Reviews with content warning for Genocide - The Torch Against the Night

Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

The Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

127 reviews

george0277's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional 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

Content Warnings

ashliebysmashliereads's review against another edition

5.0

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: Complicated

5/⭐️ for Sabaa Tahir's A Torch Against the Night.

You GUYS. These books. 😫

This is the sequel to An Ember in the Ashes, and I put this series against any YA Fantasy I've read. I grew up on HP. I tell people that HP taught me more about being a good person in my formative years than any religious text.

These books blow HP out of the water.

Loyalty, Courage, Perseverance. The unending drive to do what is right despite what is expected of you and what is placed before.

The politics. The scheming. The damn battles. The staged riots.

And the MAGIC! Fighting effrits and wraiths, and the Nightbringer, King of the Jinn lurking and plotting. In this book, we meet the Soul Catcher Shaeva, another Jinn.

Laia develops and masters an enexpected power, Elias finds his souls calling, and Helene is unmade.

I'm dying for my hold on A Reaper at the Gates to present itself.

Run. Don't walk. This is the kind of story that I have truly been waiting years for.

Content Warnings

lysha210's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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: No

Content Warnings

jaxattax's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

megansreading's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

This took me a little longer to get into, but I read the ending so fast. I do think it felt a little like a “bridge book” at times, but some of the revelations at the end made up for that. (I called one of the plot twists early on and was so proud haha.)

The main thing this book did for me was make me love Helene. I was feeling lukewarm about her during book one, but now she’s one of my favorite characters in the series. I’m interested to see where each of their arc’s lead.

I will be continuing the rest of the series!

Content Warnings

vel629vet's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Fell into a little bit of middle book syndrome - just felt like we got a lot of filler and not a lot of actually plot advancement. Somehow less frequent violence but much more intense violence and gore. Ready to see what happens with Helene because this entire book was just a beating for her.

Content Warnings

allyareads's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Do I recommend this series? 100%
Do I recommend reading a book with genocide and ethnic cleansing in it right now?
100% I do not.
I cried so hard I gave myself a headache ~~more than once~~
It was still as amazing as I remember but I need to go stare at a wall in a dark room for an indeterminable amount of time.
*sob*

Content Warnings

rinku's review against another edition

5.0

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: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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.

Content Warnings