Monday, March 16, 2015
Review: Crown of Midnight
Title: Crown of Midnight
Author: Sarah J Maas
Release Date: August 27th 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Pages: 418
Rating: 5 Cows
Goodreads Description: "A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.
It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend."
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.
Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.
Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie...and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.
Goodreads Description: "A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.
It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend."
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.
Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.
Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie...and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.
I have to say,
this one surprised even me. I had high
expectations going into it, after devouring the first book in the series, Throne of Glass and giving it a 5. I was enthralled. Then I started reading this one, and I
realized just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, it actually
could. Crown of Midnight was simply brilliant. In fact, it was my favorite one in the series
so far (out of the three). Here’s why.
Before you read
on, as with any reviews about books in a series, if you haven’t read the
previous books yet, there will be spoilers for those ones. Don’t say you weren’t warned!
So as I was
saying, one of the things I often find with series, is that sometimes they can
get boring and redundant after a while, because they’re essentially about the
same thing. Yes, I get it. A series is centered around one thing. But this series evolved, and changed. The first book Celaena is just brought from
Endovier, and the book is centered around her training for the competition to
be the King’s Assassin. In this book, Crown of Midnight, it’s about her
missions after she becomes the King’s Assassin.
Maybe it was just my relief at her victory (I spent all book one
fretting she was going to get sent back to Endovier), but I found myself loving
the second book. There’s so much going
on in this one! There’s secrets that slowly unfold throughout it that you don’t
see coming, and her newfound friendship with Princess Nehemia was also fun to
read. Nehemia is another representation
of a strong female figure in this book series.
She’s strong-willed, and not afraid to say what’s on her mind, making
her a formidable foe to the king.
Despite the alliance the king has with her kingdom, Nehemia and the king
are wary of one another, and for good reasons.
She’s definitely not a force to be reckoned with!
Without giving
anything away, I do want to touch upon the secrets Caleana has been
keeping. The biggest one doesn’t come
until the very end of the book, so I’m sorry to say that you will have to hold
out for that one. The one that she
reveals early on though, really says a lot about her character. It showed me a side of Caleana that honestly,
although I had hoped was there, wasn’t too sure about. There’s more to her than just a coldblooded
killer, and I think the further you get into the series, the more that gets
revealed. Her friends around her are
also starting to catch onto this as well, and Caleana has a harder time keeping
up this front that she has, of being untouchable/unhurt by anything.
One last character
I want to mention: Chaol. OHMYLANTA Sarah J Maas you have perfected the art of
creating the perfect male book character.
There’s so much depth to Chaol, it’s phenomenal. Each book you get to find out more and more
about him, and his actions are never what you expect. In Crown
of Midnight he seriously has a change of heart about Caleana (although,
quite honestly, you could kind of tell he had feelings for her in the first
book) and is willing to do anything to protect her. It’s that characteristic that ends up landing
him in some trouble in this book (I won’t say anything more, I promise!)
This is officially
the end of my fangirling; for now, at least until my review of the next book in
the series, Heir of Fire. All in all,
I could not have been more impressed with this book! Crown of Midnight is one of those books that I know I will pick up
and reread in the years to come. 5
cows!!!
Emily
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Comments
Ahhh Chaol!!!!! I love him so so so much. They are my OTP for sure. I loved this book even when it hurt. I can't wait to read your HoF review! That book... ALL THE FEELS.
ReplyDeleteME TOO! Chaol and Caelana's relationship was one of my favorite parts of this book! thanks for checking out my review!!
ReplyDelete