Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas Series: Throne of Glass #4
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 9781619636057
on September 1, 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Epic, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 576
Read it as: eBook
Source: Purchased
My rating:
Check it out in Goodreads
Synopsis
Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she's at last returned to the empire-for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past...
She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.
She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die just to see her again. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen's triumphant return.
Celaena's epic journey has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions across the globe. This fourth volume will hold readers rapt as Celaena's story builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.
I’d heard/read somewhere that the books got better later in the series, and that Queen of Shadows was awesome, and that ‘you just wait for it‘. And they were right, mostly.
To be completely honest, I enjoyed this book. Credit where it’s due. I enjoyed the nice pace, the tension and suspense when the stakes piled up and things were happening. The problems I encountered didn’t detract from my enjoyment that much I just found them annoying in the way that a mosquito close to your ear tends to be. Like, you wave it away, and it’s fine, but then there it is again.
The characters are finally doing stuff
If you took a peek at my opinions of the previous books, you’ll notice I took issue with not many things happening in them. At least not events that related to the main plot. It felt like little was going on, and I got bored easily. I was very happy that that wasn’t the case with this one. A lot of things were happening, which meant characters had their hands full of stakes and plans.
That’s always good.
In this book you even begin noticing the changes in some of the characters. Chaol to be honest, is quite a boring character to me, but that said, I liked some of the realizations he came to in this story. He’s been the last one to come to grip with all the changes, and that has to be terrifying. Knowing everything is falling apart around you. His indecision and annoying ways at first can make him frustrating, but I think it’s also realistic.
It feels like the side stories are not subplots but separate plots entirely
Now, for the downside. And something I’d heard as well. Too many characters.
I think this must be where the beginning of the end starts.
It’s not that I don’t like them. Manon is amazing, Elide intrigues me, and all the others kind of give the whole thing an epic feel, which I suppose is what the author was going for. But, do we need them? Like, really, do we need to give them POV chapters?
With Chaol for example, I appreciated his page time just for these bits of character development, but we’ve got to seriously wonder at this point how relevant he is. He’s a secondary character at best and I don’t feel like his chapters added that much to the story. And the same can be said for other characters that get too much page time.
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I had a great time reading this book, but I found myself skipping a lot of pages as well, trying to get back to Aelin or the other characters who actually have a direct influence on the plot. It feels like this book spread itself to thin trying to set all this up for the coming battles. It made the cut for me, but just barely. It’s got me worried about the rest of the books.
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