Spoilers for A Curse For True Love by Stephanie Garber
Why was this one of the worst books I have ever read? It's definitely the worst series finale. I’m too disappointed to even be mad. I’m being so generous with the rating.
I think this whole series is a perfect example of when an author has one good character that they really like, but doesn’t know what to do with them.
I’ve said in other reviews how much Jacks has stood out as a character in Garber’s books all the way back to Legendary. He’s an interesting character and was consistently more developed than any of the other characters. That isn’t enough to carry a whole three book series, though.
I read all the spoilers and discussions on this book before I finished it because it was just dragging on and we were given more questions than answers. I skimmed a lot of this and pretty much only read the dialogue because half of this book was just a recap of the previous two books. I can see why that might not be that jarring if you’d been waiting a year for this to come out, but I’ve been reading this series back to back. Someone on Reddit mentioned that all the recaps might have been to get the word count up and I think that’s very accurate, especially considering how short this was overall.
Apparently Garber turned off her insta comments at some point because of all the criticism? It would have been a DNF if I wasn’t still hoping for a glimpse of the Jacks we knew in Caraval. I also thought maybe it would be worth it when they got together but that was disappointing, too. We got like five pages.
I knew there was no hope when in the last quarter of the book, she introduced the storyline of Jacks giving up his heart. That’s not a storyline you should throw in at the end of a book. It was so incredibly rushed and then Aurora turns up saying Jacks beat her up and stole his heart back. That should have been a much bigger plotline. As I have said about a lot of recent books, how did this make it past an editor??? What’s going on in the publishing industry right now?
And where is Luc? Marisol?? Was there not more to Evangeline’s parents’ death? Is Castor going to keep going on killing sprees? Is Jacks now mortal since he’s in love? Where has Aurora gone off to? Why were the apples different colours? So many unanswered questions. This was all most likely set up for a spin-off series, but I will no longer be investing my time in an author who was happy to publish such a lazy book after knowing how big of a fanbase she had.
I really don’t get the point of the Valors. If this series was just set up for the Valors to get their own series in the future, it barely did a good job at that. I also feel like Apollo kept being forced into the series. It’s not like this is a TV show where the actor for Jacks had other commitments and they had to fill up screen time with Apollo. There was fully no need for him to have such a big part in this book. I can't imagine many people who read the first two books thinking 'I would really love the third book to focus on Appollo and his POV' so why was that even a thing? Evangeline was so unnaturally attached to him just to keep him a part of the plot. It got very tiring. He has barely any depth. Why was he in so much of this book? The author knows we’re mostly all reading this series for Evangeline and Jacks so why would she make the final book focus so much on Apollo and barely on any parts with Jacks? It was very lazy overall. Maybe because she knew that since the anticipation was so high for this final book, it would sell regardless? I guess you can go out with a bang or just go out with bank.
And to add to that, if it just wasn’t the right time for her to write it, then maybe don’t write it until you’re ready. She had this great legacy with her previous books and then we get this. Does anyone remember Michelle Hodkin, the author of the Mara Dyer books? She never released the last book of the sequel series and just disappeared off the internet. I don’t know if that was perhaps a better option than writing a lazy book like this.
Spoilers for The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber
I can’t believe that THIS was the book that made me go into a reading slump after a full year. Even the audiobook was boring, until the second half, and then I loved it. There's a lot of pacing issues. I couldn’t put it down from around Chapter 18 onwards, but before that, boring. I think it took me over a month to finish this.
I don't really care for Evangeline. I don’t know what it is specifically, but I had to skim so many parts of her inner dialogue. This was the first time I’ve ever had to skim parts of a book. The story itself isn’t boring but there’s just so many detours. I wanted to know the story without going through all the inner rambling. Jacks was also boring in this, which is a shame because he really has so much potential as a character. He just felt like a tour guide for parts of this book. Or like the rabbit in alice in wonderland who pops up to put alice on the right path. He was very repetitive and predictable. There were barely any layers to his characters. I found Jacks so interesting in Caraval. He was bland in this book in comparison.
To be honest, I think I only enjoyed the second half because we got some EvaJacks fluff. Basically fanfiction vibes. It was somewhat childish, but with some mature plot points. A very odd mix that didn’t work for me.
As always, I love the dresses and the fashion overall. Stephanie Garber needs to release a line of dresses ASAP.
I do find it odd that the Caraval game isn't mentioned at all. I know they’re separate series, but it was portrayed as this really big annual event so I was expecting at least a reference. Unless it’s just not a thing in the North?
I don't have much else to say about this. The second half is very good, but it's a drag for the first half.
Spoilers for Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber
I liked this, but didn’t love it as much as Caraval, and I think it’s fair to compare the two series since the story is connected and this was written after Caraval, so I expected better writing. I really did want to love this, especially after how much I liked Jacks in Legendary and Finale, but it fell a bit flat.
The plot was all over the place, but it wasn’t necessarily obvious at first. I only realised how ridiculous parts of it were when I tried to explain to the vampire arc to a friend. It felt like it was trying to make fun of itself at times, but it wasn't always executed well. I liked when Luc said his scars weren't 'sexy scars' and Jacks acknowledged the ridiculousness of that. As messy as the plot is, it wasn’t awful. It’s as if because the whole thing is messy, nothing stood out as messy until you pinpoint a specific plot line. I do really like that this book exists in general because it’s a very unique universe. It’s not overwhelming with magic and the atmosphere of the world that it’s set in is very creative.
However, I think I would have given this book 3 stars if I hadn’t read Caraval first. I actually don’t know if I’d even want to read the second book, but I know Garber can be a good writer when she wants to be because I’ve seen it in parts of Caraval, so I’ll give the next one a chance. The world building just wasn’t that strong in this series so I don’t think I’d be invested at all if I didn’t already know what the world was like.
The story also jumped from location to location a lot, and that’s fine when it’s done well and it worked in Caraval, but it didn’t work here. Again, it wasn’t awful but it could be so much better.
I just saw no reason to be hooked into this plot. I like Jacks as a character and I’ve said before that it’s very obvious that he is Garber’s favorite because of how much more developed he is than the other characters. Evangeline balanced that out a bit, but there’s still a lack of developed characters. Apollo is basically non-existent. We have no clue who that man is yet. I imagine Chaos will be a bigger part of the next two books because of how much more developed he was than anyone else besides Jacks and Evangeline.
Overall, I liked it but I don't think it's a book that I'll be reading again. The cover is beautiful, though.
Spoilers for the first book in the Caraval series by Stephanie Garber.
I loved this book!!!
However, the more I think about it, the lower I want to rate it. You really do have to enjoy it on the surface, so I’m not going to it pick it apart as much as I’d like to here (and yet, somehow this still ended up being super long...). Quality wise, it’s a 4 star book at best, maybe even 3.5, but I had so much fun reading it.
I’ve seen a lot of criticism for this book and admittedly, I did go into it biased and expected to DNF but I thought this was amazing. When I say ‘amazing,’ I mean I really enjoyed reading it, not that the actual story and writing were amazing. It was good from page 1 and I read 1/3 the first time I opened it. I didn’t feel like I was waiting for it to pick up, because the pacing was consistent throughout. It’s fantasy, but in its own category. It’s kind of like a combination of the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and a bit of Coraline. Maybe a little Now You See Me. Whatever it is, I want more.
