Title: Queen of Shadows
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Also by this Author: Crescent City
Series: Throne of Glass, book 1
Age Category: Adult
Published by:Â September 2015, Bloomsbury Publishing
Pages: 648Â p.
Genre:Â Epic fantasy
About Queen of Shadows
Celeana has returned to Adarlan, with the information she was seeking from her aunt in Wendlyn. Much has changed, since the last time she has set foot in the capital city. She has now embraced her true identity Aelin Galathynius, the Queen of Terrasen.
She will be the one, standing in the way of the King's plans. She will fight to free her friend and her cousin.
Unite her crumbling kingdom and overthrow the king. An ambitious plan will her people stand by her and help her achieve victory?
My thoughts on Queen of Shadows
Disclaimer: This review will contain spoilers for the book, if you haven't read the book, it is not advised to continue reading this review.
The books by Sarah J. Maas seem to become long the further you get into a series. Queen of Shadows was a lengthy one, with 648 pages, yet it was never boring. The first three books have been a setup for this book. Where we are back in Adarlan, in the capital city, and living there is more dreadful than it felt in the last two books.
Dorian is now being possed by a demon, Chaol is being a real ass, Aedion is imprisoned by the King and Arobynn is trying to get Celeana back. This is where the story starts, and it feels heavy and dreadful. The book does a really good job of showing the reader, the feelings of the characters, but also shows a lot about the surroundings. It creates a certain atmosphere where everything seems lost, and we are holding on to little glimmers of hope, at the time.
Celeana is now Aelin, and the book addresses her in this way. The characters that knew her from before, needed to get used to the new name, and she would also correct them. At the beginning of the book, Aelin sets out to rescue her cousin, who she thought was dead, Adion, who is being held by the King. It was supposed to be a lure to trap Aelin. She has a good plan in place to rescue Aedion and manages to do so. I felt that she got off easy, it was just too easy. I have thought about this a couple of times, and I have a theory of why it might have been so easy. Either the demon underestimated Aelin, or the King in his way tried to be disobedient. Either way, this part of the book was a bit of a letdown for me.
Fortunately, this book is multiple points of view, and the chapters will switch point of view often. This book gets really dark, and I mean disturbingly dark. It makes me wonder if it was intended to be for a young adult audience. It was always my understanding that it is a young adult book, but the content in this book is really on the edge if you would ask me. I would not consider this for an audience under sixteen years old.
The disclaimer at the beginning of this review is there because I want to get into why I found some of the parts of the book so disturbing. The dark side of the book is not so much tied to Aelin, but overall Manon is in a much more difficult position. In book three Manon Blackbeak, of the Ironteeth witches, was introduced as a character. We see her become Wing-Leader of the witches and she is now sent to Morach. For a while, we don't know why the witches are there. At first, I thought it would be to protect the tower, which has trapped magic, but after a while, the true horror of their purpose has been revealed. The witches are there to breed with the Valg demons. Unwilling test projects in a breeding program of horrors. I thought this was so disturbing, that I had to stop reading for a bit to process this information.
Even though the above information horrified me, I just continued reading, it was so incredibly well written, that it keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Yes, it has some slower parts, but even in the slower parts of the book, something is happening. I also like the new side characters that were introduced, Nesryn, Elide, and Lysandra, all very strong female characters of course as that is what Sarah writes best.
The other thing I like about this book is when we first got introduced to Manon's character in book three, I wondered to what end it served, then in this book, the character has a lot more pages, and there is much more depth to why this character is one of the main characters. Up until now, it was the character that was not connected to the rest of the characters, like Chaol and Dorian were there from the start and knew Aelin. Manon on the other hand knows of Aelin and Dorian, but up until now, these characters have not met. I love that there was a meeting between all the main characters. It seems like such a small detail but it makes me so happy.
There are a lot of these small details in this book, that help the story along or close the book on a character. We do not have to keep wondering what happened to them. I think this might be the best book out of the series yet.
Rating Queen of Shadows
The Throne of Glass series seems to be less popular than the other two series, but so far it is working wonderfully for my taste in books. This series is a very well-crafted epic fantasy book, it has all the world-building you want, and it has a wide variety of characters. The first two books are a little different from books three and four, I think there are much more elements woven into the storyline in these two books.
Queen of Shadows to me is even more compelling than Heir of Fire. There is never a dull moment in the story. The characters go through hell and back. And the story gets so dark, it is delicious and addictive.
The reveal at the end of the book did come as a surprise to me, it was not what I was expecting. It is another one of those moments to treasure, in this wonderful fourth installment of the Throne of Glass Series. You know what is coming, the rating will be as the other books in the series 5 black cats coming your way Queen of Shadows.
