A review by robotnik
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

medium-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I have this tendency to read really hyped books after the hype train has passed on, sometimes up to when the series has ended. That's pretty much how I went about An Ember in the Ashes. I've had it on my kindle for about 5 or so years and am only now getting around to now as I force myself to read through my backlog rather than constantly buying new books. That means, I've seen all the hype and good reviews about it going through my feed. Having finally read it, I can say without a doubt in my mind, this book was vastly overhyped and all these good reviews lied to me about everything.

Whoops, I said it. That being said: unpopular opinion below. Don't like it? Oh well. Insert the 'it's my opinion' screechy scene here.

I guess I'll break it down into the sections to make my rambling easier to understand.

 World-building

You know what stood out to me the most that made me really want to read this is that it was said the world was based on Ancient Rome. I love Ancient Rome as a setting and historical period. I don't want to call myself an expert, but I've gone out of my way to research it and learn about it, so I can say quite easily that anyone who has read this and thinks this world is remotely like Ancient Rome needs to go pick up a book on it and actually learn something. Giving a couple of Roman-sounding names here and there does not a Roman-based world make.

The really awkward feeling I get from this is the author saw 'militant' and 'slaves' and rolled that into being their whole world building. The way the Martials work is not a functional military and the fact they manage to conquer something is a huge hole in the military. Any military that holds the Trials as they did here and just allow a bunch of their upcoming, well trained soldiers to kill each other would be seen as crippling to the army, not a sign that they're strong in any way. Really, they seem like they were made strictly to seem dastardly and evil. The way the slaves work in this world is the same way - designed to just seem like the world is evil and abusive. Slavery is an awful thing, but the slavery system in Ancient Rome was very complex and the constant abuse they were taking in this book wouldn't be happening. Slaves are expensive okay. How have these people accomplished anything with the way they operate?

The biggest thing I've noticed about this world is that is extremely sexist. This is yet another point in a fact that the world building is based on making the world seem dastardly and evil. It isn't even just the constant rape as a threat to the female characters, which it is and often unnecessarily so. Characters are threatened with rape and violence enough that it hardcore invokes some Too Bleak, Stopped Caring. The threat of rape is, of course, only directed at female characters. But, like mentioned, this isn't the only thing. It's the subtle jabs at it. Only one girl per generation is taken into Blackcliff. Helene is often described as 'not like other girls' or 'acting like a girl suddenly' and she mentions constantly being underestimated likely due to her gender. Elias' grandfather expresses that girls don't belong in the military. None of this has any bearing on the plot aside from giving the male characters one more way to mistreat female characters.

At the end of the day, this book is just another dark and edgy world that relies on abusing women way too much as a way to try and make it seem realistic and well-developed.

 Characters

I'll give this book one thing: Laia is one of the only YA protagonists I've read that ended up joining a resistance and/or rebellion and isn't instantly super totally amazing at it. She fucks up and gets punished for it. That was refreshing. That's about it I have to say on Laia. She's sort of generic. Okay. But generic.

Elias is also generic. He's literally the typical protagonist who's on the villain side but is a good guy at heart. He doesn't subscribe to the behaviors of his people and wants to desert because he can't live with their cruelty anymore. He's okay, too. I don't find him all that stand out like I've seen other people do.

Helene is the only other character that really stands out. She's torn between being a good person and bowing down to the rules and laws on her asshole countrymen. That's interesting. Helene would have made a more interesting protagonist than Laia and Elias combined, thanks.

Where's the well-written interesting cast I read about? They weren't in this book, nosiree. Everyone is either boring and lacking personality, or they're some dastardly and evil (how many times have I said that?) stereotype. Characters like Marcus and the Commandant fall into that second category. No, the Commandant liking to torture people doesn't make her interesting just because she's a woman. The majority of the cast is in the first category. For example, Elias and Helene are given a whole friend group who each have one trait for you to remember them by and serve no purpose other than to prove Helene's the only girl at the Academy and to die to make them both sad.

Did any of these people make me think, "wow, I want to see what happens to them?" Nah.

 The Plot

I realized upon finishing this book that the plot of this book is basically the plot of The Winner's Curse, except with more darkness induced apathy, less interesting characters and a less successful resistance. I would have rather read that over again than read this book one time, to be perfectly honest.

I was expecting a lot from the plot because I've seen so many praise it for its creativity and uniqueness, and it has literally neither of this things.

Sure, Laia's brother's going to be executed probably and the Trials are going on and there's a whole resistance brewing, but Elias thinks Laia's hot and is super into her but Helene might be in love with him and who is that redheaded boy he saw Laia talking to???

I wasn't told there was going to be an useless love square in this book but I got it.

I'll be honest: the climax wasn't at interesting as I expected it to be, but also the book did such a good job of making me not care about people that the only thing that could have made me think the climax lived up to the reputation this book got is that Elias got killed in the ending to really prove no one is safe and this world is truly dangerous in a way that's better than constantly trying to rape every girl and woman who appears.

Also, I'm convinced that Cook is Laia's mother because the foreshadowing regarding a reveal to that is so heavy-handed in how it's done.

 In Conclusion?

I hated it. I found nothing about it truly enjoyable and I've convinced it's an overhyped mess. As such, I will not be continuing this series.
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