I read An Ember in the Ashes eight years ago, and to say that I remember about four main plot points from that book is giving myself the benefit of the doubt. From what I did recall from the first book, I was able to piece together what the characters were dealing with and what was in store for them after the ending.
To be completely honest, this book has been haunting my book shelf since 2016 and I finally caved in to read it because I could not take it any longer. I cannot for the life of me remember why I gave the first book five stars, because from what I do remember, I did not have an attachment to any particular character, but hey, I was in high school at the time, and any young adult fantasy was right up my alley back then.
I will say that I did really enjoy the world that this series is set in, and as someone who finds the Roman Empire fascinating, the author does an excellent job incorporating this fantasy and dystopia together in an ancient setting. Tahir really builds into the status of the world's citizens and Empire, and the dynamic between each class of people is heavily implicated in the way that their society operates. From a young adult book perspective, it is one of the more advanced societies in the sense that the balance between ruling and controlling continues to titer a fine line while the characters definitely go through more mature themes compared to other young adult series. The politics really stood out to me and were probably the most interesting part of the book, as we were constantly in a state of development and potential war throughout the book.
Helene was really grinding my gears for nearly the entire book -- we slowly see her decent from friend to foe as the story goes on, and with the added bonus of having her perspective, the reader has a front row seat to every moral dilemma that plagues her decision-making at every turn. She is certainly a complex character that severely needed some development, but boy oh boy was she taking agitation to a completely new level for me. For someone who is supposed to be an excellent strategist and intelligent, her common sense flew out the window and never came back.
Laia and Elias... now I know they had a little something-something going on, but to be completely honest, the majority of the book had their relationship screaming platonic to me, or even just a whisper of romantic tension between the two. Perhaps it was due to the romance being more of a subplot rather than a focal point, but there were moments where it felt as though their romance was being forced in one chapter and then completely overlooked the next.
Laia has some big dumb moments that made me want to shove my hands into the pages and give her a good shake. She seems to believe that people can change way too easily, and is the reason for a number of things to go wrong in her plans because of her easily trusting others. Same thing goes for our leading man Elias, who seems to throw logic out the door in exchange for a plan that has no backup about 90% of the time in an effort to woo Laia by doing the bare minimum or straight up disappearing without telling anyone what he is up to.
The twists and turns were to be as expected, and there were maybe two instances that I was actually surprised that something happened to some of the characters. Take that with a grain of salt, as it was easy to piece together the next plot device if you were really cataloguing every move the characters made. That being said, the villains lowkey slayed in this book -- they are nasty and ruthless, and just a tiny bit hilarious in the sense that it basically felt as though they were putting on performances the entire book.
I am still up in the air on whether or not I will continue on with this series -- the world-building is honestly the best part, so I may have to carry on and see it through to the end. If you are looking for fantasy with romance as a subplot, this is definitely your speed.
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