Here’s an example of why you should take this book on the surface and not think about: while writing this, I remembered that Caraval was meant to be a competition, but the plot didn’t acknowledge that. We were constantly told that Caraval was a game AND a competition, but we barely saw how any of the other players were progressing. The other players were so irrelevant that it really would have made no difference to the story whatsoever if they weren’t there. Not sure how an editor didn’t pick up on this. I think the publishing house is either Macmillan or Hachette, so what happened here? I’ve noticed that a lot of popular fantasy books recently have poor writing/plot holes and most of the time, they’re backed by one of these big publishing houses. I want quality > quantity to come back. You could argue that because this specific run of the game was designed for Scarlett to win, she never had any competition, but the point is that Scarlett didn’t know that. As readers, we also didn’t know that. It’s lazy to write that it’s a competition and have other players at the start to make us intrigued, just to later not do anything with it. The closest we got was when everyone was in Tella's room at the start.
The plot twists were interesting. I felt like it was incredibly obvious from the start that Julian was Legend, then he was, and then he wasn’t. But we still don’t actually know who Legend is, so we’re left wondering if he could still be revealed as Legend in the next book. A very interesting tactic from Garber and perhaps even a dig at current popular fantasy books where so many times, it feels like the author is treating the reader as someone who is not intelligent. Looking at you, Jennifer L. Armentrout.
Most of the criticism that I’ve come across is about the world building and how it’s basically non-existent. I disagree, I think this was a very immersive universe and a very unique one in YA, especially for the length of the book. Of course, if we compare this to current popular fantasy books with faeries and politics, then yes, the world building does not have the same level of detail in the sense that we don’t know what’s going on on a global scale, but Caraval doesn’t need that. So much of Caraval’s story relies on interpretation and mystery. More details would have taken away from that. This book is more about the characters and the game. Knowing the history of the world in Caraval wasn’t as necessary as knowing the history of the game. We were given what we needed and there’s a lot of fantasy series now with world building that is far too convoluted to get through, so this was a nice change.
This might be an unpopular opinion (update: it’s not) but I really wanted Legend to be the main love interest, and still do. Or at least for Julian to have been Legend the whole time. The way Legend was portrayed throughout the book and all the mystery surrounding him was intriguing, and I found Julian and Scarlett a bit odd since Scarlett was under the impression that Julian had also been with Tella. None of her inner dialogue acknowledged that, though. Her main reason was always the fact that she was engaged to a stranger, and never ‘my sister has hooked up with this guy.’
I didn’t notice this until after I finished Caraval, but there’s actually only two somewhat developed characters. Everyone except Scarlett and Julian were just extras with a few lines. Dante was somewhere in between, but then he died halfway through and we didn’t see much of him. Tella’s character became prominent only towards the end, which I suspect was only for the sake of writing a sequel, as Caraval was originally meant to be a standalone. For any other series, I’d consider this a really big negative, but Caraval’s focus is the game and the idea of Legend. There’s also a big theme of unfamiliarity and having no idea who Scarlett can trust, so for this specific series, it works.
Scarlett is not very interesting, but I didn’t dislike her. I felt the same way about Poppy from the Blood and Ash series, in the way that she felt like a lens for us to see the plot unfold, rather than her own character. Writing developed characters is not something that Garber does well or at all in this book, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. I really just cared about the plot and finding out about Caraval’s intentions and Legend. Julian was also inconsistent, but I think that was meant to come across as unpredictable and mysterious. I feel like he’s still not entirely done with lying. I’m still waiting for him to end up being Legend.
The ending was underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time. Overwhelming because too much happened very rapidly with not enough explanation, and underwhelming because what did happen didn’t really seem worthy of the nearly 400 page build up. I kept waiting for another twist that made more sense. Again, I personally enjoyed it regardless, but I can acknowledge that it didn’t fit perfectly. I don't know if it gets cleared up in book two, but it was still a rushed ending. Since Caraval was originally written to be a standalone, it makes a lot more sense. I wonder if the intention was for us to never meet Legend at all. I actually think Caraval as a standalone story would have worked well, if not better.
Also, I don’t think Scarlett ate anything for the entirety of the game. I feel like there should have been at least one scene where she would be skeptical to have anything on Caraval since we know the food and drinks can have effects.
This is a book that I would love to see as a film or TV show adaptation. I might even enjoy it just as much as through a visual medium. As pretty as all the writing makes the settings out to be, I was a tiny bit bored of continuously reading descriptions towards the end of the book. As many have said, there is a lot of purple prose and some of the sentences might make you do a double take, but it’s not unbearable. It could definitely benefit from another round of editing, especially at the start, but once you get used to it, it’s fine (it definitely improves in the sequels). Reminds me of an old joke about English teachers and how they’ll tell you that blue curtains symbolise the characters’ depression and whatnot, when the author just meant that the curtains are blue. I feel like someone should tell Garber that sometimes, it’s okay for the curtains to just be blue. On the other hand, Caraval wouldn’t be Caraval without all the weird and wonderful settings, so it’s not that I want less description, but maybe striking a balance between comparing feelings to colours and describing colourful settings would make this perfect.
Honorary shoutout to the following sentences:
-“Scarlett had an emerald-green premonition that she would make a discovery inside.”
-“It tasted like the moment before night gives birth to morning.”
-“He tasted like midnight and wind, and shades of rich brown and light blue.”
All the vivid imagery made me want to make a very 2014 tumblr vibe playlist:
Young and Beautiful - Lana Del Rey
The Poison - The All-American Rejects
Wonderland - Taylor Swift
The Greatest Show - The Greatest Showman soundtrack
Spoilers for the first book in the Blood and Ash series*
I cannot start this review with anything other than how bad the audiobook is. This is an incredibly slow book for about 250/300 pages, as lots of fantasy series tend to be, so I wanted to get the world building over with on the audiobook. I could not continue listening to the narrator after the first few chapters. Hawke’s voice and accent combination is the worst thing I have ever heard and I can’t believe there was no one else who could have narrated this. Give me a microphone at this point... It’s like she was purposely trying to make it sound bad. I don’t know her name but I refuse to believe that she is not Jennifer L. Armentrout’s biggest hater.
Hawke is a relatively sexy character and maybe a little bit like ACOTAR’s Rhys, but this narrator completely ruined him for me. I can’t even read the books without hearing that stupid voice she gave him. I won’t even digress about every time she says ‘Oh my Gods…’ but I do like that this story eventually acknowledges the Gods that it’s referring to.
The world building was dragged out and I was very bored until around 50% in. I didn’t love that the book immediately jumped into spice; it gave me the impression that this series was just going to be porn with a weak plot, but I was somewhat wrong. Not entirely wrong, but the plot was stronger than I expected.
Then there’s the bad writing. The story is okay after chapter 15, but the bad writing outweighs it. I was constantly aware that I was reading, especially during the dialogue. It didn’t flow naturally and felt really forced. As many others have said, this book would have benefited from a good editor. Get Grammarly on this at the very least. The dialogue reminded me more of a TV show script where they quickly refer to/recap a previous episode since viewers might have forgotten. In this book, the dialogue sometimes referred to things that happened only a few pages or even sentences ago. I wanted to know what would happen, but I didn’t want to actually read it because the writing was really dull. The publisher is Simon & Schuster, by the way. Not sure how this met any standards of such a big publisher. Update: I've since seen a few people say that JLA doesn't have an editor at all? That should have told me all I needed to know before even starting this series.
