Welcome back to Musings of an Arthritic Artist! Today is going to be another review, this one for the last book in the An Ember in the Ashes quartet by Sabaa Tahir.
This review will largely be spoiler-free, but since this is the last book in this series, there will be a spoiler section toward the end where I will give my more in-depth thoughts.
If you haven’t read this series and wish to, I’d recommend skipping that section when you reach it. The spoiler section will be marked with a spoiler alert section that I think is very hard to miss.
You will know when the spoilers are over because there will be a line that says, "spoilers over" on it. Once you've passed that, there are no more spoilers and you can read my rating and final thoughts.
Without further ado, let’s get into the review!
I read A Sky Beyond the Storm about 1-2 weeks after it was released. The moment my library got an e-book, I immediately put it on hold. When I began this series, I initially thought it was a trilogy. A few months before this was released, I found out that it was a quartet, which was both a pleasant and unpleasant surprise. It was pleasant because this is one of my favorite series, but it was unpleasant because I expected that I was going to be finished with this series.
This book was incredibly enjoyable. I love this world and these characters. Laia is a very well-written female protagonist compared to most of the other ones I've read. Elias felt different than most of the other characters I've read, but not as different as Laia, mostly because most of my favorite book characters are males who share traits with Elias (loyalty, compassion, blaming himself for things that aren't his fault [does anyone else see parallels with Percy Jackson or is it just me?], honesty, and forgiveness).
Helene was also a different character than the kind I normally read, but she's in a separate category of different. Her undying loyalty to the Empire and what she views as her duty is the main thing that sets her apart from other female characters I've read. Most of them have loyalty and would also do anything for their family, but Helene's personality is so different, I have a hard time placing her in a category where she fits with another female character I've read. The closest I can think of is Annabeth Chase from the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles, but even then, the similarities aren't that great.
Laia is a refreshing character to read about, especially in YA. She's loyal to her family, protective of her older brother, and strong-willed. The most refreshing thing is that she isn't whiny and rarely complains. She's a strong female character but not in the cliche "can work on motorcycles and cars and is muscularly ripped" kind of way.
Laia is strong emotionally, and I rarely found myself questioning the decisions she made. If I were in Laia's position, I know I would've made most of the same decisions she did, which is really nice because most times I'm getting frustrated with the dumb, idiotic decisions characters are making.
It was incredibly enjoyable to read a book that had a lot of action and fantasy elements, but that I could kick back with and not roll my eyes or glare at the page every few chapters.
š„š„SPOILER ALERTš„š„
Anything below this is a spoiler
You have been warned
Anything below this is a spoiler
You have been warned
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At the beginning of this series, I started by not being the biggest fan of Helene, to feeling sorry for her at the end of it. Pretty much everything she did was for her family and by the end of the series, all her family is dead, which is really sad. Especially considering that Livia was my favorite of her sisters.
In A Torch Against the Night we could pretty much for sure tell that Elias and Helene weren’t going to be together, even though she liked him. In the last two books, you see this great friendship and relationship grow between Helene and Avitas Harper, Elias’ stepbrother.
Then, toward the end of this novel, he dies as well, leaving Helene without a family and romantic companionship. After everything she went through, I think she should've have a chance to be happy, and everything was just wrecked for her.
Darin’s death saddened me as well. It felt very much like Mockingjay. If you've read The Hunger Games trilogy, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I'm not going to spoil it for you.
Darin was the entire reason Laia’s side of An Ember in the Ashes even happened. Everything that Elias and Laia went through to rescue Darin was pretty much rendered useless at the end of this book.
It didn't feel out of character, but it felt as if it came out of nowhere. I was laying in my bed reading at night. I read that Harper dies (which made me cry), then--not many chapters after--Darin dies as well, which makes me cry even more.
On a separate happy note, I’m glad Elias and Laia got their happily ever after. I read the proposal scene and found it so adorable I reread it at least five times.
As far as spoilers go, I think that’s pretty much all I have to comment on.
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✔šSPOILERS OVERš✔
Overall, this series has become one my favorites. I rated this 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I was pleasantly surprised to read a series (especially one that’s got at least 3 books) where all the books were 5 stars. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts and reviews, most series I read tend to have at least one book that is rated lower than the others.
Even my favorite series (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, The Trials of Apollo, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, and The Hunger Games) had at least one book that was rated 4 or less (The Sea of Monsters [4 stars], The Lost Hero [4 stars], The Son of Neptune [4 stars], The Burning Maze [4 stars], The Ship of the Dead [4 stars], and Mockingjay [3 stars]).
Most series I read don’t tend to have perfect ratings, which was something I wanted to try to find. To this date, I have three series (including this one) that have three or more books that were all 5 stars reads for me (the other two are The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan and the Frostblood Saga by Elly Blake).
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