adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

chaol pisses me off, am i alone in this?? selfish mf that “wants to keep her safe” just makes decisions without consulting her. then GOTCHA ofc she’s the gd heir to the throne of teressen!! ofc she knows what’s going on and he just didn’t trust her omg. i’m annoyed with both male leads tbh. at the end of the first book i was team chaol, end of second book, team dorian kinda. more like team celeana going on her own journey. i gotta say, i was gooped and gagged cause i totally forgot about the missing princess. i read that foreshadowing on a plane so it really didn’t sink in. so i was mind blown by it. love that tho, maybe i should pay less attention when i read so the twists really gag me. fun read! and pretty quick at the end there.

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It’s not my favorite, but this book has officially gotten me invested in the series!

<spoilers>
 I saw her true name coming, there were a lot of hints throughout the book. But the fact that she is fae, was a bit of a surprise, looking back, there were a few hints for that too, but I just missed them cause I was waiting for the name reveal. 

But also, Dorian has magic? That was a shocker!!! I can’t wait to see how all the magic plays out! 
</spoilers>

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tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Celaena is now the Kings Champion and is tasked with all of his dirty work. 

Ok, this one was definitely better than the first book, well at least the second half.  The first half did drag a bit. 

I like that Celaena is finally starting to show those assassin traits I was hoping to see in the first book. She has moments when she is absolutely ruthless and badass. But we still had moments of her making these dumb ass choices.
Opening a portal? Really dumb.  I was not the least bit surprised to find out that she is fae and Aelin. It was pretty obvious from all of the hints dropped.


The love triangle is still annoying to me. It's looking like it will tear apart Dorian and Chaol's friendship, especially after Chaol's decisions at the end of the book to
send Celaena away. I did appreciate when Chaol finally pieced it together. I am interested to see what he will do with that information.
 

The only part I was truly surprised by was
when the princess was killed. But when the killer was finally revealed, it was kind of anticlimactic. I understand why her death was important for the plot, but the motivation was kind of blah.


Finally we are getting a bit more action and magical elements in the story. 

Tropes: love triangle, fantasy

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I had a harder time getting through this book than any other SJM book. That being said, it was still a good book, and vital to the storyline for the rest of the series. This book is definitely the turning point of the storyline.

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Rereading TOG might actually be more enjoyable than the first time through. Knowing the characters better and being able to pick up on the foreshadowing of events to come has been really fun. The second book has such a great ending that really sets the series into motion! 

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