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crowsent · 4 years

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Reaper At The Gates

Full disclosure, this book has 458 pages and I kinda cried on page 448 so this may or may not make sense because I am FUCKED UP right now. Page 448 has no goddamn diddly fucking RIGHT to be that emotional and Page 449 is fucking CRUEL. The page header. The fucking PAGE HEADER telling me which goddamn POV the chapter is in made my heart SAD and that shit should be illegal. Chapter LVIII had no fucking RIGHT and I’m suing for emotional trauma.

I am crying in the goddamn club right now. I am inundating this club with my tears and bringing about the second great flood because THIS FUCKING BOOK.

If you’ve been with me for ANY amount of time, you already know about this book because I started this book in the goddamn SUMMER of 2K19 and I only just finished today, on the day of our lord, February 10th 20 FUCKING 20. Took me a goddamn year to read this book and honestly?

Honestly I should have fucking finished this book earlier because HOLY SHIT.

The book is a rollercoaster that I got shoved on without a seatbelt or something to hold onto, then subsequently yeeted into a sea of emotions that hit me on the head like a fucking WARHAMMER. The author, Sabaa Tahir, is a goddamn sorceress. Her words are twists and turns and it is all I can do to hold on.

With every fibre of my being, from the pull of my muscles to the creaking of my very bones, I wish so so desperately to have copies of the first two books so I can experience them again. So I can start the journey all over again. So that when I read this FUCKING BOOK, everything is fresh on my mind.

It’s the third book in the Ember In The Ashes series and when I say that I am shooketh. This book swung for my goddamn kneecaps and went for my jugular.

It is painful.

Let me say this right fucking now that it is PAINFUL. The imagery is beautiful and brutal. The sentences are skillfully crafted knives that are thrown at me with precision. It is a thunderstorm that has long since been spotted but has yet to strike. Anticipation builds and builds and builds until you feel like you’re going to crack under the pressure. And then the storm comes. And you break.

This book is fucking painful. Characters I’ve loved, characters I saw laughing, crying, howling with hurt, characters that I’ve grown attached to, are subjected to so many things that I can’t help but feel for them. They are clay, Tahir is the sculptor, and I am the poor fool watching them get broken down to be molded again, hoping desperately that this time, this time, they’ll be fine.

It’s fucking painful.

And beautiful.

Because this book is a goddamn thunderstorm, and it finally struck. It set fires that burned down trees and houses, but lit up a dark night. These characters grow so much and I grow with them. My mind is constantly thinking with every page I turned, trying to find some comfort when the book offered me pain, trying to find the wounds when I am offered mercy.

The plot is strong. The characters are stronger. All three of the main leads are thoughtfully crafted. You can see into their minds when they speak. You can feel every beat of their heart when they act. You can hear their goddamn fucking souls crying out with every atrocity they face and witness and commit. And the villain? I pity him. I pity him and hate him and love him. The villain is not a force of pure evil. The villain is broken. And some part of me wants him to win. The side characters are no slouch either. That small snippet of Alistar made my breath hitch and my heart harden. And Alistar is one of the lesser side characters, not as prominent as Harper or Dex, but he was there and I was not okay. And Keris. Just. Keris.

And the best part is that ALL of the characters change. They grow, for better or worse.

I don’t think it’s for everyone because of its kind of sensitive content. War. Slavery. The brutality of mankind on full display. Pain and pain and pain with nothing to show for it. Failure and sadness and betrayal. Hurt that runs so deep it colours the soul. But if you can handle that kind of content, read it.

You kind of have to read the first two books, but the third one is worth it. The first two books are good, but this one is visceral. I felt empty when I finished, and I felt different when I finished. Not in any kind of profound way, mind you. This book didn’t change my life or anything, but it did change me.

It made me think of things a little bit too deep for my usual shitposting fuckall veneer. It made me think of life and death, of duty and sacrifice, of pain and love and of people. Not everyone is black and white. Even the darkest of souls, the most monstrous of monsters, the most ruthless, heartless, cruel, vicious beasts have some good in them. They can love and they can mourn. They can fight to the death for what they believe in. And even the kindest people, the ones with bright smiles and gentle hands, the ones who are sunlight on a dark day, can be capable of wickedness.

I don’t think about the duality of man that often. By that I mean never. On a subconscious, hidden part of me, I know that mankind is never black and white. Everyone is grey. Someone who hated you so deeply can love someone so much it aches. Someone you would bring the stars down for could be a hideous sinful creature. And this book brought that to the surface. It made me LOOK.

The series was always a little dark, but I underestimated how deep this cesspool of emotions ran. The line “Skies save me from the men in my life and all the things they think they know” did not, in any way, reveal just how much of a painful, beautiful, vicious thing this book was.

