Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

My current favorite book of this series!!

(fourth installment after Heir of Fire)

Time to get down ladies and gents. Things don't take too long to progress in this book because everyone is currently at war. Celaena seeks to help her Kingdom by taking down it's evil King but now a new threat stands in her way; her once ally and now possessed enemy, Prince Dorian. Torn between the mercy of saving and the mercy of killing, she must face truths and find ways to think ahead of her enemies! So much drama to be had! Past enemies become friends, past romances become reluctant allies, current romances become steamier. (Helloooo bathroom scene!) More intense battle scenes and dangerous foe!

Things really take a big step in this book, a lot of the old history in the series is also brought forth to be dealt with so make sure you know about the back stories! Plenty of drama and action to keep readers strung along, I dare not reveal a single morsel in fear I shall spoil the delight of this book for you. What I liked least about this book was again, the POV of the witches, though I found it more tolerable than before since a new character is introduced and we get some more back stories. Eventually these two worlds collide, definitely making it more interesting so I'm intrigued to what will happen next!

 5 stars

 

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

  Wow, Wow, WOW!!! Sooo much better! 
                           (third installment after Crown of Midnight)




I was agonizing over the first two books. It would be so good one second then so angsty, dramatic, and cheesy. This one started out with a little angst with Celaena being in a new country with no allies, but it progressively got better.

Celaena takes on the name she was born with, Aelin, and with this change she morphs into womanhood, becoming more comfortable with herself, her powers, heritage, and her role as Queen. She aims for change, and keeps a promise made to her dead friend in her heart. But it was moving to see her make personal progress with the troubles of her life and past. Not to mention, we get to meet Rowan.

Aelin's strict, battle harden, elven teacher. Yum. Team Rowan, please!
Besides the delicious side dish we are introduced to, we get to follow a new character line of blood thirsty witches. I found their story to be a tad distracting when I was more enamored with Aelin's, but I suppose it will lead to something important...eventually.

It does give hints as to what Dorian's father is up to, (nothing good, obviously). There is also some personal progression with Dorian and Chaol. We're left with a giant, frustrating cliffhanger, alas but I was quite thrilled with where Maas is taking her tale!

Lauren - 5 stars

My review for Queen of Shadows! 

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

3.5 stars

(sequel to Throne of Glass)

Well to just get it over with, this book cover...

Sure it matches, the paperback of Throne of Glass, but urgh! Serious dissatisfaction, this is not now I imagined Celaena at all!

Now for my opinion on the book. At first, I was honestly shocked. 

I wasn't sure how to handle the cheesiness. In simpler terms, sometimes I felt like I was reading a book just kind of trudging through the events. Then at other times the style was more fluent and I was able to fall into character forgetting that I was in fact, reading.

For at least the good beginning portion of the book, we pretty much just dawdle in the puddles of drama that consist of Celaena, Dorian, and Chaol. 

Chaol and Celaena get closer, while Dorian just gets more and more jealous, quote:

"Damn him for caring. Damn him for every moment spent with her."

Gag.

It was there that I honestly, had to put my tablet down for a bit and just not...touch it. Not that I minded the romance, I had expected it, enjoyed it even at parts, and in my opinion, it might play some important role for the future books. But it just seemed to be the main event for the first half, and I know I ordered a YA fiction not a romance novel.

I was also starting to get frustrated with Celaena, you'd think she would realize how important is to get in the game, considering her experiences in the previous book. Instead she closes her eyes, covers her ears, and just ignores everything around her to the point where Nehemia pretty much calls her on the carpet for being a coward.

The book improves once some serious shit goes down.

Celaena realizes she can't play blind forever, and that she has a role than just being an assassin. 

We actually start to progress with the story!

Things like what is Celaena's greater purpose? What is Celaena's super secret dark past? (Which I totally called by the way, except for one part...)

What does the deceased fae Queen expect Celaena to do in order to save this Kingdom? How much power does the King actually have?

