Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

14 reviews

jpfortmiller's review against another edition

adventurous dark fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment and Torture

Moderate: Sexual assault and War

Minor: Slavery, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Child death

heleneaquillaomg's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? N/A

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Murder, Blood, and Child abuse

chronicacademia's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Slavery, Torture, Classism, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Death, Racism, and Child abuse

Moderate: Abandonment, Gore, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Ableism, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Hate crime

unsuccessfulbookclub's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Child death, Blood, War, Torture, Slavery, Child abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Vomit and Rape

_alyssar_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Grief, Slavery, Abandonment, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Pregnancy, Murder, Blood, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

princessrory's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child death, Death, Torture, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Slavery, Confinement, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Child abuse, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Grief, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Rape, War, Abandonment, Sexual assault, Bullying, Genocide, Suicide, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Medical content

rinku's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

 I was so hyped to read An Ember in the Ashes, but it was a bit underwhelming, even though the beginning was so promising. I still gave it 3.5 stars and I’m curious how the series will continue. 

Like I’ve said, the dark start of the story was so promising. We get to know the two different POV characters: Laia witnesses how her grandparents are killed right in front of her eyes and has to flee from home to survive. She lands with the rebels for whom she has to become a spy at the training academy for soldiers. The second POV character is Elias, son of the leader of the training academy, who wants to desert but decides last minute not to. After becoming a solider, he has to take part in a battle to become the next Emperor. 

What I furthermore liked about both story lines is that they are so plot driven and that the stakes are so high for both of them. Some moments were a bit more predictable, like

the blacksmith helping Laia, the Commander seeing that she opened a seal, or Laia and Elias not actually dying in the end

, but most of the story was interesting. My only problem is that it was just too long; the book would’ve worked perfectly with 50 or 100 fewer pages. 

In comparison, the dramatic ending was so good, besides

the task where they were forced to kill each other. Of course, this moment was dramatic and well written, but this task didn’t make so much sense to me; why would the academy want to sacrifice so many of their best soldiers

? Anyways, it was predictable that

the rebels lied Laia, and that the Commander knew the truth about Laia all along. This all doesn’t matter for the fourth test of the Emperor battle were they should kill Laia. Elias is of course not able to do that, but Marcus is, so he becomes the new Emperor and Helena his deputy

. 

I also really liked the world, how it’s inspired by the Roman empire and how dark it is. The settings, like the academy, were also great but I was a bit disappointed that there’s only one female student. From a story telling perspective, there were too many monologues for my taste, and I found it stupid how characters talked loudly about their secret plans. 

Coming to the characters, I was not the biggest fan of them. I found Laia’s character a bit stereotypical and she was quite stupid in some moments. Same goes Elias, I don’t know why he acted so suspicious when he was trying to desert at the beginning. It also annoyed me how, of course, he has to be the best student for decades. Their romance was an insta love and so cliché since, according to Elias, Laia doesn’t know how beautiful she is and she has to talk about his “manly” smell, urgh. 

What was worse about the romance was that both of them had a love triangle. I first liked Helena, but she got so unnecessary jealous and her love for Elias became her only character trait that I couldn’t stand her anymore. There’s so much lack of communication between them which would solve their problems easily. On the other side, Elias is very jealous of the other rebel guy who’s in love with Laia (I genuinely can’t remember his name) as well. 

An Ember in the Ashes is a more interesting YA high fantasy read because of its dark plot and its interesting world. Compared to this, the characters are not that great, but this can change with the following books. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Violence, Death, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Torture

Moderate: Grief, Rape, Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Suicide and War

griffinthief's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Sexual harassment, Police brutality, Blood, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

Moderate: Pregnancy

Minor: Vomit and Trafficking

bookish_kori's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.5

The book has a ton of high quality commentary and, though I’m not quite sure it’s in line with the booktok hype, the premise is really interesting and I’m excited to see if it gets better as the series progresses. Overall I felt it had a really strong beginning and a fairly strong ending with a lull in the middle. The focuses on the complexities of motivation, nature v. nurture, questioning those in power and their methods, and being close to people who end up forming completely different opinions and views of the world than you was super in-depth and a great read. The fact that *both* POV characters somehow required a love triangle and the way those relationships developed throughout the first book was off-putting for me, but I may be alone in that. I will be reading the rest of the series and I’m sure these characters will more than exceed my expectations from here :) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, Violence, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Torture

Moderate: Abandonment, Pregnancy, Rape, Trafficking, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Abortion, War, and Confinement

If you read modern YA or NA fantasy, this isn’t really out of line with that. Check out specific trigger warnings because there are a few that are more unique to this book than others but overall I’d say if you’ve read Stalking Jack the Ripper, Throne of Glass, A Good Girls Guide to Murder, or anything like that then this won’t be much of a stretch. Some of my trigger warnings were a little bit like “oh yeah this happened” but I didn’t notice it at the time as that thing. Specific events:

there’s a child whipping/execution, a description of an attempted abortion and subsequent abandonment of the infant, semi-detailed description of torture involving a knife, and two fairly detailed descriptions of loved ones being murdered (also involving blades)

It’s dark of course but not horrendous.

angstifies's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

i apparently did not like this as much as many people did but oh well. the world building was terrible, i was exited to read about a fantasy world inspired by the Roman Empire and except from the somewhat latin names we get none of that.

the narrators and characters were so annoying, the main characters are 17 and 21 but i felt like i was being told a story by a fucking child.

but the absolute worst thing about this book was the <b>overuse of misogyny and sexual violence against women.</b> i get it, some books’ worlds and settings are sexist but it was so overused. there are so many mentions of rape/threats of rape when it’s not even needed, and it was absolutely pointless. and the sexism was absolutely disgusting, even the male main character himself is so fucking misogynistic and constantly objectifies the “love interests”, i could not believe this was written by a woman. 

i’m gonna make examples that infuriate me about <b>Elias specifically and his misogyny:</b> using “don’t act like a girl” as a degrading insult to Helene (a woman) SO MANY TIMES, even in his internal monologue + saying things like “oh they’re women! that’s how they are!”, shut the fuck up. sexualising both Laia and Helene basically always. feeling bad for a literal abusive RAPIST. letting marcus win knowing that now he can do whatever he wants with Helene and she can’t say no to him, all for a girl with no personality he met less than 2 months ago.

the characters were almost always insufferable and the romance was shit, i at least enjoyed the overall plot and the last 80 pages were great.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Murder, Torture, Physical abuse, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Grief

Minor: Death of parent