Reviews - An Ember in the Ashes

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19.1k reviews for:

An Ember in the Ashes

Sabaa Tahir

4.22 AVERAGE

at_the_lakes's review against another edition

5.0

It ruined me lol

hannahalkadi's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

castian's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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

hyleung's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

meggieisbooked's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I have quite a few bones to pick with this book 🤨

The whole premise of these fantasy schools where most of the children enrolled will die before graduation make absolutely zero sense. There is no military or government (fictional or otherwise) that would spend valuable time and critical resources on training children to become soldiers, only to have half of them die in the process. No country (no matter how corrupt) would invest in something as wasteful as that. I'm unable to suspend the logical side of my brain to believe that the parents of these children would allow them to be ripped from their arms for the "honor" of becoming a Mask.

If the Augurs are so powerful and all-knowing, why have they allowed these horrible things to pass? They bring children to a death camp, meant to weed out the weakest of all, but if they have the gift of foresight, then they could spare the children who would die in the culling process at Blackcliff. They say they don't interfere, but that's all they do, pulling the puppet strings of children forcing them to murder other children.

Which leads me to another point of contention for me: the Trials. Again, if these Augurs already know the outcome, there is no point to the trials. Again, what government would consent to pitting their best soldiers against one another in a battle to the death. Time wasted, resources consumed, lives forfeited; apparently it makes no difference to the Empire, cuz new Masks just grow on trees 🙄

I have so much more that I want to rant about, but I feel like this is enough.

tomblythenthusiast's review against another edition

2.0

2.5 stars

this book was…boring. i had high hopes but it fell sooo flat for me & i was genuinely struggling to keep my eyes open while reading it

i also felt like ive read this book before so nothing really surprised me or stood out to me lmao. that being said i will be giving book 2 a chance