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A review by bookish_kori
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The book has a ton of high quality commentary and, though I’m not quite sure it’s in line with the booktok hype, the premise is really interesting and I’m excited to see if it gets better as the series progresses. Overall I felt it had a really strong beginning and a fairly strong ending with a lull in the middle. The focuses on the complexities of motivation, nature v. nurture, questioning those in power and their methods, and being close to people who end up forming completely different opinions and views of the world than you was super in-depth and a great read. The fact that *both* POV characters somehow required a love triangle and the way those relationships developed throughout the first book was off-putting for me, but I may be alone in that. I will be reading the rest of the series and I’m sure these characters will more than exceed my expectations from here :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, Violence, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Torture
Moderate: Abandonment, Pregnancy, Rape, Trafficking, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Abortion, War, and Confinement
If you read modern YA or NA fantasy, this isn’t really out of line with that. Check out specific trigger warnings because there are a few that are more unique to this book than others but overall I’d say if you’ve read Stalking Jack the Ripper, Throne of Glass, A Good Girls Guide to Murder, or anything like that then this won’t be much of a stretch. Some of my trigger warnings were a little bit like “oh yeah this happened” but I didn’t notice it at the time as that thing. Specific events: there’s a child whipping/execution, a description of an attempted abortion and subsequent abandonment of the infant, semi-detailed description of torture involving a knife, and two fairly detailed descriptions of loved ones being murdered (also involving blades) It’s dark of course but not horrendous.