![]() ![]() My only issue with this book is with Elias, or rather his transformation. I cannot say anything more than that without giving away spoilers, but Helene had the most unforgettable and profound growth of all three characters in this series and I absolutely loved reading about her journey. However, I had full faith in Sabaa Tahir as a writer, and I knew that this was only a build-up for incredible character growth.īecause at the end of A Reaper At The Gates, Sabaa Tahir literally flips the table on Helene. There’s no easy way to say this, up until the very end of A Reaper At The Gates, Helene is truly, revoltingly racist, and she refuses to acknowledge it even when her own friends suggest that she is crossing a line.Īs a person of color, reading from Helene’s perspective was painful for this reason. Helene is completely unfazed by the treatment of Scholars in her empire, and her only focus is securing the prosperity of her people even at the cost of the freedom and blood of others. On the exact opposite spectrum, we have Helene, who in this series accurately represents white privilege. Laia’s pain and fury at the treatment of her people is something any Muslim reader can also relate to. It was heartbreaking to see her love and despair for her people because it was painfully relatable too.Īs Sabaa Tahir herself is a Muslim author, I couldn’t help but recognize the parallels of the Scholar refugee crisis with the Palestinian and Syrian refugee crisis. Before, rescuing her brother was her only mission, but in A Reaper At The Gates we see her willingly step into a much bigger and more important role: to save her people, to put an end to the sufferings of the Scholar refugees. I loved watching Laia grow into a more confident, braver, and stronger woman. In the previous books, it was the interactions between Laia, Elias and Helene that drew me in, and the way their fates were intertwined was the greatest driving force for the plot of the series.īut in this book, with Laia on her own mission to save the Scholar refugees, Helene determined to secure the empire against Scholar rebels and Keris’s coupe, and Elias’s new responsibilities to guard the human world against the supernatural, we see our beloved heroes discover their own place in the grand schemes of destiny.Īnd Sabaa Tahir did an absolutely wonderful job of telling their stories. All of our beloved main characters have been bent and broken, and this third book is essentially their journey alone to forge their own destinies without one another. A Reaper At The Gates was a tough book to get into. On the other hand, Helene, after losing everyone in her family except for her sister, is on a dangerous downward spiral. Laia and Elias are finally back together, but Elias is now a Soul Catcher in training, which makes it challenging for him and Laia to work as a team against the Martial Empire and the Nightbringer himself. ~ Previous Books In The Ember Quartet Series ~Ī Reaper At The Gates picks up right after the events of its prequel. Check out my review of An Ember In The Ashes and also my review of A Torch Against The Night if you are still deciding whether this series is the right pick for you. The review below contains spoliers from the previous two books, so I highly recommend you read those first. ![]() Trigger Warnings: death, explicit murder, explicit violence, genocide (mentioned & explicit), torture, death of children, refugee crisis, mild sexual scenes (fade to black)
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