Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

8 reviews

amelia_rose_20's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective 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? Yes

5.0

9/10 | "A Torch Against the Night" is a thrilling continuation that captivates with its fast pace and action-packed narrative. I particularly loved Helene's character development and am eager to see even more of her in future installments.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, and Violence

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment

cemmalyn12's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Classism, Genocide, Rape, Slavery, Xenophobia, Death, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Torture, War, Child death, Colonisation, and Hate crime

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

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

em_of_swags's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Slavery and Child abuse

Minor: Genocide, War, Grief, Sexual harassment, and Blood

fremzz's review against another edition

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Murder, Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Blood

Minor: Animal cruelty and Sexual harassment

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

ramiel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Murder, Physical abuse, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Abandonment, Blood, Colonisation, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Mental illness

Minor: Rape, Sexual content, and Domestic abuse

Imperialism is one hell of a drug. "Mild" are: the emperor is a rapist and makes a lot of threats. Some of the sexual content - such as that between the two main characters - is innocent and not excessively detailed but its there.