A Torch Against the Night

I read the first book in this series and loved it. An Ember in the Ashes received a five star review from me. In that review I highlighted my love for Elias' difficulties reconsiling his upbringing and his nature, but I wasn't overly impressed with Laia and I found the way Elias spoke about his two female friends boring and repetative.

In this book, a lot of the high stakes action lost its edge due to the many leagues between the characters and those who inspired the fear. Over the course of this book Elias and Laia are pursued by the Commandant and Helene separately, and in that they never seem close enough for us to really worry about. It leaves a lot more of the character interactions as the star of the show in the second book, and I find them lacking in both the first and second book. I even found Elias a bit dreary in this book.

While I flew through the book, it wasn't doing anything special for me. I feel like the plot of this book could have been condensed into 300 pages and added to another book in the series. All in all, a disappointing read after how much I enjoyed the first book and I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to the third book now.