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A review by keschneider
A Shadow in the Ember by Jennifer L. Armentrout
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Mood after finishing this book: *Olivia Rodrigo enters, stage right, walks up to the microphone, and then scream sings "DO YOU GET DEJA VU" while breaking the mic stand over her leg, and then breathes fire*
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. What a blistering disappointment this was. Imagine my surprise too, after seeing it so highly rated on GR and storygraph. Did y'all read the same book?
I hold the original From Blood and Ash series close to my heart, as precious to me as a melted ice cream cone, or perhaps a mug with its handle broken off. It was a fun fantasy romance follow-up to ACOTAR, but I know it has its flaws. But I liked the characters and the story was interesting enough that it kept my attention, and the romance was great IMO (I know people have issues with Cas and things he did. Have we never heard of the concept of morally gray leading men in romance? I mean, c'mon, I eat that up, it's no surprise I loved Cas). We're gonna start with critiques on this one, because I am livid.
Critiques:
-Yeah okay I like the originals. Sue me. I didn't love the original series so much that I wanted to read it AGAIN in different packaging and characters. It is SO SIMILAR in almost EVERY WAY that I wanted to scream. The characters were the same. The romantic storyline was the same. The mystery was the same. The plot was the same. Only thing that was missing was a Kieran equivalent. I wish I were exaggerating, but literally so much of the original FBAA book is recycled in this one that I ended up what I can only call "hate reading" this story. Like I was determined to finish it but I gritted my teeth and grumbled the entire time. Just for that I almost gave this book ONE STAR. Something unheard of in my reading journey. I will explain the two stars later.
-The use of the "I have a question" line that Poppy always had in the original FBAA series in order to world build and info dump was incredibly painful in this story. I think I accepted it in the original series and liked how it fit Poppy's curious nature, but to COPY AND PASTE the EXACT same technique onto an entirely different character hundreds of years earlier as a world building/info dumping technique just felt plain lazy to me. It's not the worst way to world build or answer the readers' questions, but it feels like JLA relies way too heavily on it and can't seem to do it any other way. And part of me was like "hey, that's POPPY'S thing."
-This irked me in the original series too, but some of the modern language and expressions are just too much for me. Too out of place, too immature, too pop-culture. In a fantasy world, even in the context of fantasy romance, hearing characters say "damn straight" and "you're mouthy, aren't you?" and "they tend to get a bit bitey" just was a little too cringe-y. I had the same issue with Fourth Wing at times, though to a lesser extent (don't come for me, I rated that book 5 stars)
-I'M SORRY but we can NOT name a FANTASY WORLD after PASTA. I can't do it. I can't. I refuse. LASANIA people. As in, Lasagna. What in the world? And what made this worse was I was slapped in the face with this name OVER and OVER, multiple times EVERY chapter. I couldn't escape. I even tried pronouncing it differently in my head. La-sa-nee-ya. La-sa-nye-ya. Nothing helped. I was stuck imagining every character in this book living on a giant lasagna noodle. I may never recover from this alone. It felt personal by the end of the book. If I ever write a book I'm naming my fantasy world "Fettucine". But I'll spell it "Phaetutchine". Choke on that. Ridiculous.
-Insta-love did not hit in this. It rarely does for me, but especially in a recycled story that I've already read a better version of.
-This book was about nothing. When Sera finally gets taken to the Shadowlands or whatever, I was like finally after 250 pages of basically nothing, things are happening! But nope. Just more q&a's and inconsequential God/Primal drama. I mean Sera even discovers her gift is changing the same way as Poppy did. Honestly I was surprised Sera didn't have red hair like her too. And that her name wasn't just "Peppy" or "Poopy" or something like that.
-We don't learn one of the main characters' names until like 200 pages into the book. ???? I like mystery as much as the next gal, but homeboy was only referred to as "the god" for 30% of the story. No.
-Welcome to strong female character spends her whole life training to be an assassin and it ends up not mattering at all (again) because everyone she comes into contact with (read: all the MALES she comes in contact with) are still all stronger, faster, and older than her.
Loved (read: tolerated):
-SOME of the banter and flirting between Seraphina and Nyktos was fun and cute and enjoyable. But again, it was almost copy and pasted the SAME EXACT dynamic that Poppy and Casteel have in FBAA, and it just felt stolen.
-I liked how Nyktos was super powerful and terrifying
But y'all, I really think that's it for things I liked. This was rough.
"Why 2 stars then? Why not condemn it to be your first ever 1 star read?" you may be asking? Well, because there was still one corner of my brain, depraved and occupied by what is no doubt the equivalent of a dumpster fire, that enjoyed bits and pieces of the world, the romance, and the characters. Even though they all felt stolen/recycled. I get that this is in the same world as FBAA, but for it to feel SO SIMILAR, and SO MUCH of the major plot points and the characters' journeys to feel like a complete mirror image of the original series was still incredibly disappointing and not at all what I expected.
