A Reaper at the Gates - Sabaa Tahir

Wooooh, where to start???? I have many feelings about this book. I hoped that it was gonna be as good as book nr 1 & 2, but it let me down a little bit. BUT DONUT WORRY. It was still great though! 

I'm gonna try to make this as spoiler-free as possible, but a lot of the reasons why I found it more on the 'meh'-side have to do with story details. So I will put a spoiler warning, just in case. 😉

Sooooo, let's dive into it. 

Elias, Laia, and Helene. They all three are getting more complex by the book. And I still love them. 

Laia doesn't really have a big development anymore. Or at least not in this book. I feel that she has gotten the max already out, though she's the fearless lioness now who does heroic things all the time. It's up to you to decide whether it's stupid or brave what she does. We learn quite a lot about the past of her mother, father, and sister. How they ended up dead and broken. Of course, with the typical Sabaa Tahir plot-twists in between to spice the drama up some more hehe. Something I found sad, though, was that in 'An Ember in the Ashes' & 'A Torch Against the Night' the main focus was on saving her brother. I know that the whole 'Nightbringer'-thing has shaken stuff up, but we barely get to see anything from Darin? I finally wanted to get to know his character and that didn't happen, unfortunately. *breaks a little inside* 

Elias his whole story in this book was just confusing. Don't get me wrong. I.LOVE.HIM. He is brave and makes every girl swoon, but this book messed him up! The whole 'forget your humanity'-vibe was just not working for me at all. The weird dialogue with Mauth, or whatever its name is, didn't go well. And additionally, the magic stuff was also not that clear? What can he properly do with it? Agliugsqmvk. It just annoyed me a little. More so, I know he can travel super fast apparently through the Waiting Place Forest, but then how does every time Laia somehow gets to visit him? Pffff... I was just not hooked on his story in this book. I'm also pretty sure that, now being the Soul Catcher, Laia is gonna anyways remind him of his humanity and he'll go back to normal in the book. Mark my words! I'm predicting it! 

Helene, the little Blood Shrike, is the one who clearly is suffering the most at the hand of Sabaa Tahir. I mean, in the last book her entire family is killed, except for the little sister who married Marcus and is now carrying his baby meaning that she is a target for all enemies of him. What the *bleep*? Helene can not get a break at all. Oh and now she also gets toyed about by the Nightbringer? Out of all of the characters, we're following, she's definitely the most thorough one. The one with ethical struggles. A very grey person. And if you know me, you know I love me some good complex characters who do wrong things in the hope that it's good. Anyways, she's in pain and pushes through, but always ends up being broken again. 'How does she do it?' I keep asking myself the entire time... Poor her. I do hope that the last book of the series will bring her some joy and glory. She's the person who deserves it the most out of the three of them. 

A few things that did fell of were the following: 
1. Why did Laia have the power of invisibility and it rarely gets used? I know it has something to do with the Nightbringer, but that just seems like a loophole for the author to make Laia look 'weak' at the moment of an action-packed scene. 

2. The chemistry between Laia & Elias. Don't get me wrong. I love them because book 1 made me believe in them. But I just wish some more time between the two of them to see the relationship grow some more. They are now apparently in love, though we barely have any scenes with them since Elias basically left in book nr 2 to go and get Darin out? I hope and wish, that the finale of the series will be grand for them and their romance. 

3. The FREAKINg timing. Please someone give me a timeline of this book because I don't know how many weeks or months have passed, okay???? Somewhere in the first couple of chapters, it's revealed that Livvy is pregnant and by the end of the book, she's giving birth. I. Had. No. Clue. How much time passed. Especially on Helene's end. It often said '4 weeks after arriving in city blablabla' or 'The commandant will arrive in 2 weeks. Does the time jump then also apply to the other characters? 'Cause, what are they doing in the meantime? 'Cause Laia spends a lot of time than with the Bee Keeper (or whatever his name was) and never makes any more friends????

4. New characters. Who are they? Why do they come in & why do they leave so fast again? We meet some characters like the Musa & the weird king and princess, but they only are there for a small period of the book. I do have hope that they'll play a big role in the ending, but momentarily, I did not understand their arcs.

All in all, I enjoyed the book a lot and will still give it a 3.5/5⭐️'s. 

On to the next one!

A Torch Against the Night - Sabaa Tahir

 A Torch Against the Night is a good follow-up book to An Ember in the Ashes. It was action-packed, was emotional, and had a lot of plot twists. 

The story starts immediately where it is left off in book 1. The escape of Blackcliff and Serra. Elias and Laia are now officially on the run to Kauf prison where Darin, her brother, is kept up locked away. They want to break in and get him out. 

The world-building of this book was 'thicker' than compared to the last one because they now travel over the entire empire. You get introduced to new cities and characters further along with the story. Everything was written out beautifully. Sabaa Tahir knew how to create a vibe in every city, area, or woods they were.

