An Ember in the Ashes

Really enjoyable. I guess I wasn't entirely aware what the plan was for future books, so I was a little caught off guard by the very, very unresolved ending. But I get it – it feels less unresolved with the understanding that it's part of a series. It's just that I had certain expectations, certain theories about prophecies etc that I thought would be resolved at a certain point, but weren't.

The universe is unique and exciting and the two character's voices are genuine and compelling. Good book. Will eagerly await the next.

I am a little confused about whether this is YA or not? It mostly reads like YA, and that's how it was presented to me, but there's a lot of discussion of/threat of rape. It'd be one thing if this were a book discussing actual history, but as “flavoring” in a fantasy novel, I don't tend to like that in adult books, let alone YA. I dunno. Unresolved feelings about that.