Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Empire of Storms

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Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

56 reviews

dalek_caan's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-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

5.0

This book was so good, each book in the series just keeps getting better. The first half of the book was definitely a slow buildup but the ending is definitely worth it. I'm excited to see how this series wraps up in the last book.

Reading this one in tandem with Tower of Dawn was definitely a good way to take in the story for me. I would have been disappointed to have to read a whole other book in between this and the last book before the story progressed at all.

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noetical's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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? No

5.0

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bookrecsplease's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The beginning of this book honestly read like the weakest entry in the ToG series so far, starting to feel like more of a fetch quest holding us back from finishing the final conflict.

There was barely any distinction in the voices of all the POV characters of the same gender, and it felt like all characters (non-POV, too) were reacting in similar ways to everything they came up against. Elide, especially, I felt changed her whole character out of the blue from the last book to sound more like Aelin.

And the thing is, if every one of your characters puts on a swaggering arrogance in all tense conversations, that chuckling, smirking bravado simply doesn’t pack the same punch anymore. It is just so silly to me that every single person in a diplomatic or intimidating situation has the same sort of attitude and approach, and not only story-wise does that not make sense, but also writing-wise it gets redundant as Mass uses the same kinds of adjectives and adverbs to describe those identical attitudes. I think I read the word “drawl” or “drawled” over 100 times.

The way that all the good characters understand each other’s thoughts kept taking me out of the story because I felt like it got a little ridiculous. Like, with one look, a character (who, if this makes any difference, barely knows the other) understands that the one who LOOKED at them wants them to take another person and get them out of that situation as soon as possible once a conflict begins. I mean, that would be at least a three-gesture and look communication if you’re not using words. It was just a little absurd the way they could basically read each other’s minds all the time so that narratively, we could keep moving forward.

It happened with characters understanding each other’s motivations and feelings without talking to each other, too. One would watch another one have a certain expression on their face and just definitely know why they felt that way, putting together details from their personal history with what was presently happening, and boom. Character arc identified. It wasn’t a huge thing, but it kept making the characters feel less and less real every time it happened.

This isn’t an original complaint in all of fantasy as a whole, but particularly in this book I kept feeling that the series would be 10x better if Aelin were 30 years old so that all of the life debts other people have for her and all of her secretive history makes so much more sense.

SJM always writes shocking endings, but in this case, I felt like a lot of the reveals were things I was hoping to happen throughout the book and were frustrating to not see going on earlier in the story, only saved for the very end for dramatic effect and not logical narrative flow.

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kal517's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

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gabbyeleene's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

4.75

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carlyjoann's review against another edition

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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? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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katelynnelawson's review against another edition

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adventurous tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

A slow start picks up for an adventurous and romantic second half full of memorable characters, not one of which I wasn’t excited to read about!

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yarisbooksandbevs's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring sad slow-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

4.0

I really enjoyed this one. All of my favorite characters together fighting for each other and for a better world. There were definitely some raw and emotional moments and a few slower moments where I wasn’t as interested but overall it was a great read. Aelin really made good on her promises and proved although not perfect she is a force to be reckoned with. So many relationships forming has me a little scared for the future but these characters deserve love and peace.

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maggies's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I read Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn in tandem, so I cannot separate them. And I don’t have words. Aelin is a frustrating heroine, but the cast of characters around her more than make up for that, especially Lysandra, Manon, and Elide. That ending. My goodness.

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clursternhop's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I think I liked this one more than some of the others, not the best one tho. Maybe that'll change as I read on but I found the new POVs nice and I liked when characters were more spread across the world. More classic "Aelin did shit in the background that you don't find out until later" nonsense, but at least I saw the "Nameless" one coming.

Also, lol, so much sex compared to any of the other books.

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