Poppy was boring. She felt less like a character and more like a device for us to see the story unfold. Of course, every character has that purpose to some extent, but the only interesting thing about her is that she is the Maiden, and we still don’t even fully know what that means. I’m far more interested in the other characters.
I thought Hawke was probably the Dark One after he made out with Poppy, otherwise he would just be really bad at his job as a guard. I was even more convinced after the Duke was stabbed with a cane right after. It seemed too obvious. Poppy is a very dumb character and I think the purpose was for readers to maybe relate to her? No clue. I could probably justify this partially by house secluded she is from other people, but the cane in the Duke’s chest right after her and Hawke made out was too obvious. Not sure how she didn’t pick that up in any part of her endless inner monologue. There's a big thing now about author's treating readers as if they're dumb and it was very clear in this book. I've also mentioned before that I don't base my reviews off of who authors are as people and I haven't, but if you feel like doing a deep dive into JLA's interactions with her readers, she does indeed think we are all dumb.
This isn’t a bad book, but it’s not good either, in my opinion. There really wasn’t that much plot. It’s just a bunch of repetitive inner dialogue with maybe 100 pages of things actually happening. I was so ready for this to be my next obsession, but it just wasn't for me.
Update: Tried reading the second book but it was just too boring. DNF at 12%.
Nothing really happened until like 65% in. This was only a tiny bit better than the first book, but only because it doesn’t try to shove 50 plot lines into less than 400 pages. In fact, where book one had too much going on, mostly nothing happens in book two. There was such a good opportunity to have split the plot between the two.
The plot twist at the end was really good, but that was really the only part that I enjoyed. Although, the way Cardan phrased the part about the exile being able to be ended by the Crown sounded like Jude herself could end her exile since she was queen? Seems to be too obvious if that’s the case.
The writing is definitely better. Jude has become much more of a consistently written character and the plot flows a lot smoother now. I don’t necessarily like her much but I do enjoy reading about her. It’s nice to stray from the damsel in distress stereotype that we see so much in YA.
Special shoutout to the random Yuri On Ice mention. Not sure what that was about, but always happy to see it mentioned.
Spoilers for the first book in the Folk of the Air trilogy.
The Cruel Prince cares about the destination and not at all about the journey. It’s hard to rate it overall because some parts were 2 stars and others were nearly 5. Let’s settle on 3.5.
I feel like I'm not allowed to dislike this book. |'ve briefly touched upon how I didn't love it on Reddit and there are definitely lots of loyal fans who will die on the hill that this is the best book to ever exist. As with all of my reviews, my opinions are exactly that. Mine. I really did want to love this and I'm very happy i read it once in my life, but it fell short.
I had heard such great things about this book, but I just found it too childish. It was too ‘girl falls for her high school bully.’ I was expecting more after hearing about this series for years. I did keep reading, though, because I met Holly Black at a signing with Cassandra Clare a few years ago and she was very nice.
It got better around 200 pages in. Since it's only 370 pages, it shouldn’t take like 60% of the book for things to pick up, in my opinion. The only character I found interesting was Madoc for most of the book. It’s not that he’s necessarily interesting, just the best of the worst. I really didn’t like the whole Shadow squad or whatever they were called. Every time they’d interact with anyone or each other was just written awkwardly.
Many plot points were incredibly underdeveloped. Why did the Prince randomly appoint her as a spy and send her on a mission without any training? This was so casually skipped over. He fully just sent her into Balekin’s house and she casually walked in and out. And how does Jude get away with it for so long without being caught? This wasn’t a case of something ‘bad’ being normalised in Faerie and is casually written because it's normal in that universe; this was the crown prince appointing a human with no experience to be his spy. This book as a whole seemed rushed. Lots of significant things happen and big decisions are made, and then skipped over as if they were descriptions of the weather. This was especially apparent during and after the coronation. It was like the writing was trying to catch up with the plot. It read like those old Wattpad fics where the mom would sell the main character to One Direction, and then the way it was written was as if it was a very common occurrence to sell your child to a boy band. It’s apparently quite normal for your adoptive father to stage a coup. And for your twin sister to knowingly let you date her fiancé. And for the crown prince to come and ask you to be a spy as a teen with no training. ‘I guess I live with One Direction now. Anyway, what should I wear for my first dinner with them?’ Like… go back and expand on what just happened. Develop the plot. Develop the feelings about the situation.
The random piece of paper with Jude's name on it was weird and didn't really get acknowledged as much as it should have (in the rest of the series, too). Like why was Cardan just writing her name over and over? Ick.
I couldn’t decide if Jude was really stupid or really smart. She’s been through a lot and can clearly stand up for herself, and she’s not a generally dumb character, but then she spent five minutes alone with Carden in Dain’s office and suddenly we get this line: “Maybe I wasn’t fighting Carden at all. Maybe I’ve been fighting my own shadow.” Girl, please get a grip. This guy bullies her and then gaslights her, and then they start making out!!! Carden literally cannot lie and said that he is disgusted with himself for thinking of her, and her response is to kiss him.
The worst thing about all of this for me is how Carden doesn’t even make a good attempt at justifying his previous actions. He’s all like ‘I hate you because I can’t stop thinking about you and it’s disgusting’ and she’s like ‘okay, no worries, I’ll make that make sense.’ Then while he’s touching her up, she knows that he’s going slow because “he doesn’t want to want this” but everything we’ve been told about her character so far is that she’s not the type of character to put up with this. It didn’t make sense to me. Her attraction to him isn’t really explained. The story doesn’t flow and it reads like an early draft or a very late one where she had to meet a low word count but didn’t end to cut any plot. The only reason I can think of to justify this sudden nonsensical thing between Carden and Jude is that perhaps they are mated and we’ll find this out in later books, if such a bond even exists in this universe. I have low hopes for this, though, and I think it’s just a result of bad plot development. I get that she was also trying to punish him for wanting her, but it wasn't written well.
Jude is the most inconsistently written character that I have ever read about. Jude falling for Locke was so sudden and incredibly underdeveloped. How was she entrusted to be a spy when she couldn’t even see Locke’s red flags? He literally spelled it out for her multiple times. I got the ick when he said he wanted to “compose an ode” for her. It was also very random when Jude challenged Taryn to a duel. I understand the reason for it, but that seemed out of character for her until that point. There’s a difference between an unpredictable character and an inconsistent one. She doesn’t feel like her own character to me, rather, a plot device to make sure the story plays out the way the author wants it to and I think that’s lazy. Having a fast paced plot is not always a good thing. I would have rather read a developed story of this same length that ended at the coronation and then picked up in a second book.
I'm disappointed that nothing more was done with the tournament. A few books from around the same time that this was published have done this thing where they introduced some sort of contest and then they don't actually do anything with it. I assume it will come up in the later books, otherwise, it was not entirely necessary.
Something that was made obvious is that Holly Black does not like writing travel scenes. I have a very unclear idea of how far places are from each other because Jude would just say she was going somewhere and then she'd just be there. This doesn't affect the story, but it does impact the world building.
To be entirely fair, most of the books I’ve read in the past five months have been between 600-800 pages so maybe I’ve gotten used to stories being a little more dragged out. I don’t think that’s the only reason I felt that this book was rushed, but maybe I’m being more harsh. I think this whole series adds up to about 1000 pages and I’m unintentionally holding previously read longer books as a standard. Either way, this book would have benefitted from at least 70 more pages of smoothing out the development of the plot and characters. It felt clunky, for lack of a better word.
