Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

29 reviews

kdsmoove's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Murder

risten's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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: No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, Excrement, Vomit

rexpostfacto's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Murder

Minor: Sexual content

c_l_ara's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional 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

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Content Warnings

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

anarmandameg's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail

esconce'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

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

nikspandya'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

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I have never read a second book in a series more perfect than this one. The pacing is perfect. Nothing happens conveniently, it all truly ties together and feels organic. The characters and the settings are amazing and three dimensional. Heck, even the villains are amazing (in their villainy of course)!! I think that this book is inappropriately categorized as YA. Maybe the characters are young, but the content is NOT. I can definitely feel the shift of YA to adult fantasy between the first and second books. I am so so excited to read books 3 and 4 in this series and highly recommend this series to everyone, literally everyone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Murder

Moderate: Grief, Injury/Injury detail

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

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 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* 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Infidelity, Rape

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

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

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

Minor: Sexual harassment

flowergrove's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Racism

Moderate: Child abuse, War