I love chips. I know they're unhealthy and will probably shorten my life span and that I will regret it later when I'm old and senile and cranky as frI love chips. I know they're unhealthy and will probably shorten my life span and that I will regret it later when I'm old and senile and cranky as frack, but I just can't help it. I love chips of all flavors - cheese, BBQ, sour cream, cheesy jalapeño - you name it. I see a bag of chips and I brighten up quickly. They're one of my guilty pleasures.
However, there are exceptions. There are times a bag of chips make me unhappy and unsatisfied. Like, you open one and realize that puffy bag of chips was actually made up of 25% fatty goodness and 75% air.
I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU BUT THAT BLOODY SUCKS, DUDE.
You're probably wondering the relevance of my silly "bag-o-chips" drivel. Well, to be completely honest, there's really nothing, but the disappointment between this book and that is pretty much spot-on. Jinn and Juice made me drool over its premise - an urban fantasy with a belly dancing jinni?! Magis(shameless plugging: there is actually a manga called "Magi" and it's pretty fucking bad-ass. MUST. READ)?! Dude, something like that will rile me up faster than you can blink. Unfortunately, while the book was enjoyable at times, it definitely wasn't all THAT like I expected it would be. I don't consider it a fail as there were positive factors, but overall, meh.
Let's talk about the setting. This world is OUR world except that it's made up of two planes - Sideways and our own dimension. Sideways is where the purebreed supernatural creatures reside. Our world is where the humans and the half-breeds live. Sounds simple, yes? Basically, the reader is supposed to feel familiar with the surroundings because HELLO PITTSBURGH, but unfortunately, it never felt like that. It never felt like the world was set in Earth (with just a touch of magic) because our cast of characters never does any human activity that would actually make us feel they're in Earth, making it feel like I was reading a story with a very, very fantasy setting. All they do is go to these places that are strictly for their kind, do things that are strictly for their kind, and then all of a sudden we get these pop culture references that make my eyes twitch in annoyance because they feel SO. OUT. OF. PLACE.
Do I make sense? The way the story was written, the way the setting was set up, it never felt like it took place on Earth so it decided to just throw in some popular movies and celebrity names to make up for it, which I felt was a major cop-out. It's like "Blah blah blah blah PARANORMAL STUFF blah blah blah PARANORMAL STUFF blah blah blah DONALD TRUMP blah blah blah PARANORMAL STUFF blah blah blah TITANIC!"
And I'm like, "...what?"
Here are examples:
"He's a jinni Donald Trump, Lyla. You know that. What do you think he wants?"
"... I don't have anything to tell anyone that's not already on Wikipedia."
"I think he was manning up for a 'We'll die together!' death scene, à la Titanic."
...when the whole book feels like it takes place on a new world altogether. Can you guys see just how much it threw me off, every time this happened?!
And that's not all my problems. The world-building is just super vague and shaky. We all have these mythological creatures from all kinds of mythologies all over the world, and we really don't get much information about them to build a solid foundation for me to take it seriously. There's a Seer from the Oracle, a kitsune from Japanese mythology, a succubus, spider wraiths, vampires, a Will-o-Wisp, a siren, etc. etc. and sometimes all we get are "they are older than humanity!" There are some explanations here and there, but they didn't feel solid or meaningful enough for me to take a grasp of the world. It's like, oh, okay, creatures from every walk of life are in here and we should just accept that as fact. Which makes me really bummed because it's a world that has potential to be complex (as in Kate Daniels kind of complex), but the lack of depth just really blew it.
If there's one thing this book is, however, it's absolutely plot-driven. If you like books that are fast-paced, then this is definitely for you, because the action and the catalyst for the main plot starts really quickly and really early. It did leave me feeling very detached to the rest of the characters, though... there is not much backstory for many of them, although I won't take this against the book because it's obviously a series, and there will be more later on, but I did wish there was more internal narration from the main character. At some point, it was all ACTION ACTION ACTION and not much character development. It's not that bad, but I guess I just prefer a balance.
I do love the heroine, though. She's feisty, she's courageous and strong-willed, she knows what she wants, and she endured a shit-ton of stuff for almost a millenia. However, like I said, her backstory was very minimal. It didn't really bring out any emotional pull in me as it was told in a very "tell-not-show" way, and it definitely made me yearn for more.
Overall, not a bad series starter, but in the end, something that I am not enthusiastic for. There is potential for a big, vast, and complex world here, but the cop-outs and the way the setting was set up were monumental disappointments. I'm still interested in reading the next book to see where it will go next, as it feels like the real story has just begun, so here's to crossing my fingers that it would be better by then!...more
I anticipated this book for months. It literally crushed me when I was rejected on Edelweiss, even thoughWoot boy, this will be a TOUGH one to review.
