Title: Crown of Midnight [Throne of Glass 2]
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Length: 418
Rating: 5 Star
Series Review: 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Description/Synopsis:
“A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.
It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend.”
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.
Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.
Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena’s world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie… and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.
Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
This review is coming after my 2.75 read through. I read it once and forgot to review it, picked it back up at a much later date intending to give them all another read through and got about 3/4 of the way through it and then for some reason got distracted and read many other books before finishing it, read Tower of Dawn and realised I seriously need to read through them all before the final book came out, and just decided to start this one again from scratch. This final time though I did the audiobook and while not the best audiobook I have listened to it did a very good job at drawing me into the story.
Despite my basically 3 reads of this book I find I still don’t even know were I want to begin! There are just so many things that happen in the second half of this book. The first half of this one is a lot like the first, slower and you aren’t so attached to what is going on. But there is a very significant turning point in this story, and everything just keeps happening from that point on. The rest of this review is going to be spoilery, so for those of you for some reason have not yet picked up the series yet, now is the perfect time to start. The final book is coming out very soon so you can just smash through them all at once. Go read and come back so we can discuss.
Ok for those who have already read this book lets start somewhere simple. Romance. While I don’t mind Chaol in this book and think he good for Celaena in someways, I do not get the Chaol and Celaena ship. I don’t even know the ship name. Between him and Dorian, I like Dorian far better for her. He actually brings fun into her life, where Chaol is just so serious all the time. I think Celaena needs that more and Chaol is a huge idiot at very key moments in this story. Just so fucking stupid.
In terms of character development we didn’t really get much from Chaol, but we did get quite a lot from Dorian and Celaena. Celaena while really spending most of this book feeling very scared internally about what is going on around her and the things she is or is not doing, we do get a lot more of that bad ass and bloody thirsty assassin we were promised in the first book but didn’t really get. Her action moments in this book are just amazing. Dorian is also pretty much always freaking out in this book. At the start is feeling a bit sorry for himself because he isn’t with Celaena anymore, but in the grand scheme of things he accepts that pretty early on. Then we move onto what the hell is happening??! Dorian. He starts to develop magic powers and he just goes into freaking about the how and the why and what will happen if his dad or anyone found out. I really liked the direction his story started taking.
Ok now onto the moment, my favorite moment and the turning point for the whole book. Nehemia’s death. I feel horrible saying that it is my favorite moment because I really liked her and I am sad she is dead, but its because of those things that its my favorite moment. When I picture a moment to sum up the glory of the series, I always picture this moment. Chaol gets kidnapped and Celaena leave the castle and turns into a shadow of death and kills so many people to get him back, then the people who took him tell her that he knew someone was after Nehemia and stupidly didn’t say ANYTHING and that he knew the king wanted to question/kill her tonight and STILL DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING!!! and by the she got back it would probably would be too late. Then she basically flies on the wind to get back to her and is presented with her mutilated corpse. I loved the way Chaol described to Dorian how even though he stole a horse to return to the castle and Celaena had still outran him. I loved the way she snapped and nearly killed Chaol and Dorian had to save him with magic. I loved the revenge she took on the people involved in all its heartlessness. I both loved and hated the way her and Nehemia had fought before she died and how badly it tore Celaena up for the rest of the book and because of not being able to face Chaol anymore brought her closer to Dorian again even though they are still just friends. I loved and hated how she allowed if not plotted her death to push Celaena in the right direction. Just everything about this turning point is everything to me.
Then we have the other big moment right at the end where we find out that Celaena is the lost heir of Terrasen, Aelin Galathynius. Even in the first read through I sort of saw this coming. We had this devastatingly sad moment when Chaol catches her singing over Nehemia’s grave in a language we find out is Fae, how she was so certain that the people who said they were working with the lost queen were lying, and of course when she actually turned Fae. I loved how she told Chaol just enough to work out who she actually was without actually saying it. That ending was amazing.
Then we had the story progression plot where we wind out about the magical gateways and their keys. We didn’t really get too much in this book but I like how much bigger this idea is going to make the worlds. I of course know where this goes in other books so I don’t want to say too much on my thoughts here because they are tainted. Even though I was really annoyed with how long it took her to work out that one of the keys was kept in the tomb. It was so obvious. They creature they found in the library was really freaky and it made me so scared of what kind of things the king was making in all those cells.
And thats where I am going to leave this very long review. If you have read the book lets discuss, I always love to talk books. If you ship Chaol and Celaena present me your argument. Were you surprised by things? What was your favorite moment? Obviously I think people should read this series so there isn’t anymore I can say on that matter.
Till Next Time. . .
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