Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

28 reviews

esconce's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Honestly one of my favorite books of the series, a lot of twists I wasnt expecting. Read it in about 4 days but it wasn’t cause it was short or anything its just one of those can’t put down books :D 10/10

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, War, Grief, Hate crime, Misogyny, Slavery, Trafficking, Sexism, Bullying, Cursing, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Racism

blubonby's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

just as amazing as the first one

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Genocide, Slavery, Death, and Torture

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Confinement

rinku's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

 Now, after reading the whole An Ember in the Ashes series, I can say that A Torch Against the Night is my favorite book of the series. There’s so much plot and not one moment to catch a breath since the atmosphere is constantly tense and threatening. 

After the events of the first book, this book instantly starts with a great action sequence: Laia and Elias are on the run from the empire, trying to flee the city and finding a way to free Laia’s brother from prison to continue the fight against the empire. Besides them, we get a third POV, namely Helene’s perspective. This was great for two reasons: One, it was good to have a POV inside the empire, and two, this gave her character so much depth and made me like her so much. She gets the mission to hunt down and kill Elias, or otherwise her family will die. Hence, for all of them, the stakes are so high. Additionally, I liked all of the three POVs and it was so hard to see how much they were struggling with themselves and their missions. 

What made this book especially great was the plot and the story. The whole story is just so dark, brutal, and often leaves you with a hopeless feeling.  The pacing was amazing as well; I was first scared that Elias’ and Laia’s travel would be boring but oh boy, it wasn’t. There is always something often unpredictable happening that makes you want to continue reading. 

Particularly towards the ending, so many shocking things happen, leading to more suffering for our characters:

It’s revealed that Keenan is the Nightbringer who thus betrayed Laia. Helene also fails her mission, leading to Marcus killing her whole family which was just so sad. Elias dies in the end as well, trying to save Darin on his own. He then becomes the soul catcher and gets revived through this

. With all of those conflicts, you just want to know how the story will continue and how the characters will deal with them in the future. 

What I also really like is the writing itself. With all the violence happening, <i>Tahir</i> creates a constant tense atmosphere where you have to worry for your favorite characters. Furthermore, everything feels so real and the settings are just so great. 

I mostly said what I think about the characters above, but I find it so amazing how Laia never gives up. When

Izzi and Keenan came

, I was a bit scared that we would get a love triangle, but we didn’t. I also start to like Helene quite a lot and I just wanted to hug her at some moments. Besides this, I can’t stress enough how pure evil and brutal the villains of the story are, creating a true threat for our characters. 

In summary, A Torch Against the Night was my first five star read in months, and for a good reason – the plot is engaging, the characters are amazing, and the writing and settings create a great atmosphere. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Physical abuse, Blood, Child death, Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, and War

Minor: Sexual harassment

sarahsbookss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Blood, Confinement, Death, Grief, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, Terminal illness, and Violence

imds's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Grief, Police brutality, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Body horror, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Violence, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Murder, and Kidnapping

madamenovelist's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Confinement, Child abuse, Blood, Grief, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Colonisation, Body horror, Torture, War, Xenophobia, Violence, Slavery, Sexism, Racism, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, and Death

veeronald's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Slavery, Abandonment, Classism, Confinement, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Genocide, Murder, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Police brutality, Racism, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Grief, and Kidnapping

Minor: Sexism, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Vomit, Sexual content, Stalking, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Misogyny

bookishchef's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Much slower than the previous book, and the middle dragged. 
I still dislike the romance(s) in this series. 
The last few chapters were amazing though. 

Random spoilers thoughts: 

I did not see any of the plottwists coming. It felt like I could have never known the Keenan plottwist anyway, which is a bit of a shame. 
The plot twist with the Keris coup, was more of a puzzle that you could figure out if you were paying attention. So, I enjoyed that one more. 

HATED how Harper suddenly turns out to be Elias's half brother though. Helene can't have Elias so we'll stick her with the closest thing she can genetically get? Nah. Not a fan. 

Unfortunately, the romances that are more than just set-up aren't much better. The Keenan vs. Elias thing doesn't work at all when you know there is no chance in hell Laia would ever pick Keenan in the end. Sure, she might bang him in a shed, but they're not going to end up happily ever after. Everyone can tell that Elias x Laia is set up to be endgame. 
The love triangle added no tension. Which made the parts with Keenan and Laia feel tedious because I was just there like 'omg Laia, when are you going to stop being distracted by this redhead and get back to the plot already?' And then the non existent tension is shattered even more by the Keenan plottwist... It makes Laia and Keenan's entire flirtationship redundant.
I don't get the point of it. Their flirtationship adds so little too the book. Just slows down the plot by a lot. 

I thought Livia responded a bit too okay to her family being brutally murdered in front of her. She doesn't blame Helene for anything? At all? Seems improbable but okay. 
What's up with Marcus btw? Book 1 and the beginning of this book do everything in their power to make him seem hella incapable, but then suddenly at the end of this book, he turns out to be balancing a coup, an army, dozens of Gens and their families, Helene and her gang, and the ghost of his dead brother? Is he smart or dumb? Clarity pls. (Also we love demonizing mental health issues 😩).

Also doesn't Elias's plot directly go against what the fortune tellers (whose names I have already forgotten) predicted in book 1? They predicted he would be truly free? But now he's bound to this literal Limbo. That doesn't sound like freedom to me. 

Also the "desire is what makes us human", makes me, an asexual, want to strangle something. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Violence, War, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Torture, Terminal illness, and Slavery

angstifies's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

the premise of this book was great but it failed in almost every single aspect.

i honestly slightly liked Laia in book 1, but this book made her almost unbearable for me. she turned into this aspirant saint who always needs to save everyone and leave no one behind and i just hated it. it is such a dumb concept especially in a brutal fantasy world like this, it irritated me so much and i wish she could shut up about how “attractive and manly” both Elias and Keenan are and just… stop…

two complains i have about both this book and the previous one was the writing and the setting/descriptions. 
the writing is once again too childish, focuses on the wrong things at the wrong times, and the way the characters narrate the story is just tiresome. the author has this way of shoving explanations down my throat of things EVERYONE CAN GUESS in a way that something happens and then Laia/Elias/Helene have to specifically explain it when it’s TOTALLY NOT NEEDED. you already guessed what happened but the narration HAS to point it it out for you so it felt repetitive without actually being repetitive. 

and i’m sure the setting is amazing, if we only ever got descriptions of it. Elias and Laia are both traveling for most part of the book but the places they are in are never described, and i really wish they were. i cannot imagine how Serra is, how the houses in Serra are, how the market, the place where they go meet the tribes, the prison look like BECAUSE THERE ARE NO DESCRIPTIONS. we only get vague descriptions of characters, mostly repeating descriptions of characters that have already been described too many times. like yes, i did remember that Helene had blonde hair and Laia had golden eyes, thank you for pointing it out for the 10th time in this chapter.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Genocide, Misogyny, Child abuse, Murder, Slavery, Death of parent, Grief, Confinement, Kidnapping, and Sexism

Minor: Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Adult/minor relationship

cgn's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The first third of the book was kind of boring to me, but then I read the rest of the book in a day and had a great time. Not fully sure how I feel about this book but I’ll certainly be reading the next book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Torture

Moderate: Classism, Grief, and Slavery

Minor: Sexual content