June 20, 2014

Review of Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas


Release Date: August 27, 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children
Page Count: 420
Format: Hardcover
Genre: YA/Fantasy
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul 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.

It's hard for me to find words to explain how much I LOVED Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas. I thought Throne of Glass was amazing and then Crown of Midnight came along and proved me wrong. I started Crown of Midnight as soon as I finished the first book and loved EVERY single page of it.

 Sarah continues to amaze me with her writing skills, the plot was extremely complex and the characters kept on improving. While there was less world-building than the previous one the settings kept me content. The world of Throne of Glass was already too big to read about completely in one book and so Crown of Midnight continues on that. One new setting that we read about (albeit, for a short time) is a demon realm that Celaena goes to. I found it pretty interesting and hope to see more of them in Heir of Fire. Fantasy type books always have the most interesting and enjoyable worlds and Crown of Midnight was no exception.

While the characters from Throne of Glass were largely the same there were still one or two new ones. Celaena continued to be even more amazing and strong than she was before in the previous book. We get to see two sides of her, there's the assassin side of her and her softer side. She goes through SO much in this book and I'm sad to say that I think it breaks her a bit. Not only does she lose her friends but she also has to help her enemy. The assassin side of her breaks free and we see extreme displays of her assassinating skills. She does start to recover towards the end and I hope she can finish doing that in the next book and return to her normal self. Throne of Glass' love triangle isn't really present in Crown of Midnight since she's already made her choice. However, the events at the ending of the book make me think it might be a possibility again in book three. The part of Crown of Midnight that hurt me the most was one of the characters death. I don't want to spoil it but let's just say it will deeply shock you and hurt you when it does happen.

The way Sarah made the plot work with the characters and the surroundings did wonders for the book. There were multiple unexpected twists and new events happening that continued on to the third book. As of the time this review was published I've started my ARC of the third book and already it's amazing. Crown of Midnight is perfect for people who like amazing fantasy book, complex plots, and a heaping of feels.

5/5 - Amazing book


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