on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 4.5/5
Pages: 672
Finished: 11 July 2023
Summary:
Aelin Ashryver Galathynius is back in Adarlan. She has plans to steal back her family's heirloom amulet, which also happens to house one of the three Wyrdkeys, and to put an end to the King. But the city is in worse condition than she feared--Chaol has fled the palace, Dorian wears the collar of the Valg, and possessed soldiers guard the city, executing suspected magic-users left and right. Aelin may no longer be Celaena Sardothien, but one more time she will put on the suit and the mask to take back her city, and to take her revenge.
There is evil in Morath, and Manon may be Wing Leader, but she does not have the power to keep witch covens from being experimented on, implanted in. There is evil in Morath, an evil far colder and more deplorable than the wicked killing Manon has embraced all her life, and she does not like it.
Thoughts:
I adore this book, and I despise Chaol with all my being. The badass-ery in this novel is unparalleled; the way Aelin doesn't tell anyone about her revenge plots and reveals them all at the right times is wildly satisfying. With this review I will once again restate my hypothesis that a good book can be measured by its ability to evoke emotion, and I was so excited that I almost had to stop reading on the plane because my excitement got too physical. The Rowan reunion scene and the Aedion dynamics were especially fabulous, as was Manon's slow realization of what kind of evil is too evil.
But Chaol. I cannot fathom how he is supposed to be a sympathetic protagonist in later books because he is a hypocritical godawful misogynistic piece of shit. He cannot handle a woman having power, or a person having more power than him. He looks for safety, security, and baseline reassurances (something I connect with far more than I want to) instead of glory, and he hates seeing glory or the attempt for it in others. Knowing that he ends up with a vaguely sassy yet ultimately in-need-of-protection healer makes things even worse. He is incapable of accepting that he is inferior and comparatively incompetent compared to his friends, but also unwilling to defer to them or do anything about becoming better or more competent. If I ever need a literary example of misogyny, I know where I will be running. I have never loathed a character more than I do this man. He is a coward and an idiot and then when he realizes his cowardice and idiocy, he panics and makes further cowardly and idiotic mistakes when he is full-well aware that the more competent people around him could actually accomplish what he is rashly attempting. I abhor him.
Anyway. I am currently in Rhode Island without the rest of my series, but I am ridiculously excited to finish it when I get back. I fully recognize the flaws in this series and also the joy it brings me is violent.