Review: Ash Princess

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

*This review was from 2018*

Noteworthy experiences while reading this book: I am a die-hard fantasy fan and this one hit it off early on.

Do I Recommend this book? YES if you love darker themed stories this one is for you!

Notes and Opinions: Color me sold with this very dark and dangerous fantasy. I think this one could have gone even darker but as it sits it was so amazing and I couldn't put it down. This one has it all magic, amazing characters, and some wonderful world building.

The world building to this one was great. We get a rundown of the magic and the gods in this world as well as a little backstory on what happened. I would love a prequel to this one about Theo's mom and her rule. Or even further back. The author did a fabulous job making this world come to life and I never felt that it was info dumping or confusing me.


The magic in this one was new (at least from what books I have read). I love reading about new creatures and new magic. So many authors just use the same old thing with a slight twist and this one didn't do that. The magic in this one was spot on and worked well. It was easy to follow but also still had that mystery surrounding it where you know that they don't know everything about their magic. It really made it feel vibrant, new, and amazing.

The characters in this one were great. I do think that this would have made a very good dual POV with Theo and Soren but as it sits it was still wonderful. I really loved Theo she was put into a situation where everything was her fault even though it wasn't. I don't think I would have been strong enough to be whipped again and again. She was strong and fierce and a survivor. I am excited to see what happens in book two Lady Smoke. As for the light love triangle (yes there is one) I really enjoyed it. It was done very well and I again can't wait to see what is going to happen with it. At the end of this book, you find something out about one of her loves. And I am very interested to see how that plays out.

At the end of this one, I think that this one overall could have been much darker. This being a higher young adult story I think that the author could have gone all out with the darkness and really make us readers scream. But as it sits I still really loved it. It was pretty much perfect in my eyes. It was still plenty dark and had such an amazing world. If you like darker stories this one is for you!

Go Into This One Knowing: Murder, Plots, Magic, Punishments (whipping), no cliffhanger, slight love triangle

*This review is from 2022*
Unfortunately 2018 to now my enjoyment of this story has died. I loved this one when I first read it but sadly revisiting this one again for bookclub this just wasn't as good. I know that our reading tastes evolve over time but this just makes me super sad.

This one made me so bored. I wanted to slap the MC so many times as she was droning on. She had no real emotions and I was just bored out of my mind. I did decide to keep at it until I made it to my normal 50 pages after I stopped and DNFed at 40 pages but still I just didn't care about the characters.

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