The writing itself is not bad, but it isn’t a style I personally enjoy reading. I had a similar issue with the Raven Boys series and also Neil Gaiman. They are not bad writing styles, but they’re not for me.
The high school bully thing is just a very juvenile trope in my opinion. Obviously this is a YA book, but it deals with mature themes, so the target audience is very specific. When I was at the age when I would enjoy these high school settings, I wouldn’t have completely understood the political themes. This point isn’t a criticism of the book, necessarily, just part of why I personally wasn’t as invested. As for all the political stuff, it was a stronger aspect of the book, but still underdeveloped. There was so much potential for this book to be amazing if it had just been a little less rushed. There was too much happening for a story of this length. The plot of this book alone could have been a duology.
What a beautiful story. I have nothing bad to say about this book. This might actually be the first time.
This is the sixth book I’ve read this year that was over 800 pages, but this is the first one that didn’t feel like it. It was perfectly paced and the plot didn’t feel overly complicated at any point. With books this long, the characters or plot or both can sometimes feel tedious, but this was so good.
I thought I might find this series too childish, but I didn’t at all. It’s a great story that didn’t rely on shock value through random and underdeveloped plot twists, as many YA books tend to do these days. I really like how she introduced characters throughout this series. For example, we met Thorne in book 2, and then he ends up being the main love interest in book 3, similar to how we met Jacin in book 3 and he’s a main character in book 4. They were subtle introductions where we could form opinions on the characters prior to knowing that they were love interests. I would give this book 5 stars just for this alone.
I immediately noticed from Chapter 1 that we are getting more detailed descriptions of surroundings. I’ve found Meyer to be an author who mostly relies on dialogue, which I personally prefer, as some authors tend to overdo it with the descriptions (Sarah J Maas' interior design book aka Tower of Dawn). Meyer strikes a great balance of both in this book. I often find with YA series that quality of writing tends to decrease as the series goes on and publishers rush things, but this was the complete opposite. I enjoyed Winter as much as Cinder and Cress, and much more than Scarlet.
In YA, authors tend to simplify wars. Often, huge wars happen and they end in a matter of days. That is not entirely realistic (not that fantasy has to be realistic, but this specifically tends to be skipped over lazily). Of course, wars can and have ended in a matter of days in real life, but that’s very uncommon. Here, Meyer maintained that battle element, while also not turning into a full on war, so that she could end the actual battle in one night. This is also beneficial for us as readers because action scenes in YA are not always popular, especially when they’re only introduced in the final book of the series. The main fight in this book was contained to one night and it was on a smaller scale, so it remained more realistic while also not adding a bunch of action scenes. My expectations were low in this regard, so I was expecting for there to be a huge war between Luna and Earth contained into this one book, bur Meyer made the right decision in not doing that.
The ending was perfectly done. I would like to read more books about the characters lives following the events of Winter, but I don’t absolutely need it. (Update: I've since seen that Meyer has written non-canon short stories in this world. This is the best way to do it for this ending. Veronica Roth should take notes). The ending didn’t leave any obvious unanswered questions, in my opinion. It was a very well written story from start to finish. Even though I didn’t enjoy Scarlet, I can appreciate that it was a good story that tied into the rest of the series well and Scarlet as a character became very likeable in this final book.
The length of this book is interesting because it’s more than twice as long as the previous books in this series. I wonder if this was for contractual reasons or if she just wanted to keep the theme of naming each book after a different character, and didn’t want to ruin that by separating this story and making it a 5 book series or introducing a fifth fairytale.
My favorite aspect of this book and this series as a whole is how Meyer integrated all the stories, while still maintaining their importance as independent characters. Perhaps this applies slightly less to Wolf (and Scarlet until the second half of Winter). With this many main characters, it would have been easy for some of them to get lost in the background, but it was very well executed here.
Overall, this entire plot was so unique. This is a take on fairytale retellings that will be very hard to beat. I can’t understand why this series is not more popular than it is. It would also be such an amazing TV show, although expensive. I hope this story gets the recognition it deserves one day. I’m really going to miss these wonderful characters, even Wolf
My favorite book in this series so far! I think. I found Scarlet boring so maybe this was just a nice change. Thorne and Cress are a great pair, and there was very little of Wolf and Scarlet in this, thankfully.
I can’t believe Dr Erland died. Meyer’s writing in the final quarter of this book was so good. Certain parts were so chilling and stuck out, including all of Erland’s time in the quarantine cell before his death. The second was when Sybil was cackling at the moon after Cinder stopped torturing her. That was so creepy, in the best way. The third was when Scarlett cut her finger off. I was ready to roll my eyes at some last minute save before the blade went down, mostly because I just read 16 Sarah J. Maas books and got very used to what I will call ‘tentative writing.’ These scenes just felt very mature to me and I haven’t checked if Meyer has written adult books, but I hope she has because this is where her writing stood out.
I have a theory that Kai is actually not on Cinder’s side, because of how he did a 360 and kissed her after finding out she was Princess Selene. That just felt very out of place after his little rant about being kidnapped and needing to go back to Earth and how he thought Cinder did all this because she was jealous. Although, these sort of plot twists don’t seem to be Meyer’s style, so I don’t think he will end up betraying her or anything, and this is likely just the result of very rushed writing in that last chapter.
Thorne going blind was such a good plot point. It made his character much more likable to me. I didn’t particularly dislike him before, but I cared more for his character in this book. He’s just another variation of a character that I have seen in many YA books, but losing his sight made him stand out for me. I wouldn’t be all that bothered if his sight didn’t return in the next book. I do think he adapted to the blindness oddly quickly, though.
I’m very excited to read Winter. Not loving Jacin so far, but I think that will change in Winter from what I’ve heard. I also won’t be reading Fairest before Winter, but maybe after it.
*Spoilers for the first book in the Divergent series by Veronica Roth
Controversially, one of my favourite books. It has every single stereotype you’d expect from dystopia, which a lot of people dislike, but it’s fun if you don’t take it too seriously. I found every character to be interesting and it was fast-paced throughout. I love how Tris and Four’s relationship unfolds, and I love them as characters.
It’s not overwhelming with the romance and there are some mature themes that I’ve found I have understood more with age and it’s added a new layer to the characters for me. For example, Tris’s fear of intimacy. I first read Divergent when I was the age that it was marketed to and that never particularly stuck out to me. Rereading has made me appreciate even more how that was another fear that Tris found a way to get through with Four, amongst everything else. Her and Four are a very interesting duo to read about and I liked seeing how they helped each other throughout the book.
The world building is well executed, in my opinion. I could vividly picture every scene and had a very good idea of what the city as a whole was like. There also wasn’t a single character or scene that bored me. At no point did I feel like I wanted to skim over a chapter because I didn’t like the character that it was about or the plot line that was unfolding.
One thing I appreciated a lot during my first read was how Veronica Roth is not afraid to kill a character off. I’m over reading YA books where characters don’t die or they do die and then are revived. Tris seeing her mother die was important for her character and it’s impact in the future books. A big thing in YA is characters who have lost their parent(s), but we don’t see that or their grieving process because it was prior to their story beginning, which is fine but it was a nice change to actually see it unfold during the story here. Additionally, the suicide during initiation was dark but it wasn’t unrealistic and it made it clear how much stress the initiates were under. The whole initiation process was perfectly brutal. The Dauntless are ruthless and it was nice to see evidence of that instead of just being told how ruthless and wild they are, as many other authors that I’ve read in this genre tend to do.
