Crown of Midnight and Heir of Fire Review
I’ve been having some difficulty really getting into this series, written by Sarah J. Maas. The first book, Throne of Glass (ToG, I actually listened to on audiobook last year. I never followed up with the second book until now. Before I dove into Crown of Midnight (CoM), I did a quick skim of the first book to remind myself of what happened. It’s been so long since I actually read the first book, I decided not to do a review on it. Instead, I will go straight into my Crown of Midnight and Heir of Fire (HoF) reviews, with a quick note about ToG.
If you have not yet read the series — I bought the boxed set which is pretty cool.
Throne of Glass
For those who need a reminder, or who haven’t read ToG (there will be spoilers!!) it centers around the main character, Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan’s assassin, and her fight to become the King’s champion. She must become the King’s champion, or else be sent back to the slave mines in Endovier where she was taken from. We are introduced to Dorian (the crown prince) and Chaol (captain of the King’s guard) right away. We know one of these two will be Celaena’s love interest.
For me, a major part of any story is the romance. I am a sucker for a good romance. So, I patiently waited for it to spark in the book, and it finally did! Dorian and Celaena began seeing each other and it was adorable. All the while, Celaena did her thing, kicking butt in the champion contest. On the side, she avoided being killed by a terrible, magical, demonic beasty.
Of course, at the end of the book, Celaena breaks things off with Dorian because it could never work — him being a prince and her the king’s champion. Le sigh.
Crown of Midnight
The romance may have ended between Dorian and Celaena, but that only meant she could now be with Chaol! This development had me so excited! Of course, they both started making plans for their future together, so I knew it would never last. Celaena began her duties as the king’s champion, “killing” people he didn’t like and what not. She discovered that there were rebels trying to bring people together in order to go against the king.
The dang rebels kidnapped Chaol to draw out Celaena, so she killed a bunch of them, and then recused Chaol. She finds out that Chaol had been keeping a secret…her BFF Nehemia was under watch because someone had threatened her life. *Gasp* how dare he not tell her. (Cue me rolling my eyes.) So now, obviously, Nehemia had to die because Chaol made a mistake.
Not only did Nehemia die, but Celaena tried to kill Chaol because of his omission. She is a highly volatile person. As we soon learn, Nehemia orchestrated her own death to try to push Celaena to action. So, it was not Chaol’s fault at all. But, alas, as Celaena says way too many times, she still can’t forgive/be with him because too much has happened.
At the end, we find out that Celaena is actually in fact Fae and the long-lost Princess who can save the world. Chaol has her sent by the king to Wendlyn on assignment to get her away to safety and cue the next book.
This book was a whole lot of me waiting for something to happen. There were small events along the way that kept me interested, but it just felt dragged out. Celaena meets her Aunt Maeve, who is an evil lady, and Rowan. Rowan is to train Celaena to use her special Fae power (fire) before she can be brought before Maeve. In exchange, Maeve will give her information on these special wyrdkeys that the king is using to take over the world.
A very long, drawn-out process of Celaena’s training begins. In between these chapters, there are snippets from Chaol and Dorian. Chaol is helping the rebels in order to help Dorian, while Dorian is learning how to hide his magic while falling in love with Sorscha (a healer in the castle). There is also the story of Manon, a Blackbeak witch among all these other witches. They are learning to ride wyverns (dragon-like creatures) that the king has bred, so they can be a part of his army.
Those parts I really could not have cared less about, until she started to show some dynamic of being different than all the other heartless witches. But even then, I just felt it was so separate from the main story. Like, she could have her own book, a novelette dedicated to Manon, rather than throwing in one more story to follow in the main series. She probably becomes important later, but it felt tedious to read in this book.
So…
as Rowan and Celaena train together, they become very close. But, as is pointed out over and over, they are JUST FRIENDS. Many times in the course of their interactions, something that could be romantic is said, and then added on to that is, “but not at all in the romantic sense.” I understand why they wouldn’t be romantically involved because they both have complicated pasts, but now there was no romance in the story, other than Dorian and Sorscha, and that was minimal. I need something to hold onto.
Sarah J. Maas is a great writer. Her descriptions are awesome, and her characters are all deep and multi-faceted, but I am not being pulled along as I like to be in a story. I have no hope for any romance in the next books because she repeatedly beat into the story that Rowan and Celaena won’t happen, and Celaena and Chaol can never be together again. Which, part of that, something that really bothered me was all of the characters’ abilities to just “let go.” Dorian and Celaena did it with their love for each other. Dorian even has a moment where he says — he closed his eyes and chose to let her go, and that’s that. And then Chaol has a moment where he is accepting that she will never want to be with him again, and he’s okay.
Like, no. That’s not how that works. You can’t just flip a switch and be done.
Anyway, at the end of HoF there is a big boom of activity — Sorscha being beheaded, Aedion (who I didn’t mention earlier) is imprisoned, and Dorian is found out by the king to have magic. He is then enslaved through a special collar and now we are sad. It was the only chapter that evoked a lot of emotion from me in the book. It made me want to start the next book right away, but I also didn’t want to. I’m worried it will be a lot of hurry up and wait again and I just need a break.
Crown of Midnight had me intrigued in the first half and then lost me, and Heir of Fire just never really pulled me in.
My Rating
From all the praise I heard for this series and HoF, it is not what I expected so far. I still have four more books to read in the series, which scares me. So much has happened already, and I just want to end. While this is the case, I would give the series so far a 3 out of 5. I’m not happy with a lot, and the first three books could have been condensed into one or two books. Crown of Midnight and Heir of Fire especially could have been condensed down.
Sorry to all my friends that love this series — it’s just not for me! But, I will power on and finish the series after a break, and who knows! It may turn around and make me a fan!
Here are some other reviews if you are interested:
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