A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir Review

 Hello everybody! 

Today I am happy to say that I will be reviewing A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir.

I wanted to finish this book before my classes started up for Spring semester and I am happy to say that I did! Today is the first day of classes and I finished it last night at 11 PM. 

There will be a spoiler section and a non-spoiler section!

THIS IS THE NON SPOILER SECTION

It took me a bit longer to read it than I wanted to and that was partly because of the craziness of moving back into school and classes starting and leaving home, but the other part of it was the fact that I read the first two books in this series years ago and I did not remember much about it. I could only remember vague details but not all of the overarching story. I did look up summaries so that helped and in the end I still enjoyed the book. In the beginning, I felt like there wasn't much happening, but really what it was was that Tahir was setting us up for the rest of the story and it needed to be that way. There weren't as many crazy twists and turns as I feel there usually are but as always, Sabaa Tahir's writing was beautiful. The relationship between characters was so dynamic and I loved it. I loved the addition of Musa I thought he was a good character to have. I think the ending led up well to having another book and it left enough things unanswered that I can be interested in picking up the next one soon as it came out just at the end of last year. All in all, I think it was a good book. I don't think I got that feeling that goes deep into your chest like "Oh my goodness this is the best book ever!" but I did really enjoy it and there were some really crazy parts where I actually felt emotional for the characters. 

THIS IS THE SPOILER SECTION

First up, I thought that the evolution of Elias into the Soul Catcher was great. He definitely needed to have those experiences in order to learn how to truly become one with Mauth and that was to let go with the entire mortal world and all that he loves. It hurt, I am not gonna say it didn't. When he had to blow off Laia and there was the internal struggle dialogue, I was screaming in my head at that moment. But I think it was done so well and it was made so interesting. In the end I thought it was awesome that at the title page, instead of saying Elias, it said Soul Catcher, really showing that he had a full transformation into the Soul Catcher and he left his old life behind. 

Second, I did not see the plot twist with Cook being Laia's mom as well as what she did in Kauf Prison. I am not sure if it is just because I haven't read the other books in so long, or if it came as a surprise to everybody else. It definitely makes sense. Like of course it makes sense. I guess I just wasn't expecting it. It didn't completely blow me away but it took me aback and I thought it was cool that Tabir had done it through the Nightbringer. I didn't, however, like how distant she became to Laia afterwards. I just wanted them to love each other. 

END

Well that is the ned of my review, I hope you guys liked it. As for a rating, I think I'm gonna give it a 3.75 out of 5 yellow roses. I really liked it but it didn't blow me away. 

Thanks for reading,

Delaney