Book Reviews: An Ember in the Ashes Series (Books 1-3)

An Ember in the Ashes

Book One

I started the first book in my last semester of college in 2019. I was reading it on the school shuttle bus every trip I had to take to and from campus. This being about a 15 minute drive and during my heaviest load of classes yet, I picked this book up and put it down too many times for it to keep me hooked. However, fast forward to the pandemic that has been 2020...I had a lot more free time. This was the first book that I had picked up and read consistently in YEARS and it was the perfect book to bring me out of this reading slumber. Once I was able to settle into the book with little to no distractions, I was hooked.

The characters were very unique to any book I had read before. In an age of dystopias that had flooded the reading sphere about 10 years ago, I felt that finding new, exciting and unique characters was beginning to be few and far between. The character development throughout this book (and the series) is some of the best I have ever seen. Laia is the most aggravating, weak character that I truly started to despise at the beginning. To see her go from one of embarrassment to a truly strong, brave, and compassionate character has been absolutely beautiful. Elias was a boy who wanted a different life and would've done anything to escape for himself. He didn't fit in and not because he was weak or unskilled but because even after being quite literally beat into a killing soldier, his heart was not in it.

With each book, more character voices are introduced and you begin to have appreciation for them all. All of them, even the bad guys cause yes, Sabaa Tahir not only loves playing with your mind but your heart too. Ugh, you guys. Seriously. Sabaa Tahir is a literary genius. She wrote a young adult fantasy series but she also wrote poetry. Each book and all the meaning it holds within each word and every page. She writes with purpose and a love of the characters and world she created. She pays attention to every last detail. Symbolism can get out of hand with some stories but it is perfection throughout these books.

So unless she absolutely sabotages the last book, she has created a forever fan out of me. (Reading the last book now) I will quite literally read and collect every book she is to ever create.

If you are also late to the series train, head my warning: this is not a series you want to miss out on. Buy the first book, settle yourself in for a read-a-thon, and enjoy. You will not regret it.