This is one of those books I’ll be rereading every few years. It’s full of tropes, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
*Spoilers for House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas
Is SJM incapable of killing characters and having them stay dead??? She really cheapens her writing by choosing to not kill off characters, especially when she has so many main ones. Her other series suffer from this as well. This whole book felt exactly like her other two series. Main character who acquires a position of power and there is a war. Three series with this exact premise. I’m bored. Is there really not more to the YA fantasy/romance genre than this? SJM loves ending with a war, and for the third time, it was so underwhelming. She needs to let go of war plots because she’s not that good at writing them and it leaves a bad final impression. Her writing just feels incredibly formulaic in this book, just as it did in A Court of Silver Flames. So many phrases are repeated and I couldn’t help feeling like it was almost written by AI because of how much of a pattern there was. There’s a difference between having a writing style and whatever this was. I was surprised by the ghostwriter claims until I read this book and can sort of understand it now. Compare this to the first two books in ACOTAR, or the first 2 in TOG. What happened to that author?
My second issue with this book is that ACOTAR was used as a marketing tactic to get more readers for this series. I was hoping for more Rhys and Feyre. Any Feyre. There was such a good opportunity for SJM to make this the most amazing crossover and it wasn’t executed well. I understand that this is not an ACOTAR book, but if I hadn’t read ACOTAR, I would be so bored during most of the interactions between Nesta, Bryce, and Azriel. Actually, even having read and loved that series, I wasn’t that entertained. I want more, and not in the good way that derives from me enjoying it so much that I want more, but because there was so much potential here. Instead, it was just a ploy to get more money specifically for CC. I say this because all the crossover chapters seemed to only exist to attract ACOTAR readers to CC, but there was nothing in the writing that was there to attract CC readers to ACOTAR. Had I not read ACOTAR, I’d still have zero interest in the characters and their world after this book. This was written for a very specific audience. Publishing is a business, after all.
I did like seeing how the Night Court IC comes across to those outside the IC. Again, this is something that I only cared about because I’ve read the ACOTAR series. There’s also a bunch of big spoilers for ACOTAR, so I feel like SJM should have maybe specified that you should read the Crescent City series after, but as I said before, the aim of the crossover wasn’t to attract readers to ACOTAR. Just to CC.
I didn’t like Bryce in this book. She felt like a copy of Aelin from Throne of Glass and I’ve explained in reviews of that series why I dislike her. For a non-spoilery summary: she’s very annoying and has too many secret plans and SJM doesn’t know how to execute that well or when to realize that it’s repetitive. She does it in this series, too. Bryce in the cave in Avallen was so incredibly annoying. I loved that Sathia put her in her place. Even Hunt was annoying in Avallen. I almost wanted to DNF the book during those chapters. And why was Bryce suddenly queen of the fae… that was so random and out of character for her. Just very repetitive of SJM’s other books, as I mentioned above.
Tharion was probably the most consistent character throughout this series. He kind of felt like a copy of Thorne from the Lunar Chronicles. He was the only one who kept surprising me. I think, generally, the fandom seems to think he constantly makes bad choices, but I think that’s a very simplified view. He had to go to the Viper Queen or he would have been a prisoner underwater forever. He had to escape the Ocean Queen and follow the others to Avallen because it’s likely that the Ocean Queen would have given him to the other queens to maintain peace. His reasoning for marrying Sathia also made sense. I think the unspoken reasoning there was that he knew the others might have considered ditching him because they wouldn’t want the other queens on their trails and part of him might have thought that marrying Sathia would mean that they couldn’t cut him off. He felt the most realistic to me.
I still can’t find a reason to care about Ithan. The only real purpose he actually had in this book was so that we could learn more about Jesiba. I didn’t care about the wolves storyline at all and it was so underwhelming. Those chapters felt unnecessary and more like a set up for future series. Like what was the point of Ithan’s character?
I said this in my review of HOEAB and also in most of my TOG reviews: these last minute ‘plans’ and ‘reveals’ are unbearable. When Jesiba suddenly and conveniently explained the amulet thing and saving Bryce’s life, I had to roll my eyes. I won’t digress here, though, as I have said all I need to say on this in previous reviews.
My overall take is that I would have enjoyed SJM’s books a lot more if I hadn’t read all 16 back to back. I’ve just spent the past 3 and a half months reading three variations of the same story and characters. I loved the main three ACOTAR books and was chasing that feeling, but her other books didn’t match up. It seems to be an issue within publishing in general that authors seem to be rushing stories just to get them published. The first two ACOTAR books, especially, had me so hooked. I was hoping for stories of that quality. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare, but SJM pretty much set up the groundwork for that when she chose to use the Night Court crossover as a marketing tactic. I think this series could have stood on its own and would have been better off without the crossover.
In saying all this, I will most likely be reading any future SJM books because I’m invested in the worlds, but I hope we get back the same writing and story quality as the beginning of ACOTAR.
*Spoilers by House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas.
I should mention that I’m obviously aware that these books are meant to be basically fairy porn with a plot and not analyzed as if it’s Shakespeare, but then this blog wouldn't exist. SJM has become one of my favourite authors and this book is one of my new favourites, but I also love analysing, so let's get into it.
Do Danika’s secrets ever end? This series feels like Pretty Little Liars at this point and Danika is Alison.
The prologue was very long and boring. I can see how it was relevant for the rest of the book, but while reading it, it just dragged on. Not a very strong start. It could have been shorter.
Ember seems like such a toxic parent. I’ve yet to enjoy a single interaction between her and Bryce. I understand that she is protective, but she’s outright rude and brings things up at the most inappropriate times. For example, at the ballet. I don’t think she was supposed to seem like this, but that’s how her character has come across so far.
My favorite line from this series so far is “Can we go back to how the Prince of the Chasm was sitting on my lap?” which is actually even funnier when it turned out to be Rigelus. He really just showed up, dropped a bunch of important info, caused some drama, and left. He seems a bit like a copy of a certain High Lord from A Court of Thorns and Roses, but I will not digress as to not spoil that series. My Aidas (I suppose Rigelus?) and Bryce ship continues to thrive. Him dropping the info about Cormac being a secret agent was gold. Although, somehow, Cormac got less interesting after that. SJM has a tendency of turning ‘evil’ characters into good ones and making them boring in the process. I miss the “see you at the altar” Cormac. He was more fun to read about than rebel Cormac. Just to add, I listened to parts of this book on audible and the narrator gave him a thick Scottish accent that I could not stand because it felt so out of place and I’ll probably never stop associating Cormac with it, so maybe I’m biased.
Strangely enough, the ending of this book reminded me of Divergent. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book where the plot leads to the city/world being some sort of experiment or having some specific purpose. I didn’t expect this from SJM, but I’m really liking the direction so far. Hel actually being good was such a great twist. I think a lot of why I have enjoyed this series so far is because unlike ACOTAR and Throne of Glass, social media isn’t full of spoilers yet. I’m getting to experience most of the story with no idea of what will actually happen. I did know that Aidas was actually Rigelus, but it was still interesting to see how it would end up that way.
