Friday 15 January 2016

Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4) by: Sarah J. Maas

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy
Published: September 1, 2014 by: Bloomsbury
Pages: 648
Rating: 1.5/5 stars



Celaena Sardothien, now Queen Aelin Galathynius is prepared to fight for her kingdom. After a lengthy time of preparation, she is ready to take on the task of freeing her people from the brutal king, slaying the forces of darkness and protecting those who mean the most to her. However these tasks will prove to be harsh on the new queen, and Aelin will need the help of the people she is closest to, in order to win this war.

I am ready to get this series over and done with. After a demanding battle with this series, I'm dropping it here and moving onto books that are more catered to what I'm interested in. While I thought I could force myself to get into the heavy fantasy, I am living proof that you cannot force a genre on yourself just because of the hype. I followed the hype, and it failed me.

I don't want to sound like such a Negative Nancy in this review, so I'll start off with the one positive thing that was able to earn this book a two star instead of one. This was the ending. Throughout the book, I was left not knowing exactly what was going on, and very bored. However, when Manon and Aelin finally faced each other, boy was I intrigued. I guess that's what a climax does to people. I thought that the battle was written very well and it captivated me. That is all.

Ok, so now to the reasons why I'm dropping this series, which were briefly highlighted in my review of the third book last week. I could not understand this book for the life of me. The writing was far too intense, too overly descriptive that I thought that the meaning was lost. Didn't work for me.

I did not appreciate the name change either. I understand why it had to happen, but Celaena is a hard enough name to remember as it is let alone changing it halfway. There were times when I didn't even know who was talking, that's how disconnected I was in this book.

Celaena... Or Aelin, really aggravated me for some reason in this book. I found she was kind of cocky, a bit naive, and not my favourite representation of her. Not like she's my favourite heroine anyways, but she still bothered me more than ever.

So basically, that's all to it. Goodbye Throne of Glass, while I thought I could deal with you after the first two books, you sadly disappointed me. Good luck in all that you accomplish.

Have you read Queen of Shadows? What did you think?

Emily @ Paperback Princess

9 comments:

  1. I haven't read Queen of Shadows - I'm only up to Crown of Midnight. Even then, it took me about two years to finish Crown of Midnight (I stopped halfway through and had to start it all over again when I came back to it). I really want to keep going on with the series, but Crown of Midnight really started to bore me to be honest - and your description of Celaena in this book doesn't make continuing the series any more appealing... Really mixed as to whether or not I should keep reading this series, because I absolutely LOVED the first book! :/

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    1. Two years?! Woah do you have some willpower, I would have probably given up lol. I loved the first book too and I was so sad to not be engrossed in this series! I think the transition from YA fantasy to heavy fantasy was bad on me.

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  2. I am sorry this book didn't work out for you! I have only read the first two books and so far loved them. But I get not being a fan of certain genres. For me I can't ever seem to get into any time travel books. I have had too many bad experience with time travel books, so now I just avoid them.

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    1. Yeah I think I'm going to have to avoid fantasy for the time being now.

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  3. Hmm... Now I'm torn on whether I should read it or not. The third one seemed so detached and foreign from the world of Celaena that I knew and loved and then when Queen of Shadows came out, I didn't feel the NEED to read it right away. Your review has got me thinking now...Great post, as always Emily!

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    1. The third book was such an awakening for me and I realized what I was getting myself into. Not for me, but if you have a greater attention span for fantasy than me, give it a shot!

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  4. I couldn't even get past the first book in this series... I was gonna give it another shot but now I don't know if it'll be worth it.

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    1. Wasn't worth it for me. Although oddly enough, I LOVED the first book.

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