A Torch Against the Night
Sabaa Tahir
3/5
This is the sequel to An Ember in the Ashes and picks up immediately where the first book left off. Elias and Laia are fleeing from the Empire on a mission to save her brother while Helene is trying to save her family without destroying the boy who has always been her closest friend. They're all trying to balance their friends and families with doing what's right for entire nations of people.
It was okay. I was like interested enough to keep reading but also a little bored with it at the same time. I didn't like how easy everything felt- killing side characters and vilifying certain characters completely. I'm more of a fan of morally grey rather than everyone makes the right or wrong choices. Helene is a good balance but her POVs were also a little boring because she was so wishy washy on her beliefs. I know that sounds contradicting, but I wanted a better balance of difficult choices mixed with a strong belief system.
Laia was kind of ruined in my eyes. I think she can recover from it, but her being so subservient and doubtful of herself really rubbed me the wrong way. It's like, a random event was added in to traumatize her and shake up her arc and it just felt out of place. I liked her a lot more in the first book, but I guess it's hard being the center of a love triangle like that when I'm not a huge fan of love triangles.
I think I'll probably read on, I'm just a little disappointed by the build up here. I know it's hard to write good middle books in series cause you're trying to answer just enough questions to keep the drama going, I just think this book didn't do the best job with it.
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