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Title: A Torch Against the Night Author: Sabaa Tahir
Published On: August 30, 2016
Started Reading On: July 5, 2018 Finished On: July 7, 2018
Average Star Rating: 4.34 out of 5 stars My Star Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
My Thoughts (Spoilers)
This book starts off where the first one ends, with Elias and Laia running for their lives trying to escape the Empire. And it was the definition of fast paced, jumping head first into the story, and was constantly keeping you on your toes.
This story was not a bridge between the first book and the third, and upon rereading the book, I picked up on so many things. Like the hints leading up to (huge spoiler) Keenan being revealed to be the Nightbringer, and everything about it makes it seem very well connected.
Elias' story is always going to be one of my favourite parts of this story. Him being poisoned by his mother and seeing him go through having to watch his adoptive family give themselves up to protect him. I just love seeing him being willing to do anything to complete his promises, even on his death bed. He is honestly such a good person and I hate seeing other characters attack him because of it.
On the topic of characters, Helene really starts to stand out and be interesting and you can understand her better while reading this book. While Elias and Laia starts out being narrators, you see what goes on in their heads and their history, so getting to see that with Helene makes it easier to connect with her and for her to seem more human and less monstrous like the Commandant tends to be seen as. I am so excited to see how things are gearing up to lead, with her joining the narrators.
Laia is growing so much throughout this story, and you can see her being such a dynamic character just from thinking about how she was at the beginning of the first book in comparison with the end of the second book, and from what I can see this is going to be a four book series, so things are really going to be getting interesting with Laia. Also we get to see Laia learn how to be a leader and learn from her mistakes, and figures out how to grow and learns to figures how to do things.
Back to Elias because as I said, I love his story, I am so excited to see more with the Soul Catcher being part of his life. Because he died and did so much and god I just and so excited to learn more about the dead and the jinn.
“Your emotions make you human. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. Don't lock them away. If you ignore them, they just get louder and angrier.”
“Failure doesn't define you. It's what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.”
“It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.”