It was way too convenient that Ithan and Bryce found the college papers when they did. What if she’d found them a year ago? Or the year before that? Or never at all? Unless there’s some bigger force at play, this was far too specific and was lazy writing to drive the plot forward. Ithan just happened to want to have a little sword fight with himself and breaks that specific table? Conveniently when they’d hit a dead end on the emails? The ‘explanation’ is “Urd must have sent her back to the apartment just now. For this.” No, it wasn’t the Urd. It was just lazy writing. It could have made more sense if these papers were discovered in book 1 and Bryce just wouldn’t have thought anything about them until now. Unless later on it turns out that the Asteri or Gods or some bigger force has been guiding these characters into specific situations in order to advance a specific agenda, this was lazy. But I would consider using that as an excuse to also be lazy.
I also had to roll my eyes at the mystic being the Fendyr heir. That just felt like it was thrown in for the sake of being a plot twist and making Ithan’s character have somewhat of a storyline. I actually don’t see the point of Ithan’s character at all to be honest. We’ve had him in two books now, but for what reason other than his one liners? Shoutout to “that sounds medically dangerous!” I assume he will finally have some purpose in the final book, but so far, he’s been in two 800 page books and I have no idea why. Unless we count the very convenient breaking of the table so that Bryce could find those documents. In that case, thank god for Ithan! Where would the story be if he hadn’t talked to that journalist, pissed off Sabine, got kicked out of the pack, ended up at Bryce’s apartment, played with the sword on Bryce’s coffee table, and broken it to reveal the papers. Personally, I feel like this story could have been exactly where it is now without Ithan’s character.
I can’t decide if I like Tharion or not. He gives me the ick sometimes, like why are you putting your bare feet on someone else’s coffee table !!! Good thing the coffee table broke a few chapters later. I feel like I should dislike Tharion because he’s quite awful to Sathia and literally admitted to lying about agreeing to marry her just to sleep with her. He also ditched her at the mating ball to go and fuck some shifter in the gardens. Him kissing Bryce while she was teleporting was also weird. I actually think he’s the closest character to the men I tend to be attracted to and then look back and think what could I have possibly seen in him? The answer lives in that part of my brain that tries to justify the behavior by thinking that Tharion is a good guy deep down and is just misunderstood and had to stay in the engagement because the alternative was the wrath of the River Queen. Then I’m thinking he put himself in that situation and deserved it. And then I’m thinking maybe he didn’t deserve such harsh consequences. I go back and forth about how I feel about him. He’s exactly the type of guy you’d have a one night stand with and then fall for and try to change while you ignore his red flags because you think he’s the one and that his confidence is hot, only to realize later that you wasted your time and he’s actually just a massive ick. He pretty much just thinks with his dick, but I really enjoy reading about his character and I find him more interesting than Cormac and Hunt. There’s a lot of potential for him to grow as a character and I hope we see that in the next book.
I have to admit that I have no clue what Sunball is and I just assume it’s baseball. I didn’t pay attention to it in book 1 because I didn’t think it would come up as often as it does and now I’m too lazy to go back and find it’s description. This applies to a lot of my world building knowledge in this series. I’ve only recently noticed that CBD and CCB are not the same thing. No clue what the difference between Lunathion and Crescent City are. Confused about how the humans are still at war with the Asteri if they’re meant to be super powerful? Are the Asteri purposely letting it continue so that “the Vanir have something to rule over” or was this never explained? I don’t even really know who the humans are at war with to be fair. Is it even the Asteri? There was so much of an info dump at the start of book 1 that it all got muddled. SJM knows how to world build well so I don’t know why it was done differently in this series. I love the detail of this world and it’s general vibe, but it could have been introduced better. For example, has it been explained yet why Fury was at the Summit? What does Jesiba actually do? There are things that I don’t know if I forgot from the world building info dump or if we’re purposely not meant to know yet. The problem with this is that I can’t google it because it might be a spoiler until after I’ve finished the series, but it could also be something that I should know and just skimmed over, so it’s a cycle. I’d especially appreciate a map of the entire world, rather than just CC. Additionally, all three books have been released at the time of my reading, so I’m reading this series back to back, but I can’t imagine how I would have kept up if I had to wait at least a year between books because I definitely would have forgotten most of it. When Rigelus asked Bryce if she knows what the star on her chest is and she said “let’s assume I know nothing”… I felt seen.
I did know prior to starting this series that there was an ACOTAR crossover, but I wish I didn’t know that because that would have probably been the best cliffhanger ever. I don’t know how people waited so long for book 3 after reading that.
tldr; I love this book for what it is: an easy to read romantasy book with hot sex and a fast paced plot. It wasn’t written to be picked apart like I’ve done here, but I tend not to include the things that I liked in these reviews as much as what I thought could be improved. This was one of the most immersive books I’ve read and I’m actually enjoying it as much as I enjoyed ACOTAR, which is very high praise from me.
*Spoilers for House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas.
This book is 4.5 stars overall because I enjoyed the pacing, but the last 10% or so was more like 3 stars.
First, I have no idea what the world building is about, but I still really liked the story (I read this amazing Reddit post for a summary of the world building after finishing the book). I don’t think the world building needed to be this complicated. I would have been just as immersed even with 40% less detail. I don’t know why I had no idea who the Asteri were until the Summit. I just assumed Micah was like Supreme President or something. I didn’t realise there were only 7 Asteri until I read that Reddit post. Or is there 6 now? I gave up on even trying to understand how the situation with the human war overseas fit into everything. No idea what that is about but I’m assuming it will become relevant later. I think a big part of the confusion is from how we’re given so much information all at once, rather than being given it when it’s necessary. For example, when Bryce summoned Aidas like halfway or so through the book and we get told about the hierarchy of Hel and where Aidas fits into it. It was relevant then, instead of being given to us as random information at the beginning of the book. It’s the same level of confusing as the Throne of Glass family trees. I started this book 4 days before my law dissertation was due and the dissertation used less of my brain power than understanding this world building did.
Danika and Connor’s deaths were so well written! The whole part before the two year time skip was brilliant. Same vibe as when a movie has a very long intro and you just don’t know it. I really did not see the deaths coming, especially so early on in the book. SJM did such a good job of setting the characters up. I was so invested in Danika’s life and was even a bit annoyed at how predictable it seemed that Connor and Bryce would be endgame. I was so happy to be wrong.
I was slightly put off when I found out it’s another detective trope, but it was executed well, and then it became another cliche detective/murder mystery that is linked to an illegal drug. Again, I enjoyed it, but it’s been done so many times and I expected more from SJM.
The only part that I was bored was towards the very end during all the fighting scenes with the demons in the city after the portals opened. It also felt a little bit awkward picturing everyone at the Summit watching Bryce fight. I couldn’t stop imagining a Hunger Games situation. Particularly from the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie. The helicopter pages were especially boring and just too action packed for my liking.
I think I would have enjoyed the whole thing about Bryce secretly having starlight a lot more if I hadn’t read Throne of Glass before this series. I’m so bored of SJM making a plot point out of the main character knowing something big that the reader doesn’t. I just don’t think she has ever executed it well (except maybe at the beginning of A Court of War and Ruin if we count that); it always seems too convenient and lazy. I can never get too immersed in SJM’s books because I know that as readers, we never have all the information, so even the near death scenes will never actually end up bad. Personally, it would make my reading experience so much better if she stopped pulling this lazy tactic because she doesn’t want anything truly bad to happen to her characters. Or at least give us all the information and then write a less lazy plot. I think she just didn’t tell us about the light because it would have been too obvious to us at the start that Danika linked Bryce to the Horn somehow and half the murder plot twist would have been diminished. I don’t understand how Bryce didn’t link that together herself since she knew that Danika knew about her light and the Horn needed it. I was so ready to give this book 5 stars until that. If it makes your story too predictable to give readers necessary information at the start, then change your plot because the light and the grinding of the horn to tattoo into Bryce’s skin was far too convenient.
