Hello there fellow bookworms, today I’m going to review a book called an ember in the ashes by Sabaa Tahir. An Ember in the ashes is a fantasy book that is set in this ancient Roman type of world and it is about an orphan fighting for her family and a soldier fighting for his freedom.
Laia is a scholar who must become a slave at the Martial Academy so that the Resistance can break her brother out of prison. Elias is a student in the Martial Academy but he wants to escape. He is also sympathetic to the harsh conditions in his country. Elias is chosen as one of four aspirants to compete to replace the current Emperor. He survives three tasks but in the fourth, he chooses Laia’s life over winning, so he is sentenced to death. Laia gains courage and helps Elias escape his execution. They agree that together they will try to release Laia’s brother.
This novel was a little bit of a cliché. In the book there was this broken society and resistance who was trying to enslave the slaved ones and, of course, the darkness is coming. There is also this vibe that it is the main character against the world which is very common in these types of books. In the book, there is this typical hero, Elias Venturous, who loathes what he has been raised to become and the fate of Empire lays on his shoulders.
The book was written from two points of view, Laia’s and Elias’. It was really good because you got to see both slave and soldier’s mindsets and how they thought about the world and how their raising affected that. I really liked the character development in this book. At the beginning of the book, Laia was this really scared teenage girl but as the story goes on she becomes braver and more independent.
I also liked that one of the characters, Laia, wasn’t this magical creature, like a witch, or super-soldier, it is so used in this kind of book. She was just a normal girl who wanted a normal life and didn’t even want to part of the Resistance, she was forced to do all of it.
In the book, many things weren’t explained and it kind of bothered me. Like there wasn’t any explanation why the Augur, the Commandant, or Marcus acted the way they did or did things they did. Also, it was really poorly explained to me why only one woman per generation was allowed into the Martial Academy. Like it was said that women aren’t good soldiers and the status of women is not good, so why then is the Army’s commandant woman and why allow one woman per generation to train? I hope they explain it in the next book.
The book was really action-filled and fun. There were times when you feared the characters were going to die but overall it was a good book. I would give 3/5 stars.
Comments
Post a Comment