on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Re-read for the second time.
Rating: 5/5
Pages: 992
Started: 10 September 2022
Finished: 14 September 2022
Summary:
Aelin has made an ultimate sacrifice for her country and her friends: in order to let Elide Lochan escape from Maeve' s grasp with the Wyrdkeys, she submitted herself to capture. Now, trapped in an iron box, subject to the whims of her torturer, Cairn, Aelin struggles to stay sane. Only her equally captive companion, Maeve's sworn warrior Fenrys, and the distant hope that her friends have returned to Terrasen to fight the evil Valg King Erawan, keeps Aelin hopeful enough to hide the location of the Wyrdkeys from her captors.
Aedion refuses to speak to Lysandra. Though he understands why she agreed to participate in Aelin's machinations, but he's angry that she didn't look for another way, that she didn't tell him. Yet he agrees to play along, only because he knows how much the queen's presence rallies his flagging troops. Because the war with Erawan is not going well. Without another army, without Aelin's magic, Aedion knows Terrasen won't be able to hold out much longer.
Dorian has accompanied Manon on her quest to win over the Crochan witches, the other side of her bloodline and her birthright to rule. But even as he trains with the Thirteen and advises Manon on how to convince the Crochans to join her in the war, he's waiting for the opportunity to sneak into Morath and take the final Wyrdkey. Because with Aelin captured, reforging the lock and sending Erawan back to his hell realm falls onto Dorian's shoulders.
Thoughts:
This book was epic in the sense that it covered a huge array of characters, settings and plots, and in the sense that it was overwhelmingly incredible. The first time I read KOA, I was upset by all the war and by the fact that Aelin's relationship with Rowan wasn't as perfect as in the other books, and the second time I tried to read it I couldn't even finish. I'm not sure what was different this time, but I absolutely adored it this read.
The sheer scale of the war and loss of life was a little hard to take, I will say. But since I vaguely knew all the ways in which solutions to problems would show up, I didn't get stressed about the way the war was going and I was instead able to focus on the characters. They weren't the best in terms of traits in this book. Rowan wasn't as caring, Manon had too much of a conscience, and the power loss trope reared its ugly head. And, as always, SJM has issues in terms of diversity and uniqueness of characters. But a lot of really exciting things happened in the book overall, many of which I had forgotten about, and so I had a really fun time reading it. The twists in the battles were exhilarating and a few of the death kind of wrecked me. And even though it hurt to read, I kind of loved how tortured Aelin was in this book. I'm sad to have finished now, and I'm looking forward to next summer and being able to reread the series again.