I got the ick so bad when the ancient prime was talking about love being the most powerful thing in the world. If I hear that ‘through love, all is possible’ quote one more time… (update: it does indeed continue to come up in the next two books).
I think this is a rogue opinion but I want more of Prince Aidas. I’m actually really hoping we’ll get another ACOTAR situation and Bryce will end up with Aidas (Update: upon research, it seems like this isn’t actually that unpopular of an opinion). Hunt just reminds me too much of Chaol from ToG and I don’t really care for him. “Sweetheart” is so hard to read and out of character for him. I read a review on Goodreads where someone said they enjoyed Bryce and Hunt when they were interacting with any characters other than each other and that’s exactly how I feel. I am 99.9% sure the Aidas/Bryce pairing isn’t happening but I’ll keep reading for the hope of it. Even until Micah’s death, I was waiting for her to take him up on that dinner offer. I do like Bryce and Hunt together but they’re a boring pairing compared to the other possibilities. Even Bryce and Tharion would be more interesting.
I will discuss everything in chronological order because this was a longggg book at nearly 1000 pages.
First, it could have been shorter. I loved it, but I feel this way about every SJM book.
The first two chapters were written so well. Or pre-chapters, I guess? ‘The Princess’ and ‘The Prince’ set the scene for the rest of the book so beautifully. Reminded me of Chapter One of Queen of Shadows when Dorian was trapped with the Valg. A very strong start to this book.
I really love Dorian in this which seems to be an unpopular opinion. I’ve liked him throughout the series but especially in this book. I truly never knew what his next move would be. He’s managed to surprise me the most out of all the other characters and has suffered so much, but I feel like it’s never really acknowledged. Him seducing Manon while he'd shape shifted into a witch was odd. I was kind of hoping he would actually turn evil when he started showing an interest in Manon, but then she became ‘good,’ so then I thought he might actually marry Maeve and that didn’t happen either. I did want him and Aelin to end up together in the first two books and I am so happy that they did not because I love him and Manon together so much and I think Aelin would have overshadowed Dorian instead of complementing his character like Manon does. I’d happily read a whole series about Dorian. He is the character that I will miss the most. I would have liked his ending to be more clear, but I also like how it feels knowing we just might not ever know how his story ended. Although, I feel like SJM will one day explore this in a future book.
I’ve said this in past reviews, but the whole thing with Aelin coming up with a secret plan to save the day every single time was getting old and I thought it was an interesting change that Maeve outsmarted her for as long as she did. It was satisfying for me as a reader to have something actually happen to Aelin without me reading the chapter thinking ‘I’m not actually that invested because I know Aelin will have the upper hand and pull out some secret plan as always’. The chapters about her time in the iron box were very well-written and her pain came across those pages really well. It was a beautiful moment when she offered the blood oath to Fenrys.
Moonbeam is so unserious. I love it.
Elide continued to annoy me. Just… everything she says and does. I can't specifically recall when or why I disliked her, but I didn’t care for her character whatsoever. Lorcan was also just kind of there, existing. No strong feelings about him either way. I need clarification on what Lorcan did back in Empire of Storms, though, because I thought that was their first time actually having sex? But apparently it was in this book. If I had a penny for everytime a chapter ended with a variation of “so Lorcan did,” I would have two pennies and not know where to spend them. What did Lorcan do the first time?!
The first line in this entire series that truly caught me off guard was when Aedion said “because I am not in love with our other allies.” I don’t particularly like Aedion and obviously we knew he was in love with Lysandra, but the tension in that scene and the directness of it was so unexpected amongst the chaos. This is one of two lines that I have highlighted in my copy.
The second line… “Live, Manon.” I think this the saddest character death scene I have ever read in any book. 11 characters dying on one page should be some sort of record. The way each of the Thirteen’s deaths were described followed by everyone placing flowers on the field broke my heart. I have often loved the witches storyline more than Aelin’s and didn’t expect them all to die, let alone to sacrifice themselves. I think it was necessary for the story, though, because SJM has a tendency of not killing off characters and that has always felt inauthentic and takes me out of an immersive reading experience because I know that conveniently, no one will die. It wasn’t surprising, per se, that they sacrificed themselves, because that was how the Thirteen’s characters were portrayed, but the way it was written was devastating. Manon’s pain came across so strongly through those pages. I think this mainly upset me because my guard for characters dying is down when I read SJM books. She loves a happy ending and I know not to expect certain things to actually happen. This was like the thing I mentioned earlier about Aelin getting outsmarted by Maeve; it was refreshing.
Manon has been my favourite character throughout this series. Just a tiny bit more than Dorian. SJM has a tendency of turning evil characters 'good' and making them boring in the process, which I have discussed in reviews of her other books. However, I think Manon is the only character that she actually made more interesting by making her less 'evil.' Her story has been one of my favourite character developments ever.
Murtaugh’s death felt very rushed over and oddly written. With the word choices, I didn’t even realise he was dead until a few paragraphs in when it was mentioned that a sheet was over him. This was either intentional and not executed well, or just bad word choices. It kind of felt like SJM was just trying to get rid of him because we didn’t get anything between him going to tell Aedion he’s fighting and then him being dead.
I want to see more of Ansel of Briarcliff. We saw very little of her throughout the series, but it was all so entertaining. I’m not sure why we weren’t given more of an explanation as to how she became queen after leaving the Silent Assassin’s, but I’’m hoping this was set up for us to get a book about her later. I loved when she offered to share the Wastes with Manon while simultaneously taking her bread. That was just so her.
I'm not giving it 5 stars mainly because no one actually died. All these main characters, and not one of them died in this massive war.
This book is one that I like to refer to as an 'amnesia book' because it's one that you don't like at all while you're reading it, but once you're done, you look back and think of it as an an okay story overall. That's why I'm giving this 3 stars, but really, it was 2/5 while I was reading it.
I'm going to start with how I feel about the ending because it just didn't sit write with me. I don't understand what the problem would have been if Chaol would have just stayed in a wheelchair. This is my biggest issue with this book: SJM created a ridiculous plot line at the end, just so Chaol could walk again. Was it really necessary to bind his life and leg strength to Nesryn? Was that really the better option compared to just letting him be disabled? There's like a million main characters in this series. What would be so wrong with one of them being in a wheelchair? It annoys me that the plot was stretched like this just to avoid that outcome.
A lot of this book was descriptions and the thoughts of the characters, rather than actual plot. It felt veryyyyy dragged out. I read this after the full series was complete, but I’d be annoyed if I’d read Empire of Storms and then had to wait two full years to get answers from Kingdom of Ash since this book takes place at the same time as the events of EoS.
