An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir 
 Overall Rating - 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 
 Synopsis: The book follows two characters, Laia and Elias. Laia is a "Scholar" a nation enslaved by the Martials. Her family is killed and her brother captured by Martials and she agrees to spy for the resistance if they rescue her brother from imprisonment. 
 Elias is a Martial. He is in training at Blackcliff Military Academy to become a Mask and is about to graduate. A Mask is essentially a martial soilder, known for their ruthlessness. Elias doesn't agree with the treatment of Scholars and the ruthlessness of Masks and is planning on deserting. 
 Their paths collide when Laia is sent to spy at Blackcliffe for the Commandant, the most evil, cunning woman who has ever existed, who also happens to be Elias's mother. 
 What ensues is basically a hot mess of plot lines. 
 Review: I have mixed feelings about this book, and I feel that I may be the only person on that boat, but oh well. I found the first 1/4 of the book awful. I really wanted to put it down and never pick it back up again but I wanted to be able to review it and I thought I probably couldn't do that without finishing it. 
 For me there were three main problems: 
 1.	Language - I get that this book is probably targeted at people younger then me (Language wise, I would say the ideal age is early and mid teens), but I found the language so flat and boring. Sometimes it was so jilted to read and I hate when you're getting into a book and suddenly a sentence makes you stumble and really interrupts the flow. Another thing is I felt there were so many similes and metaphors used - there was just so much hyperbole I found myself rolling my eyes. I felt like so much of the book was telling instead of showing. My last complaint is that the names of places and races etc aren't very creative. The Scholars are into books, the Martials are into fighting, you get my point. I'm just being picky but Tahir could have literally called them anything. 
 2.	Characters - I like Elias. I think he has an interesting character and I like the challenges that he faces throughout the book and how he handles them. His negative is that he doesn't really have any negatives. I don't think he's really been given any proper flaws, which makes him a little two-dimensional at times. He has the typical Edward Cullen flaw, you know, Oh I'm so dangerous and lethal but I'm trying to fight it and be different. Laia, well I really kind of dislike her. I think that Tahir has gone the opposite with her and has tried to give her too many flaws. She's a coward, she's not very smart (spy wise), she's not like her brother, blah blah blah. The one thing I hate, and this has a spoiler but not a huge one, because its really obvious from the beginning anyway,(view spoiler)[ but Laia goes to the resistance and its leader is a guy called Mazen. Now he double crosses her in the end, and Laia seems to be really surprised by this. BUT all through the book everyone tells her not to trust him. Someone in the resistance dobbed in her parents to the bad guys, her grandparents tell her not to trust the resistance and then basically everyone close to a friend says not to trust him and then its also really obvious that she's being double crossed. (hide spoiler)] I just think it reflects badly on characters when the author makes a twist really obvious to the reader and then drags it out before the character figures it out. 
 3.	Plot - This book actually had a lot of interesting plot lines. LOTS and LOTS of plot lines and maybe ONE of them is resolved in the end. When the book ended I was actually like, what the hell, because I read somewhere that it was a stand alone novel. I have now been corrected and know it is a series but I think its important in a series to make sure that the books all have individual plot lines that get resolved as well as a common plot line throughout them all. There is just so much of the book that you don't know about - the Commandant and her nighttime visitor (nothing ends up happening), Laia getting her brother out (nothing ends up happening), why all this magic is suddenly alive (nothing ends up happening), the role the Commandant plays in the Resistance (nothing ends up happening). 
 Anyway, I enjoyed the book and I'll probably read the next one. I just felt like it didn't quite reach its potential. 
 I think a better example of the same kind of thing is Throne of Glass.