And so, because there's one self-destructive part of my brain with no standards and is easy to please that enjoyed the book, it keeps its stupid 2 stars. Barely. Against my better judgement.
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. What a blistering disappointment this was. Imagine my surprise too, after seeing it so highly rated on GR and storygraph. Did y'all read the same book?
I hold the original From Blood and Ash series close to my heart, as precious to me as a melted ice cream cone, or perhaps a mug with its handle broken off. It was a fun fantasy romance follow-up to ACOTAR, but I know it has its flaws. But I liked the characters and the story was interesting enough that it kept my attention, and the romance was great IMO (I know people have issues with Cas and things he did. Have we never heard of the concept of morally gray leading men in romance? I mean, c'mon, I eat that up, it's no surprise I loved Cas). We're gonna start with critiques on this one, because I am livid.
Critiques:
-Yeah okay I like the originals. Sue me. I didn't love the original series so much that I wanted to read it AGAIN in different packaging and characters. It is SO SIMILAR in almost EVERY WAY that I wanted to scream. The characters were the same. The romantic storyline was the same. The mystery was the same. The plot was the same. Only thing that was missing was a Kieran equivalent. I wish I were exaggerating, but literally so much of the original FBAA book is recycled in this one that I ended up what I can only call "hate reading" this story. Like I was determined to finish it but I gritted my teeth and grumbled the entire time. Just for that I almost gave this book ONE STAR. Something unheard of in my reading journey. I will explain the two stars later.
-The use of the "I have a question" line that Poppy always had in the original FBAA series in order to world build and info dump was incredibly painful in this story. I think I accepted it in the original series and liked how it fit Poppy's curious nature, but to COPY AND PASTE the EXACT same technique onto an entirely different character hundreds of years earlier as a world building/info dumping technique just felt plain lazy to me. It's not the worst way to world build or answer the readers' questions, but it feels like JLA relies way too heavily on it and can't seem to do it any other way. And part of me was like "hey, that's POPPY'S thing."
-This irked me in the original series too, but some of the modern language and expressions are just too much for me. Too out of place, too immature, too pop-culture. In a fantasy world, even in the context of fantasy romance, hearing characters say "damn straight" and "you're mouthy, aren't you?" and "they tend to get a bit bitey" just was a little too cringe-y. I had the same issue with Fourth Wing at times, though to a lesser extent (don't come for me, I rated that book 5 stars)
-I'M SORRY but we can NOT name a FANTASY WORLD after PASTA. I can't do it. I can't. I refuse. LASANIA people. As in, Lasagna. What in the world? And what made this worse was I was slapped in the face with this name OVER and OVER, multiple times EVERY chapter. I couldn't escape. I even tried pronouncing it differently in my head. La-sa-nee-ya. La-sa-nye-ya. Nothing helped. I was stuck imagining every character in this book living on a giant lasagna noodle. I may never recover from this alone. It felt personal by the end of the book. If I ever write a book I'm naming my fantasy world "Fettucine". But I'll spell it "Phaetutchine". Choke on that. Ridiculous.
-Insta-love did not hit in this. It rarely does for me, but especially in a recycled story that I've already read a better version of.
-This book was about nothing. When Sera finally gets taken to the Shadowlands or whatever, I was like finally after 250 pages of basically nothing, things are happening! But nope. Just more q&a's and inconsequential God/Primal drama. I mean Sera even discovers her gift is changing the same way as Poppy did. Honestly I was surprised Sera didn't have red hair like her too. And that her name wasn't just "Peppy" or "Poopy" or something like that.
-We don't learn one of the main characters' names until like 200 pages into the book. ???? I like mystery as much as the next gal, but homeboy was only referred to as "the god" for 30% of the story. No.
-Welcome to strong female character spends her whole life training to be an assassin and it ends up not mattering at all (again) because everyone she comes into contact with (read: all the MALES she comes in contact with) are still all stronger, faster, and older than her.
Loved (read: tolerated):
-SOME of the banter and flirting between Seraphina and Nyktos was fun and cute and enjoyable. But again, it was almost copy and pasted the SAME EXACT dynamic that Poppy and Casteel have in FBAA, and it just felt stolen.
-I liked how Nyktos was super powerful and terrifying
But y'all, I really think that's it for things I liked. This was rough.
"Why 2 stars then? Why not condemn it to be your first ever 1 star read?" you may be asking? Well, because there was still one corner of my brain, depraved and occupied by what is no doubt the equivalent of a dumpster fire, that enjoyed bits and pieces of the world, the romance, and the characters. Even though they all felt stolen/recycled. I get that this is in the same world as FBAA, but for it to feel SO SIMILAR, and SO MUCH of the major plot points and the characters' journeys to feel like a complete mirror image of the original series was still incredibly disappointing and not at all what I expected.
And so, because there's one self-destructive part of my brain with no standards and is easy to please that enjoyed the book, it keeps its stupid 2 stars. Barely. Against my better judgement.