I anticipated this book for months. It literally crushed me when I was rejected on Edelweiss, even though I expected no other outcome. A fantasy world with a roman-esque setting? A world that was defined by its brutality and suffering? I desperately, desperately needed it; every fiber of my being demanded to consume it. Thankfully, Dahlia Adler (who's a great author so you better check her out!), generously sent me an ARC of this book, which I promptly read immediately.
And thus, it is with a heavy heart for me to report that mayhaps my expectations were a bit too high. It felt like experiencing The 5th Wave all over again. I was so excited for that book only to be sorely disappointed. Yeah, I ended up eating ice cream that day to drown away my sorrows...
Warning: this is a lengthy review as there were so many things I needed to say and expound, but there is a TL;DR section below if you want a summarized version.
Don't get me wrong, An Ember in the Ashes has a lot of things going for it. For one, this book definitely doesn't hold itself back when it comes to brutality. The book keeps reminding us how awful the Empire is - they indiscriminately kill the Scholars just for offending them, they forbid reading, they pillage and rape. But... that's the thing. The narrators keep telling us that. It felt that we only know it's brutal mainly because we're constantly reminded that it is without actually showing us how, except for that one time in the beginning of the book where people close to the MC were mercilessly killed. We're so limited to what our two main characters feel and see in their first-person POVs that the rest of the world was left out. I mean, aside from the book being "roman-esque", I didn't even know what the world around them really looked like. I didn't know the architecture, I didn't know what was going on in the streets, I didn't see how Scholars were being maltreated - just pure telling that this is so.
Which is honestly a shame, because this is a fantasy. The world is important. Setting the atmosphere and the environment is vital. I need to visualize everything, see the brutality and feel it for myself, in order to be emotionally invested in the plight. But it simply wasn't there. The world was nonexistent, and I'm left with nothing concrete to imagine.
Let's get back to its being brutal. While I don't mind brutality in a world, I do have an issue about rape being used to make it darker and grittier. The MC keeps getting reminded (and reminding us in turn) that she was too pretty, that she needed to be careful as the students in Blackcliffe were known for simply taking slave girls for a night of pleasure. It really bothered me that it kept getting emphasized in order to set a certain tone. Not to mention, using it as plot devices to move the story along. An antagonist takes an interest in the MC and physically assaults her with the intention of raping her, she screams, so here comes the love interest to the rescue. Another antagonist is about the catch the two idling about, and so he pretends to rape her in order to "save her from the antagonist's wrath", and I was just appalled. I just couldn't wrap around my head why this had to be done when there were other ways to go about this, which made me think if it really were necessary to go this far, and if this theme is more "tolerable" in a fantasy setting (since it's supposedly a "part of the world"). In any case, I didn't like how it was used so casually and repeatedly.
And there's the issue of the narration in general. The characters here take more on a passive role than an active role, as their actions are dependent on what is happening around them. It was definitely interesting to see how they would react to the things outside their control and how they would cope with it, but it definitely did not leave enough room for character development. Objectively, the characters were complex in their own ways. Laia wants to save her brother through the Resistance, and is forced to spy for them in order to convince them to help her. She is weak and admits it, but must gather her courage to help Darin. Elias, on the other hand, wants out of the vicious system, but is forced back by a mysterious third party in order to vie for the crown. He wants to make a change somehow but is chained by his duty and his friends who think differently. Subjectively, I just couldn't really care for them that much because of the lack of intimate internal narration. I mean, their POVs were so telling than showing, resulting to a narration that was flat and somehow simplistic... it isn't a surprise this is how it ended up for me.
One thing that I really, really, really liked though was the ending, because that was when the characters decided to do something for themselves rather than wait for things to happen to them, and it was fun (and intense) from then on out. Fair warning, however, this book is for now a standalone, and the ending does feel incomplete somehow. The problem by the end is not yet resolved, and there are hints that our two main characters will eventually do something about it, but a sequel is uncertain as of now, so... yeah. Just putting it out there.
OVERALL (a tl;dr if you didn't feel like reading my ramblings)
1.) The world-building is definitely lacking. The telling than showing style makes the setting a little blurry, which was a monumental disappointment.
2.) There is a fair amount of brutality here. While that's not really an issue in and of itself, the constant use of rape to set the tone in the story was problematic for me. Plus, its use as a plot device to move the story... no. That just didn't work for me.
3.) The characters have passive roles which really limited their development. Their actions are so dependent on the plot, and that fact that their stories were told in such a "telling than showing" style made the narration flat and the connection nonexistent.
4.) The ending was cool, though. Look forward to that, but it does end in a cliffhanger.
Although keep in mind that this is a single opinion only. If you look around, there are waves of positive reviews circling this book, so don't let my review discourage you from checking this out. Who knows, the things I mentioned wouldn't bother you as much and you'll end up loving it! :)...more
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