An Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir
4/5
When nearly Laia's entire family is ruined by the violence and oppression of the Martial Empire, she risks everything in an attempt to save her last remaining piece of family. Elias has been studying to be a Mask for the last fifteen years but all he really wants to do is run away. Both are struggling to do the right thing in a world when there aren't that many great decisions available.
I think the best way to describe it is Star Wars meets Attack on Titan but also kind of reminiscent of the Winner's Curse trilogy. There are a lot of middle eastern legends that are altered and magnified, it hasn't gotten into the magic of the universe all that much yet but I'm sure that it'll be a bigger theme later on through the series. I started this book years ago and then DNFed it, or put it on hold for a couple years. I promise it got a lot more exciting after the first like fifty pages. I don't think I would call it a romance, there are potential romances coming up but I don't think they're central motivators to the plot.
My biggest complaint was probably just on the description of the divide between the Scholars and the Masks. I wasn't entirely sure what defined the two groups, that's definitely something that could be fleshed out in later books. I didn't like the way some of the more shocking punishments for the Scholars were just kind of thrown out there, there wasn't a lot of justification on all of it so it was a little jarring. Not anything that should detract from reading it but just something that felt a little cheap.
I'd still recommend though, I understand where all the hype is coming from. I'm invested in where it's going and excited to get into the sequel.
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