Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Rate: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🎶Song for Book
"One" by Mary J Blige
📚Favorite Quotes
" You are broken. But it is broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is broken things that are the most unexpected and the most underestimated.
" I wish I could love you a thousand lives so ao could fall in love with you a thousand times.
" Where there is life, there is hope."
👩🏾🏫 My review
I wait three 3 years to start this book - I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the characters. However, this was an absolutely stunning ending of amazing series. This book explored and showed how power, greed, vengeance, grief, hurt, trauma, anger, and hopefulness could destory a people, a land, and the world. So many parts to this story reminded me of current events today. Maybe I am extrapolating things, but war is the same no matter where or written-- loss of life is guaranteed. Yet, hope, love, and mercy remained.
Sabaa Tahir makes you feel so many emotions for the characters, even the villains. I started to feel for Meherya and even Keris as they both endured pain and commitment to outstanding crimes. It was like the saying goes, " Hurt to people, hurt people."
It opened and allowed me to reflect on forgiveness, healing, and comfort after trauma. I finish that book with a clear understanding of the nuances of why hope is crucial - because it gives us the drive to live, to do, and to love with all your heart.
Though so much death occurred in the book, broken families, love lost--- I was happy Helen Aquilla, Elias Ventrius, and Laia of Serra survived together. What an ending to amazing series.
💜What I loved
● Pacing
●Fighting scene
●High stakes
●The imagery of Mercy ( Rehmat)
● Lessons of Hope and Love
●The return of the Lioness
●Healing
If you haven't read Sabaa Tahir's master piece quartet, " An Ember in the Ashes," you are missing out on an amazing story.
#United
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Violence, War
This started out a little slow for my taste, but every scene felt necessary. Everything after 80% of the book was an emotional rollercoaster. I cried when certain characters died and cried again when their souls crossed over. Any book that makes me cry gets a high rating from me. The end gave me all the closure I wanted and I loved it. What an adventure this series has been. I'm sad to say goodbye but it feels right.
Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Sexual content
Graphic: Child death, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Cursing, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, Death of parent
Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Hate crime, Infidelity, Misogyny, Abandonment
In conclusion, all of the books were really good, but in the end it was just too much high fantasy for me and things just got crazier and crazier. Also I wasn't as touched by the characters pain as I should've been. I didn't really care about Elias and Laias realationship and I didn't love them as characters either. I did like Helen though, but her love story with Avatas wasn't as well written as it could've been. It had potential, but I feel like it was wasted. There is A LOT of plot, but pretty high fantasy and not that down to earth as the first book.
The first book is amazing and will always stay at 5 stars, but it really just went downhill after that, at least for my taste. The only character I actually cared about was Helen and maybe also Avatas, but sadly we didn't get to know that much about him.
Wouldn't call this series a time waste, but it wasn't the story I would've expected after the first book.
Moderate: Child death, Death, Murder
Minor: Homophobia, Sexism, Violence, War
Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Murder, War
Minor: Child death
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Violence, Grief, Murder, War
Moderate: Sexual content
Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Death, Violence, Grief, Murder, War
Moderate: Misogyny, Blood, Classism
Minor: Child death, Vomit, Abandonment
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Child death, Death, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Slavery