While there is room for those types, I would prefer some characters with varying levels of strength and who are well written and developed. I don’t need all of my female characters to be strong and perfect, emotionally and physically. She changes as well, and I think Tahir manages to make her transformation believable as it is gradual and not a complete turnaround for the character. That strength can be easy to overlook, but when we contemplate what she brings herself to do, we see that she is far more resilient than our first impressions might suggest. As she lives within the domain of her deadliest enemies and under the ruthless eye of the sociopathic Commandant who oversees it all, we are often made to fear for her life and wonder how she has the strength to keep on. Her circumstances are fueled by trauma and living in almost constant fear for her life and that of her brother, and that understandably chips away at her strength. For one thing, I find her terrors to be very believable. Laia is sometimes almost crippled by her fears, and as I read I could imagine that some readers might find her a bit weak and indecisive, but I think the story prevents her from falling into such a simplistic, dismissive description. Both Elias and Laia are moving through a suspenseful plot which had me turning pages eagerly to find out what would happen next. Sabaa Tahir created a very compelling story that I found very hard to put down. Despite the fact that if he is caught, it would mean certain death, he is determined to escape and be free, but circumstances work against him. Unknown to anyone else, he is determined not to take on the legacy of the Masks. Elias is the best student in the academy and is just upon the verge of graduating. Like many others, he was taken and pitilessly trained in the deadly military academy which produces the soldiers from a very young age. Many other spies have died in the same situation as her, and Laia is terrified, but she agrees.Īt the Academy, she crosses paths with Elias, a Mask but himself another victim of the terrible regime. In return for their help, she must act as a spy at Blackcliff Academy, the training institution for the fearful Masks themselves. She seeks out the Resistance movement, and they give her a frightening task. Laia flees and is tormented after that by guilt at what she considers the cowardly act of running away and by the fear of what will happen to her brother who is likely being tortured in the deadly prisons of the Empire. At the beginning of the story, she is living fairly comfortably with what is left of her family until they are once more torn asunder when the Masks, the terrifying and deadly soldiers of the Empire come and arrest her brother Darin. They met their deaths while fighting against the Emperor in the resistance movement. Laia has already lost her parents and a sibling. The story is divided between the points of view of two characters, Elias and Laia who live in the Empire, an oppressive country which subjugates its citizens in various brutal, pervasive and insidious ways. Delving into the book, I found a very interesting world with a complex social structure and a plot with lots of potential and interesting characters. The description put me in a mind of a story full of intrigue, suspense and magic, and I was interested at once. Armed with a voucher I got as a gift, I went into my bookstore ready to buy just about anything, and my eyes fell on Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes. It’s good practice I think to do the research before spending my hard earned money, but I admit I do miss some of the pleasure of going into a store and just buying a book because I think it sounds good. In recent years, I realize I have bought few books without checking reviews first.
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