A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Reviewed by Katherine T.
Grade 9

A Torch Against The Night combines everything you would want in a YA Fantasy book: adventure, violence, twists and turns and even a little bit of romance. It is the second book in a series by author, Sabaa Tahir.

Since this is the second book in a series, it's probably better to explain the premise of the first book, An Ember In The Ashes. The novel follows the point of view of Laia and Elias. Laia is living in the Scholar community with her grandparents and older brother. When her brother is arrested for treason, she, in exchange for help rescuing from the prison he is being kept in, goes undercover as a slave in Blackcliff, an infamous military academy. Elias is the school's best soldier, yet, secretly, all he wants is to be free of the tyranny of the Empire, where the whole story takes place. A Torch Against The Night is the sequel to An Ember in the Ashes and added Helene to Elias and Laia's point of views. It picks up directly after the events of the first book, as Elias and Laia are making the difficult journey to break Laia's brother out of Kauf, the prison.

Although the first book drew a lot of similarities to other YA books (setting mainly being in a boarding school, trials to test the characters' aptitude to be a leader, two characters that should hate each other but
instead fall in love), the second book definitely branched off of that into a unique book that is worthy of the highest praise. Kauf, the prison Laia's brother is being kept in, reminded me of Azkaban in Harry Potter but not in a bad way. In addition, the characters became a lot more fleshed out in this book. They were a lot more relatable and although they didn't all always make the smartest decisions, you could see where they were coming from.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a page turner. Every chapter ends in a cliffhanger that kept me up extremely late one night, but I don't regret a moment of it. This book is definitely not for the
lighthearted or if you are booking for a lighter read, seeing as there is a lot of violence but if you into that then this is the book for you. The novel's setting is also a very attractive place, not because you'd want to
live there, but because it is interesting and unique. I am excited to see where this series goes from here.