An Ember in the Ashes Review

 An Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir

SUMMARY (from the back of book):
Laia is a slave.
Elias is a soldier.
Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Laia and her family do not challenge the Empire. They've seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia's brother is arrested for treason, she is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire's greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school's finest soldier - and secretly, its most unwilling. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined - and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

I'm going to start off with things that didn't work and things that did work with each part of the book.

PLOT:
Should I say plot or so many plots sometimes it was hard to follow. Ok, so general plot Laia wants to save her brother so she goes undercover as a slave for the rebels. Two different motivations right there, spying and saving her brother who is in prison. So two different goals with just one character. This could be a book in itself, but you also follow Elias' perspective. He is fighting to become emperor but yet he wants to desert. So you have a whole bunch of different things happening with him as well. There are two main plots Elias' journey and Laia's and how they eventually come together. However, there are many small subplots that the author is going to have trouble resolving all of them throughout the series.

CHARACTERS:
Oh boy, so many characters! Why do people feel a book needs to be saturated with characters? NO! Simplify it, only have your core characters and secondary characters. Ok, first the core characters.

Laia: She lost her parents and sister to the martials and now her brother has been taken to prison, not only that, but her grandparents get murdered right in front of her eyes by a mask. You would think she would want to aid the resistance in taking down the empire right? Wrong. She doesn't care whatsoever. She only aids them because she wants them to get her brother out of prison because she doesn't have the courage to do it herself. The thing that kills me is she is spying for the resistance, this is a huge plot line by the way, and she discovers nothing! She is spying on the leader of the school and she gets nothing! All she manages to do is get beat up every five seconds! Come on, get something useful. She misses to many opportunities and all she is worried about the whole time is whether Keenan (a resistance fighter) likes her. Come on, seriously?

Elias: I love Elias, he basically saves the book, his internal conflict within himself with wanting to desert and also wanting to do what he has been trained to do is written phenomenally. He brings you in, you feel what he is feeling. He is definitely a well rounded, emotionally driven character.

Kitchen-Girl or Izzi: I like her, I wish I could know more, honestly she was much more interesting than the main girl Laia, and if she isn't back in the next book I am going to be extremely disappointed. She is a heroine and protagonist herself. She was written just to be a "side-kick" to Laia but I do not think that is fair to the character. She has been a slave since she was five and has a dark and twisted past. She wants to help the resistance and she truly is a fighter in her own right.

Keenan: Bleh. He is the most unbelievable character. This weird attraction between him and Laia is even more unbelievable. They barely speak to each other and the author basically takes a leap because they have this shared past of losing their families that they need to be together. No. I would have liked and believed the character better if he was just like the resistance leader Mazen.

Mazen: Resistance leader, total jerk, totally awesome. He is exactly what you would expect of a liar and a cheater only out for power and his own personal gain. But he is amazingly well written. I loved the character.

Commadant: Leader of Blackcliff. Total Sociopath. Terrifying yet amazing. This character is so violent and cruel you cannot imagine how a person could get that way, yet the character is completely believable. When in doubt always put a terrifying sociopath in your book.

Helene: Elias' friend and fellow Mask. She came across flat to me. She never really developed as a character, she just came across as a violent, lovesick puppy. I think she has a bigger role in the next book and may develop more.

Do you think that is enough characters? Believe me there are more. TOO MANY CHARACTERS!

GENRE: Dystopian? Post Apacolyptic? Fantasy? Yeah needless to say I was confused. When I first started the book it felt extremely dystopian, and it is. But there started to be these mythical creatures talked about that you would see in a fantasy novel. However, the characters kept saying these things weren't real, so I didn't think it was fantasy, but all of the sudden, wait these creatures are real. What?! I thought this was dystopian, now it's fantasy? I had to look at the reviews on the back and they all claimed it to be fantasy. I think it is a mix between the two genres, but until I learned that it was, it felt like themes in the book were clashing.

WORLD BELIEVABILITY: Similar to what I said above about mixing genres. It felt like the world was clashing with its different elements until I was able to understand what was truly going on that it was both fantasy and dystopian. However, the believability of the world was strong. You are thrown into it by these terrible acts of violence. You sympathize instantly with the characters and pray for them to succeed.

OVERALL GRADE: B+
There were a few things I really didn't like about this book and there were things I loved, definitely was a fun and interesting read. I liked it enough to get the sequel. I definitely would recommend it if you like mixed genre novels.