SJM said this was originally intended to be a novella and I think she should have kept it that way. So many words and sentences were unnecessary. It felt like when you’ve said you all you need to in an essay, but still haven’t met the word count, so you ramble. It was frustrating to read. This could have been 400 pages at most. It took so long for any sort of plot to pick up and I don’t even know if it ever did get interesting for me. Bearable, maybe. It got okay around 75% but at that point, I had the audiobook on 1.7x speed because I just wanted it to be over with. I literally couldn’t get through more than a page before wanting to put the audiobook on. My mind would just drift elsewhere and I’d end up having to reread the page. I appreciate ‘setting the scene’ but the descriptions were too much. I don’t want to read an interior design textbook. I’ve seen design proposals with less detail.
I wanted to experience the series how the author intended, so I didn’t do the tandem read, but in hindsight, the tandem read would have made ToD go by quicker and I should have done that.
I kept confusing all the siblings at first. They just weren’t introduced as well as they could have been, so it felt skimmed over and drowned by the information of how the Khagan’s worked. Lots of information very fast. For a lot of Chaol and Nesryn’s interactions with them, I had to go back to the start to remember who they were.
If I look at this from a perspective of us seeing the aftermath of Chaol’s injury and him coming to terms with his disability, it’s an okay book, but I don’t care about Chaol or Nesryn and having to read this book after the cliffhanger and fast pacing of EoS is annoying. We’ve had 6 books of plot and then we have to get through this book of descriptions. Reading ToD felt like when I was younger and my parents would host dinners with relatives I didn’t know and I had to sit through the boring dinner before I could go back to my room and play Nintendogs.
I will say that I enjoyed the cultural aspects of this and the city itself is portrayed beautifully, but there is such a thing as too much description.
I really thought Nesryn and Chaol would stay together so the introduction of new love interests surprised me and I really like Yrene and Chaol together. Not a big fan of them as characters but it was probably the most interesting aspect of this book.
Aelin’s secret plans are getting tedious and repetitive, to the point where I don’t actually care about her character as much anymore because I know she’ll just pull out some secret plan like always. It was fun at first, but 6 books in, I would enjoy seeing her through the process for these plans instead of just being told about them when needed. All of this made me sort of relieved about how this book ended because for once, she wasn’t saves by some convenient secret plan and now I’m actually excited to read Kingdom of Ash.
The whole reveal to Rolfe that Aelin was Celaena gave me secondhand embarrassment. How Rowan did not get the ick is beyond me. I’m far more invested in Manon and Dorian than anyone else. That was an odd pairing at first but I’m so excited to see where their relationship goes. I felt sad for Manon for a lot of this book, especially her finding out that she killed her half sister. I’m obsessed with Abraxos!!! I’ll be so sad if he dies, but knowing SJM’s style, I don’t think that will happen.
I partially discussed this next point in my review of The Assasin’s Blade, which is that SJM could have made its position in the series so much clearer if she wanted to. Illias and the Silent Assassins appearance was barely explained. It’s not important to the story that Illias and Celaena had a ‘fling,’ but it would have been nice to have more context on the Silent Assassin’s for those who didn’t read AB since it’s not officially been listed as an essential book in the series. This is especially important regarding Ansel of Briarcliff, too. There is so much history there with her and Aelin and the extent of it wasn’t mentioned. I don’t fully understand why they’re back on such friendly terms after the last interaction between her and Aelin. Obviously Aelin needed Ansel’s help and I understand her putting the greater good above her own grudge, but they’e talking like good friends in EoS and I don’t recall reading about why Aelin essentially forgives her and is so trusting all of a sudden. I’d actually love to read about how Ansel became Queen of the Wastes.
As usual, there were a lot of interesting reveals towards the end. The chapter with Nehemia going through the marshes for weeks on her own and wanting to sacrifice herself was beautifully written. I would absolutely read a whole book about her life before coming to Rifthold.
I had a feeling Rowan and Aelin were mates, but I did not see the marriage coming. This is the second secret wedding scene I’d like to demand from SJM as a bonus chapter (iykyk). Lysandra now acting as Aelin is also so twisted and interesting. It’s one of my favorite plot points so far and I can’t wait to see what comes of it in KoA.
I liked Elide in the last book, but didn’t particularly enjoy reading about her in this one. She had Aelin, Manon, and Lorcan fighting over their ‘claim’ to her and I kept waiting for her to stand up for herself and tell them that she will choose. Like, girl, you’ve been ‘owned’ for most of your life… I’ll be very surprised if she doesn’t say something along those lines in KoA.
I didn’t know how I felt about Aedion until this book. I’ve decided I don’t like him and he’s just very… clingy? I would not be mad if he was killed off at some point soon. I might even dislike him more than Chaol.
I would appreciate a family tree at the start of these books alongside/instead of a map because it easily gets confusing. When Elena revealed her mother was Mala, I didn’t know that was supposed to be a big reveal because I still have very little idea about what the relationship between her and Aelin and Maeve is. I also didn’t pick up on how Aelin and Dorian and loosely related and I still have no clue about how all that connects. I’m still trying to figure out how Roland fit into things. I’d appreciate a diagram of sorts, but I don’t want to Google a family tree until after the series in case there are spoilers.
I also didn’t do the tandem read so I’ll have to read through about 700 pages of Tower of Dawn before finding out what happens to Aelin which I’m not particularly looking forward to because I truly do not care for Chaol or Nesryn.
Can I just say how HARD it is to avoid spoilers for KoA… My algorithm on insta and TikTok is fully ACOTAR right now so I see the occasional Throne of Glass videos and I’m still so impressed that I’ve been able to avoid things, but we’ll see if I fully get through the next two books without spoilers. My theory as of now is that there will be a time skip at some point in KoA, maybe a few centuries even? I also think Dorian is going to end up evil. I'm excited for the political drama that will come from Dorian and Manon’s relationship.
The last 50 pages or so of this book are 5 stars. Overall, 4.
I had fun reading this. As awful as Arobynn was, I was sad that he died. He was such an interesting character and I would have liked to see more of him. His death felt underwhelming. To be honest, I was so excited about him putting the ring on Aelin because it felt like a really good plot twist and I was so ready to read about how he’d control her without the others knowing somehow. But no, another one of Aelin’s convenient secret plans saved the day. Again. It’s getting old at this point.
Aelin is easily the most annoying main character I have ever read about. I just can’t bring myself to care about her, Rowan, or Chaol. I felt like there were too many POV’s at first, but now I’m really enjoying it because I don’t think I’d be able to get through this series if it was all from Aelin’s POV. I’m far more invested in Manon, Dorian, Elide, and Lorcan. At this point, I care more about Asterin and Abraxos than I do about Aelin. The chapters from Dorian’s POV were very well-written and I genuinely felt sad for him while reading them. Looking forward to seeing the stories connect.
I truly cannot tell if Aelin is written to be annoying on purpose, or if she is supposed to be portrayed as badass, but that’s just not how it has come across. I’ve been waiting for her to improve and she’s just gotten worse, in my opinion. In saying this, I do also think it’s refreshing and necessary to read about a main character in fantasy who isn’t the shy stereotype who’s never fought a day in her life, etc. I don’t like or care about her, but I enjoy reading about a different character to what we normally see in YA.
I wasn’t expecting the friendship with Lysandra. I think her personality change from Assassin’s Blade is a full 360 in this and I don’t love it’s execution, but she is an interesting character to read about and I like her and Aelin’s friendship.
Chaol is just an ick of a character. I don’t know what it is, but everything he does annoys me. That's all I have to say about him in this book.
This is my favourties book in this series so far. It was fast paced, had a strong plot, and good twists.
