An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir Published by Penguin on April 28, 2015
Genres: Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic, Juvenile Fiction / Love & Romance, Young Adult Fiction / Dystopian, Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Young Adult Fiction / Politics & Government
Pages: 480
BOOK ONE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SERIES
One of Time Magazine's 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time
Instant New York Times bestseller
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir
Amazon's Best Young Adult Book of 2015
People's Choice Award winner - Favorite Fantasy
Bustle's Best Young Adult Book of 2015
"This novel is a harrowing, haunting reminder of what it means to be human -- and how hope might be kindled in the midst of oppression and fear." -- The Washington Post
"An Ember in the Ashes could launch Sabaa Tahir into JK Rowling territory...It has the addictive quality of The Hunger Games combined with the fantasy of Harry Potter and the brutality of Game of Thrones."--Public Radio International
"An Ember in the Ashes glows, burns, and smolders--as beautiful and radiant as it is searing."--Huffington Post
"A worthy novel - and one as brave as its characters." --The New York Times Book Review
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire's impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They've seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia's brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire's greatest military academy.
There, Laia meets Elias, the school's finest soldier--and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he's being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined--and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
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An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really liked how this book was structured. I thought the setting of ancient Rome was interesting. I got a good visual of how ancient Rome would look. Sabaa’s writing in An Ember in the Ashes makes you feel everything all at once, especially in a dual POV: Laia, who’s a slave, and Elias, the heir to the most successful families of Blackcliff Academy. Two polar opposites who share a common goal: to be free.
The brutality of Blackcliff put any military bootcamp to shame! I kept holding my breath everytime Elias, his best friend Helene, and their crew had to prepare for The Three Trials (basically the Hunger Games but more evil) for one Aspirant to become Emperor. Elias and Helene’s connection was…interesting…but I didn’t like how they went on about it. Helene’s cold, unfeeling personality didn’t fit with Elias’ empathy underneath all of that armor. Elias genuinely did not want to be at Blackcliff anymore; he was ready to desert campus after graduation. But that all changed when Laia got brought in as a spy.
In An Ember in the Ashes, Laia got her way in as a favor to the Resistance, a rebel group against the Empire. Her older brother Darin got arrested, the Masks (police) k!lled her parents, her grandparents, and arrested her brother. So she teamed up with the Resistance to spy on Blackcliff’s Commandant (Elias’ mother) in desperate hopes to save her brother. But she went through hell and back, getting attacked every other day, attempted R8pe, branded by the Commandant, escaped death several times, it was a lot this girl went through!!!!! I almost stopped reading because the brutality was too much. But I had to keep going just to see how it ended.
What was also interesting in An Ember in the Ashes was this sort of love-square between Elias–Helene–Laia–Keenan. Elias is to Helene is to Laia as Keenan is to Laia is to Elias. It’s a crazy love-square going on! I thought the connection between Elias and Laia more believable than Elias and Helene. Helene was too much of a harda$$ for me. I didn’t really like her as a character. Keenan, Laia’s Resistance member, they had something going on, but as the story went on, he took way too long to tell her how he felt about her. To the point of where he became forgettable.
And Elias’ relationship with his family was the most intriguing. Basically, his mother didn’t want him and gave him up to live with a tribe. And that sense of abandonment and worthlessness stuck with Elias for years, wondering why his mother hated him so much. She p!ssed me off so much with her coldness and unfeeling for her only child.
I guess one flaw this book had was the pacing and length. My God this was so long!!!! I had to read it throughout the year because I had to continuously borrow this book from my Libby app. Each time I borrowed it, the book kept feeling longer and longer. The pacing picked back up towards the last third of the book, but I wished that spread out through the beginning and middle of the book. What helped was the audiobook along with reading the ebook. The narrators Fiona Hardingham and Steve West did a good job at keeping me engaged with the story. Hopefully in Book 2,A Torch Against the Night, the pacing is a bit faster.
I still really enjoyed this book, more than I thought I would! 🙂
Rating: 4/5 stars
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