A review by rinku
Elias & Laia - Die Herrschaft der Masken by Sabaa Tahir

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

 I was so hyped to read An Ember in the Ashes, but it was a bit underwhelming, even though the beginning was so promising. I still gave it 3.5 stars and I’m curious how the series will continue. 

Like I’ve said, the dark start of the story was so promising. We get to know the two different POV characters: Laia witnesses how her grandparents are killed right in front of her eyes and has to flee from home to survive. She lands with the rebels for whom she has to become a spy at the training academy for soldiers. The second POV character is Elias, son of the leader of the training academy, who wants to desert but decides last minute not to. After becoming a solider, he has to take part in a battle to become the next Emperor. 

What I furthermore liked about both story lines is that they are so plot driven and that the stakes are so high for both of them. Some moments were a bit more predictable, like
the blacksmith helping Laia, the Commander seeing that she opened a seal, or Laia and Elias not actually dying in the end
, but most of the story was interesting. My only problem is that it was just too long; the book would’ve worked perfectly with 50 or 100 fewer pages. 

In comparison, the dramatic ending was so good, besides
the task where they were forced to kill each other. Of course, this moment was dramatic and well written, but this task didn’t make so much sense to me; why would the academy want to sacrifice so many of their best soldiers
? Anyways, it was predictable that
the rebels lied Laia, and that the Commander knew the truth about Laia all along. This all doesn’t matter for the fourth test of the Emperor battle were they should kill Laia. Elias is of course not able to do that, but Marcus is, so he becomes the new Emperor and Helena his deputy
. 

I also really liked the world, how it’s inspired by the Roman empire and how dark it is. The settings, like the academy, were also great but I was a bit disappointed that there’s only one female student. From a story telling perspective, there were too many monologues for my taste, and I found it stupid how characters talked loudly about their secret plans. 

Coming to the characters, I was not the biggest fan of them. I found Laia’s character a bit stereotypical and she was quite stupid in some moments. Same goes Elias, I don’t know why he acted so suspicious when he was trying to desert at the beginning. It also annoyed me how, of course, he has to be the best student for decades. Their romance was an insta love and so cliché since, according to Elias, Laia doesn’t know how beautiful she is and she has to talk about his “manly” smell, urgh. 

What was worse about the romance was that both of them had a love triangle. I first liked Helena, but she got so unnecessary jealous and her love for Elias became her only character trait that I couldn’t stand her anymore. There’s so much lack of communication between them which would solve their problems easily. On the other side, Elias is very jealous of the other rebel guy who’s in love with Laia (I genuinely can’t remember his name) as well. 

An Ember in the Ashes is a more interesting YA high fantasy read because of its dark plot and its interesting world. Compared to this, the characters are not that great, but this can change with the following books. 
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