Published: September 2, 2014 by: Bloomsbury
Pages: 562
Rating: 2/5 stars
Celaena Sardothien is done playing games to earn her freedom. After discovering the harrowing secret about her heritage, she now must return to her home land, to reconnect with her people and claim the throne as her's. But with looming forces of darkness preparing for battle, Celaena must find new responsibilities in protecting a nation, a task that she has never thought possible before.
Ok... so I loved the first book in this series. Even the second was pretty light for a fantasy and something that I could get through easily. I was expecting the same from this book, after I had gotten good response before. As I have mentioned before, I don't do well with overly heavy and descriptive novels, and this was probably one of the heaviest I've ever read :(
I could not understand the book from the beginning. It was like this huge jump between assassin Celaena to queen Celaena that I just couldn't connect to at all. All of these new characters were introduced whom I couldn't grasp the concept of at all, and overall this book just went way over my head.
I guess the reason I gave this book two as opposed to one star, is that I did have an appreciation for the writing. Despite the fact that I didn't do well with it, Maas has a very magical way of writing, it's something very mystical and special to her. I think that if I could understand it, I would have really loved it. If you are heavily into fantasy, you'd love this writing!
Now to all the reasons I just couldn't get this book. For starters, I found it to be extremely boring to me. In the first two books, we get to see her battle with other assassins, reconnect with new love, and meet new people. Here, I found it as if she just threw all of the old character aside. I could not understand her relationship with Chaol in this book, and I felt as if everything they built up was lost.
I just found this book to be a bit too descriptive for me. I was completely lost as to what was going on because sometimes things can get a bit too wordy. I know that this could go really well for other people, but it is not good for me.
I have decided after reading the fourth book, that I should stop investing time into this series. It just really deteriorated for me, and I need to stop forcing it upon myself.
Have you read Heir of Fire? What did you think?
Emily @ Paperback Princess
Sorry to hear you didn't like this as much as the first two. :( It definitely delves deeper into 'harder' fantasy, not so much the YA fantasy that the first two books had. Personally, I'm a huge fan of that so it didn't bother me. I hope the fourth book is a better experience for you, if only so you can leave this series on a brighter note. :)
ReplyDeleteI much prefer YA fantasy, my attention span is not cut out for the heavy stuff! I just finished Queen of Shadows and I have to admit, the ending was good. Although I am happy to drop this series now.
DeleteI've been contemplating whether or not to read this... I loved the first book, but the second book really threw me off! I might do the same as you - finish the third and fourth books (and hope they're better than the second!). Nice review - very constructively critical!
ReplyDeleteThanks Geraldine! I'd quite honestly say that if you didn't like the second book at all, don't waste your time like I did. I felt terrible forcing myself. But I don't want to scare you away, so if you want to try the third book, I hope it works out for you!
DeleteI've been contemplating whether or not to read this... I loved the first book, but the second book really threw me off! I might do the same as you - finish the third and fourth books (and hope they're better than the second!). Nice review - very constructively critical!
ReplyDeleteI've been contemplating whether or not to read this... I loved the first book, but the second book really threw me off! I might do the same as you - finish the third and fourth books (and hope they're better than the second!). Nice review - very constructively critical!
ReplyDeleteI've been contemplating whether or not to read this... I loved the first book, but the second book really threw me off! I might do the same as you - finish the third and fourth books (and hope they're better than the second!). Nice review - very constructively critical!
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to read this book because a lot of people said that it gets better here. I finished the first two books so this is the one I'll be reading next. But I'm sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy it :( No your review didn't change my intention of reading it, but ahhh I do feel bad because you must've had a lot of expectations over this. So sorry to hear that so many things transitioned here. Hope you read a good book right after though.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of people say that the series gets even better here as well! I guess it just depends on your opinion on fantasy books, which I am obviously not the biggest fan.
DeleteI read the first book and was really disappointed. I was gonna give it another try, but I don't know if it'll be worth it...
ReplyDeletePersonally it wasn't worth it for me :(
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