An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Rating: 5/5 stars
★★★★★

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir takes place in a brutal, dystopian-ish future where a girl named Laia witnesses her brother taken by the Empire, arrested for treason. Her goal is to find the Resistance, a group of Scholars that work against the Empire, and try to get them to help her save her brother. The other main character is Elias, one of the hand-picked masks for the Empire, trying to fight for what he believes in, even though that could very well get him killed.

Lots of spoilers in this review, because I'm full of emotions and have to talk about it. This is the only warning.
Laia becomes a slave, trying to get hold of the Commandant's information for the Resistance, which will in turn help save her brother from prison. Elias is trying to desert the Empire and all he's grown up with and lead a normal, violence-free life. Who would've guessed that their worlds would collide?

So the world building here was amazing. I love how brutal and horrifying this world is. Tahir did not hold back on the gruesome torture methods and lifestyle of the masks in general, and I loved every second of it. This is some scary stuff, and I would hate to be in a world like that, but I'm so glad these characters suffered through it for this story. Does that make sense? LOL

The romance was a bit weird here. I can't call it a love triangle, since there were like 4 people. I thought it was more like a love N. (You know you've been thinking about o-chem too much when you originally want to call it a butane.)

You see what I mean, though? Love N. The Love N was weird and I felt uncomfortable at some times (I really wasn't feeling Laia/Keenan) and so happy at other times (Elias/Helene all the way). I can really see the chemistry between Laia and Elias, and I'm sure much more will happen with them in the next book, so I'm not too upset that Elias left Helene to serve Marcus. (Okay, I'm actually very upset T_T)

The Trials weren't really that intense for me, and the fight between Helene in the (Fourth? Third?) Trial was pretty predictable for me. After the first Trial, I was 97% sure that he would be pit against Helene at some point. They cared about each other way too much for it to not become an obstacle later on. The last Trial honestly broke my heart. Elias broke my heart. He's just so sweet and pure. 

The writing. Oh my gosh. The writing style was beautiful and I found myself clinging on to every word. I absolutely loved Laia's parts and her thoughts and experiences were so amazing. Elias's parts had me less excited, but they were still wonderful. Laia also had a rougher story, and I'm all for characters being brutally broken and slowly put back together.

This whole story is amazing, and if you haven't read it already, you should definitely read it (if I haven't spoiled everything already).