there is so much going on and nothing terrible happens to anyone is a bit unbelieveable even if it is a fantasy. Butcher also liked to discribe everything completely. He seemed to want you to have no say in what his world is like. That is okay, really. Some authors do not want you "messing up" with how their characters/surroundings look. Audrey Niffenegger is like that as well and I enjoyed her books. And with that, I give it eh, a 2.7-3 stars. I really wished the whole book was more like that one chapter, then it wouldn't have taken me 3 weeks to read this.
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