An Ember in the Ashes

I find it ironic that many of authors first novels are trend setters. S.E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders and started the whole genre of novels known as Young Adult, and Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird and it has become a classic that has defined America. I think it isn't hard to imagine that here is another one. An Ember in the Ashes manages to take my expectations and surpass them like I never imagined. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, from the beginning to the end.

The world building in the book is very well done. It has been said in the synopsis that this book was loosely based on Ancient Rome and it shows. Other books try to do this and only end up looking like a set of vacation photos you see put up on FB: they have a lot of different things shown, but none of the references have substance behind them to make them meaningful.cough Red Queencough. This novel, on the other hand, manages to make a world that shows us what is important to the plot and the rest in delivered through dialogue. I guess this could be counted as a form of show-don't-tell syndrome, but it is done so well,one can easily ignore it if they choose to. There is also the little things that make this book awesome. There are the augers, who are mysterious holy men who announce prophecies to Elias, and he and the reader must decipher what they mean.Then there is another thing that makes this book for me. The main villain.

One of my pet peeves is what the main villain is like and how he or she works in the world. What are their motivations, and how did they get to be the main antagonist of the story? In this novel, I am happy to report that the villain, the Commandant, is evil, sadistic, and cruel to everyone. She easily accounts for about 95% of the emotions felt in this book, and all of that being anger at what a horrible person she is. That leads me to another point about this book: it is a scary and dark novel. It is very much a novel that has great suspense, if only because you don't know if the Commandant will pop into a scene and punish someone in a horrible and sadistic way. The only major problem of this book regarding her is that she seems to have some type of evil force working with her, and I wonder if she is evil because she is working with that evil force, or if the author will just say “She was born this way”. I want her reasoning to be more fleshed out in the next novel, as to why she is the way she is.

When it comes to this generation and literature, the words ‘Love triangle' are just as dirty as ‘Buffering' in today's language. Often, many authors try to make a love triangle work and seem organic, but often it comes off a forced and a tired cliche to appeal to a modern trend. An Ember in the Ashes thankfully, meets none of these expectations. The least reason is because it doesn't do a love triangle, it does a love square. Now if you're anything like me, you are probably shaking your head in disbelief, saying that there is no way it could work. I am happy and a little bit shocked to say that it does work, and in the best way possible. I like all of the romantic relationships in this novel. They all make sense based on who each character is and what they have been through. One nice feature, and one that goes a long way to making their relationships believable, is that these characters talk about why they like each other, and not just a lovey-dovey kind of way, but in way that actual people would talk, about how they find common connections between them and what they like about each other. Too often, it seems like authors make their characters fall in love and then we are supposed to accept it, as though the reader experiencing them falling in love is all the justification they need for their romantic emotions coughDivergentcough. Yet, the author Tahir, is smart, and goes against the trend and give the characters a romance that is both believable and refreshing on all accounts. Admittedly, this is what makes this book five stars for me. If my future self managed to find the Delorean from Back to the Future, went back in time, and told myself that they had to read the book because the love square was so amazing, I'd say they were insane. But in this experience, it was amazing that this author pulled this aspect off, and I can't wait to see what happens next. It was a fun, fast-paced read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I give it a five out of five.