As for the characters... instead of following just Laia and Elias, we now also follow Helene. Helene her setup of this story is an interesting one. She starts off being tortured because Elias has gotten away and then afterward gets send on this quest to catch him and bring him to the emperor so she can prove herself as a worth 'bloodshrike'. This is an internal struggle because if she fails, her family will be executed, and if she wins, Elias will be executed. Helene has her own crew who go with her with one new addition Avitas. He starts out as an 'open'* spy for the commandant, but the relationship between him and Helene change in some way. It was interesting to discover her thoughts and to see how she views the world around her. What are her morals? What does she stand for? What is she fighting for? Character growth is there, but not as much as I hoped for, though I expect that the next book will bring that about... 

Elias's story in this book is tricky. He promised Laia that he would help break out her brother, but during their escape from Blackcliff he got poisoned by his mother. He has a side story where he gets dragged in and out of the 'Waiting Place' which is a place where ghosts dwell who don't want to move on yet. Though not dead yet, he knows he has borrowed time and decides to shut everyone out. Including Laia. The ending also has some interesting reveals about his personal life (but I won't spoil that for you just yet), so you deffo have to read this book if you love him! 

Laia, the little lion as she is, is still determined to get out her brother. She gets reunited with Keenan and Izzi and the four of them (including Elias) set out together. Although she has feelings for Elias, he is shutting her out which somehow is drawing her closer to Keenan. So the love triangle in this book is really present. But of course, revelations will be made that will keep you on the edge of your seat for wanting to read the next book! 

This was a good one too, although not as good as the first one (which is unfortunately often the case with book-series) it's still worthy of 4/5⭐️'s!

xoxo, peace out
Elke 

*they basically know he reports everything back to the commandant.

An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir

Alrightyyyy. I decided to reread this book because I finally wanna finish off the entire series. I've only read the 2 first books of the quartet and never truly read all the way to the end. So here I am. rereading once more, which is probably my entire 2021 at the moment. 

An Ember in the Ashes is one of the first books that I read since discovering the Booktube community online and is what has gotten me into a lot of fantasy books. Sabaa Tahir has an intriguing way of writing this story and she knows how her way around words (she's very quotable). 

Set in a fictional roman-inspired world, a cruel empire is ruling. The book follows 2 characters Laia and Elias who both struggle with their demons. Laia her family gets raided and killed, except for her brother who gets taken to prison. She's determined to get him out of there and asks the help of the Resistance, a group of rebels who want to overthrow the empire. They agree to help her on one condition: spy for them as a slave in the most dangerous school on the most dangerous woman in the empire. 

Elias is a student at Blackcliff, a training school for Masks, where he is best out of his year. He made up his mind to desert the empire and his position the day after graduation. But on the day itself that he finally is fully a Mask, he is offered to participate in Trails. If he wins, he can become emperor of the empire. 

And thus both their stories begin.

The setting is really interesting. As I previously mentioned, it's inspired by Ancient Rome and I honestly could really see it in my mind! Maybe because I visited Italy so often already, but the entire world-building is created around words to how places look. I loved it and fell madly in love with it. Also, the differences between Martials, Scholars, and the Tribes were interesting to see. Martials are basically the 'upper' humans, scholars are the slaves and somehow the Tribes get left alone. So there is relatable discrimination going on which we can see even in our day-to-day life. 

The characters themselves are also an interesting mix. Laia is probably my fave. She's truly - TRULY - broken from what happens to her, but you get to see such a gorgeous development. By the end, she is fearless (not completely but you know what I mean) and takes risks to save other people. It's a contrast because she started out fleeing and running away, which made her feel utterly guilty for leaving behind her brother. The unexpected thing is that all of the changes in her happens so gradually that it feels very natural. She learns, discovers, and takes pain along the way as she grows.LOVED HER!

Elias is a somewhat complex character, but that is because his backstory is already pretty messed up. Basically, he is the son of the commandant of Blackcliff who left him with the Tribes-people just after he was born. Abandoning him. Then, at six years old he gets taken away to the school and learns then and there who his mother is and goes through a hard training of years. Luckily he meets Helene, who is the only girl within a decade to learn to become a Mask. They are best friendos and always have each other's backs. Until, of course, Elias starts to notice that Helene is acting weird and that is mainly how this book starts for him. Oh, and also the wanting to desert-thing because he doesn't like the empire. 

He doesn't necessarily have a lot of character growth in the sense of becoming strong and taking risks, but more so in the part of accepting who he is and what he wants. That's a big theme for him in the book. Along with the Trails, he uncovers more about himself and when he meets Laia she's some sort of moral compass for him. They have good chemistry and I loved their scenes together! Even though they didn't have that many. A great book-couple if you ask me!

All in all, I still love this story as much as when I read it for the first time so the 5/5⭐️'s still stands!

xoxo, peace out
Elke