Dorian also gets some surprises of his own in the book that I don't dare spoil! 

I was able to take the book much more seriously afterwards, making it more enjoyable.

The ending is such a cliffhanger, I am hoping for some serious action in Book 3! So pull through the first half, so you can get to the action! And follow my review for Heir of Fire!

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

oooh pretty :3

3.5 stars

Now I found that there is some little novellas before and in between the series of this book, you don't HAVE to read them, but I found that at least the first four give more rounding to Celaena as a character, compared to just reading this book alone.

To start off in high praises, Celaena is the perfect girl power model. She is the best assassin known in their country, she doesn't take shit from anyone, and she is defiant, strong, clever, and sometimes wise. Depending on the situation. But in basics, girl's got street smarts.

What bothered me about her omnipotent epicness was that for a good portion of the beginning, that's all we hear about. How Celaena could easily kill that man with two moves, she could splatter that man against a wall, and how she was fast enough to do this and that...it finally eased up when more characters were introduced and more action came into play and then I breathed a sigh of relief from all the self praising.

In honesty, I have such mixed feelings for this book. 

It was good, and it could've been better. The action was fantastic, the mystery of finding out who was killing the Champions was intense considering whoever was committing the crime was mangling their bodies, and the characters were really interesting for the most part. 

Nehemia, who you'll meet not too much later in the book, was such a serious bad ass she was one of my favorites in this book. I adored and loved her. The perfect friend to Celaena's intense personality. I didn't care much for Kaltain as an evil character not because she was evil, but she was so...typical.
She was gorgeous, she wanted Dorian more than anything, and she had the generic bad attitude and snottiness as most antagonists in stories.  

In short, she bored me.

The writing was a bit cheesy at times, too. For example, the dialogue between Dorian and Celaena, or her actions in general around him. 

Another example, when she is trying to figure out how to play pool, and she just could not for the life of her, do it right. And she starts throwing a tantrum and biting the cue stick. Really? Really? I mean this is world's top assassin who can throw daggers, hit the ultimate point in a target from extreme distances, can fight with almost any weapon, but she can't play pool. Not to mention she's biting the cue stick like a rabid dog, and then this highly immature moment is attempted to be played off humorously by the entrance of Dorian looking "oh-so-dreamy," and then him saying he should get a picture painted of that moment.
Ahahaha...no...it's not funny. Sorry. 

Now that I've mentioned Dorian, we must come to the dreadful love triangle. 

So all readers immediately know that this love triangle will be Dorian, the typical handsome, blue eyed, womanizer (Did I mention he's a Prince?! Omg. *flails hands*) and Chaol the strict,  also handsome in a soldier way, Captain of the Guard, vying for her attention. Everything just seemed so wrong...Dorian seemed to be chasing after Celaena's heels like she was a dog in heat, lusting after her then discovering that he had feelings because she was different.
*eyeroll*

 
 Dorian could have any girl he wanted, Lord knows they practically threw themselves at his feet and offered to be his human red carpet to walk on, and yet he had to have the one girl he knew Big Bad Daddy wouldn't let him have. And it was only with her that he felt he could be a man, that he could be King. Pfft.

I was rooting for Chaol for the whole entire book. He seemed to be the lesser of two evils since Chaol was the wiser more cautious and mature one. His connection with her was yes, a little insta-romance, but it felt more natural since it grew into trust and a bond of  mutual understanding. 

Celaena's little heart fluttering moments seemed far more sincere and deep for Chaol than for Dorian since usually it was because Dorian was so handsome, he said something naughty, or the physical closeness of him was just too much! 

When her heart fluttered for Chaol it was because he smiled, or she saw something warm and comforting in his eyes, or she realized she could trust him and depend on him. He got up every morning to train her, and he took care of her.

Despite my frustrations, I still flew through this book in a day because the action was intense, it was interesting to see Celaena compete, and there was some interesting ghosts and magic! I'm hoping the sequel surpasses the first, but we'll see. :) 

See my review of Crown of Midnight here!