Sabaa Tahir grew up in California's Mojave Desert at her family's eighteen-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, raiding her brother's comic book stash, and playing guitar badly. She began writing An Ember in the Ashes while working nights as a newspaper editor. She likes thunderous indie rock, garish socks, and all things nerd. Sabaa currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. You can find Sabaa at her website sabaatahir.com, on Twitter @SabaaTahir, and on Instagram @sabaatahir. You can find more of my reviews of her work here.
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire's impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They've seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia's brother is arrested for treason, Laia 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 solider--and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he's being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined--and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
Laia is a one-in-a-lifetime protagonist. My favorite thing about her is her courage, which she gained over the course of the novel. She starts afraid and running, and ends braver than she's ever been. I also loved her determination. She never, not for one second, forgets her purpose: saving her brother. Despite mission changes, torture, and obstacles, her brother remains her strength until she is as strong as her mother. When she speaks to the Augur near the end of the book, I find myself smiling for Laia--she's finally learned who she is, and who she has the capacity to become. There is not a protagonist out there more inspiring than Laia.
Elias is another character who stands out immediately. Even if he weren't one of the main characters and narrators, his choices are telling of the way he sees the world. I also love that a lot of his character centers around those he surrounds himself with, and how he interacts with them. The Commandant, Helene, Mamie Rila, Marcus, Cain, Laia, his Grandfather are all people that help him define himself. His arc might be harder to track; like Laia, he never loses sight of his goal, but unlike Laia, he doesn't become a whole new person. Instead, he realizes what his goal actually means. His goal changes and morphs, the same way he does when he surrounds himself with different people. I think that arc is the perfect representation of who he is throughout this novel, and I can't wait to see how him and Laia will grow and meet challenges throughout the novel.
Tahir's writing just pulls you in. It is so easy to fall into the world of Empires and Scholars, Martials and Augurs. Tahir's worldbuilding is absolutely magical. I can easily draw the parallels between Laia's and Elias's world to ancient Rome, but also the parallels to the real world. After the events of the past year, the parallels are clearer than ever, and it's almost like Tahir was predicting our own country's turmoil. Nonetheless, I do believe this world is a masterpiece in its own right. Her writing is intoxicating, her worldbuilding is expert. Even though we don't know a whole lot outside of Serra and Blackcliff, I just have this feeling that it's all developed in Tahir's head, waiting for its moment to come to life on the pages of the sequels.
Luckily for us all, An Ember in the Ashes is just the first in Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes series. The next book up? A Torch Against the Night, and find my review here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
Comments
Post a Comment