The prophecies made me wrack my head for an answer. And just when I think I have it in my grasp, something else gets revealed. “When the Butcher bows to the deepest love of all.” A love for kinsmen, for the Butcher’s people, for the Butcher’s family. And the Ghost? “The Ghost will fall, her flesh will wither.” When the meaning, the TRUE meaning of that line got revealed, I lost my shit. This book yall. This fucking book.

My only major gripe about it is how much it used the word “bleeding” as a swear word. Y’all call Keris “piece of shit human being” Veturia the Bitch of Blackcliff but y’all won’t let Laia of Serra say the word fuck? Okay. But we ain’t talking about that.

Fourth book is coming and boy fucking howdy I was not prepared for how much I want it. I want it so much I can’t put it into words. What I can put into words, somewhat, is how much I feel for THAT scene. You know. THAT scene. Spoilers for the three things that destroyed me the most emotionally below

What we are talking about, is Helene Aquilla. She deserved none of the shit that happened to her. My beautiful, beautiful daughter deserved none of the pain, none of the suffering, none of the tears and the worry and the strife she was given. My daughter deserves to be HAPPY goddammit. And what? First you subject her to emotional trauma by having Marcus torture her sister over and over. You poison Livvy and subject Helene to a terror so visceral and vicious that she blames herself for putting Livvy in danger even though it wasn’t her fault? You tease the Harper thing but then you take it away from her. Just like you take everything away from her.

How fucking dareth????? Helene deserves more than that??? Like the Harper/Helene ship has set sail and docked in the empty harbour of my heart. Their interactions are so goddamn GOOD and then you take everything away just like that. They kiss near the end of the book and all of a sudden, it’s gone. It’s nothing.

That moment in Navium? Where Helene was almost killed but saved at the last and final moment? The scene where Harper urges Helene to trust him, to let him carry some of her burdens, to allow Harper to see part of her. “Needing protection is not a weakness. Refusing to trust your allies is.” That quote ripped me the fuck apart. And I think it was this moment that the Helene/Harper ship truly and irrevocably burrowed within me. I will not let this go. I will, and I do not say this lightly, go down with this fucking ship. Even if it burns and drops into the bottom of the ocean as nothing but wasted wood, I will go down with this fucking ship because BRUH.

And Laia of Serra? First you have her captured. Then you have her see her people beaten over and over again. Then, and fucking THEN you have her discover her mother’s identity and the violence her mother has committed right before her meeting with Cook? You fucking do that shit?????? HELLO?????

That reveal destroyed me. Cook has been with us since the first book. She was something familiar. Amidst all the chaos and suffering, cook was the one single constant in the book. No matter how much the scene changed, or how the plot shifted, Cook was always there. Always present. And we learn that she is Laia’s mother. And THEN she fucking dies. And Laia has to live the rest of her life knowing that her mother had been so close to her, and she never noticed. Knowing that her mother died to protect her. Like nani the fucko was up with that??????

But you know what really hurts about Cook? What really hammers the rusty nail of pain inside my long-dead heart?

It’s the stutter.

For some goddamn fucking reason, when Cook said “You’re just like your f-f-f-fath-” I FELT that. Some part of me recoiled. I wanted to put the book down. Because while I knew that she killed her daughter and husband, I never had to actually KNOW that she killed her daughter and husband. That scene was impersonal. That scene was much like how Mirra of Serra snapped the necks of the people she loved. Quick. Painless. I did not know that she killed her daughter and husband because when that scene happened, Mirra of Serra was just putting them to sleep. But then she stuttered. “L-L-L-L-Lis.” “F-fath-fath” And she can’t say it. Because their deaths haunt them.

Because she killed them.

That was the moment it sank in for me. She is not Mirra of Serra. She is Cook. Because Mirra of Serra died with Lis. Because Mirra of Serra died with her husband. Because Mirra of Serra died long ago and this was the moment I realised it. “Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters,” Helene said. I fucking agree. Out of everyone in the cast, the world took the most from Cook. I will never get over that.

But you know the one thing that really destroyed me? The one thing that made me realise that this book IS merciless and this book WILL shoot for a killing blow?

LVIII

The penultimate chapter.

The bitch of a chapter that took what’s left of my heart, raw and bleeding from the miraculous escape and alliance in the previous chapter, and just shattered it. It squeezed my raw, vulnerable, bleeding heart until it was nothing but dust.

Look at the chapter title.

LVIII: The Soul Catcher

Not Elias. The Soul Catcher.

He’s not Elias anymore.

Elias is gone.

He’s just the Soul Catcher now.

#book review #reading ramble #ember in the ashes #crowsas reviews #ember quartet

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