on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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This re-read has been so much fun! I read most of this book while on a trip to Tygh Valley with Rachel and Amelia, and so I got to freak out about it to them while I was reading.
Rating: 4.5/5
Pages: 645
Started: 20 August 2022
Finished: 23 August 2022
Summary:
Aelin Galathynius has returned to Adarlan. Masquerading once more as Celaena Sardothien, assassin, she begins her plans to take down the King of Adarlan. Even as more information about the cruelty of those she used to trust comes to light, even as she misses Prince Rowan Whitethorn, her carranam and first bloodsworn warrior, she remains determined to exact her revenge and then finally travel back to Terrasen and her throne.
Despite more than a century of brutal training, Manon cannot stop thinking about the Crochan witch she murdered, and what she had said: "we pity you." As she learns about the King of Adarlan's monstrous plans to bring the rest of Erilea into submission once and for all, she must reassess everything she's ever known, and decide where to draw the line.
Thoughts:
I love this book with all my heart. I like Celaena, the heartless assassin, much more than I like Aelin, the queen who cares about her people, so this book is perfect for me. While Aelin does maintain her goals and deserve the loyalty of several friends, she also has to play the Celaena role a lot. I adore her relationship with Rowan in this book, but Aedion's devotion to her is also really fun. My two favorite scenes are the reunion scene and all the times that Aelin reveals the plans that she painstakingly made without anyone else finding out. The badass-ness is such a joy to read.
Manon is a little harder to take in this book though. In Heir of Fire, she was cruel and violent and nothing more, which I loved. In this book, though, while she is feeling torn and developing morals, there is way too much inner ick and yuck between her and Asterin. It gets gorgeously resolved by the end of the book, but I wish it had been handled a little differently at the start.
This book is where Chaol goes from neutral to hated. The mere thought of him makes me angry now. He could only tolerate Celaena when she was hiding from herself, and now that she's come into the full scope of her power, he feels too threatened to try to understand her. At every turn he mistrusts and insults and belittles her for no reason. His guilt about abandoning Dorian to the King of Adarlan makes him unreasonable and rude and I can't stand it. While I'm skipping Tower of Dawn because I can't handle to watch him slowly find the damsel-in-distress dynamic he needs (I respect his wife, just not the way he sees her) I am still not looking forward to watching him get happy without first having any kind of real redemption arc.
I was supposed to read The Assassin's Blade before Queen of Shadows, but I forgot, so I'm reading it next, and Empire of Storms after. I am super excited to continue this series, and I hope I can balance it with all the other books I'm supposed to be reading right now so I don't have to wait too long to finish the whole series. I need to make sure not to lose momentum for Kingdom of Ash, since it's a pretty rough read.