Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas

28 reviews

aksmith92's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

3.5

I read Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn as a tandem read, as requested by most BookTokers I've seen out there. Many recommend this because they love Aelin and Rowan and didn't want to be a part of them for one whole book; plus, there will ALWAYS be Chaol haters. I honestly don't care much about Aelin and Rowan (sorry!), and I am notoriously known for thinking there is more than meets the eye with Chaol. But, I will admit it: the tandem read slightly improved my experience with my Throne of Glass journey. While reading nearly 1400 pages, give or take, seemed daunting, I did fly through this read (these reads?).

Set up: The main characters are thrown into every direction as war breaks out between citizens and the infamous Vlag. Empire of Storms follows Aelin, Rowan, Dorian, Manon, Lysandra, Aedion, Elide, Lorcan, and others we know and love. Tower of Dawn follows Chaol and Nesryn as they trek to the southern continent to, hopefully, gain support from the kaghan there in the upcoming war. Also, to see if they can get Chaol walking again. In this book, we meet Yrene again after briefly meeting her in The Assassin's Blade.

What I liked: Lysandra. I also  enjoyed Elide's and Lorcan's characters. I liked their romance. Theirs didn't feel forced per se, but their POVs were sometimes redundant. Finally, I was invested in this plot. I wanted to see how SJM wove in all the moving pieces and how it would end. I was invested. I didn't see TOO many plot holes. This is some decent high fantasy plotting.

What I didn't like: Aelin. Always. She's so annoying, even if she spouts some funnies occasionally. I didn't enjoy Rowan and Aelin either. "Just bang!" I would say throughout this novel, and THEN they did, and I was underwhelmed. Something about velvet-strapped steel also just....yuck.

"She really tortured them, she realized, by shoving her way into danger whenever she felt like it. Perhaps she'd try to be better about it if this dread was at all like what they felt." LOL, yeah, AELIN.

This (these) book(s) also did teeter on the ROMANCE scale so much. I was finally glad not to have a love triangle anymore, and thankfully, those (kinda) went away, but everybody is paired with somebody. I'm not sure why it annoyed me because I've read other books where this happens (Roots of Chaos - Samantha Shannon), but I don't think anybody quite hypes it up and makes it a considerable plot point like SJM. I also wished I counted how many kisses characters gave at the "corners of mouths."

"She thought of the new, delicate scars on his back - marks from her own nails (*cough* sex *cough*), that he'd refused to heal with his magic, and instead had set with seawater, the salt locking the scars into place before the immortal body could smooth it over. Her claiming marks, he'd breathed into her mouth the last time he'd been inside her. So he and anyone who saw them would know that he belonged to her. That he was hers, just as she was his." WHAT. First. What? Second. How would people look at his back and be like THOSE ARE FROM F'in! Third. What. Fourth. The dramatics. Fifth. What. Lastly, they can do that with salt water? Since freaking when? This internal monologue was also the start of a BATTLE IN WAR. Lol. Just lol.

Lastly, there is a plethora of toxic perseverance and the glorification of war, which is something I must get used to with SJM writing. In addition [I'm putting a spoiler on this just in case], but
kind of healing Chaol's injury wasn't done super well in my opinion. He was disabled and then "magically" healed, yet still tied to Yrene's life and it can still go wrong? It's honestly a cop out of him being healed enough to still be mr macho man yet then things can go wrong? I don't know, it didn't quite sit well for me.


Overall, though, it was fine. This was a solid read (reads). However, I have officially decided that my TBR is too long for any more SJM. I will finish this series with Kingdom of Ash, and I will stop reading her works. Fated mates, toxic perseverance, and unnecessary romanticism of war simply isn't for me and I will officially put the books down after. 
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shannah_gone_bananas's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious slow-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

2.25

It’s very very slow. Compared to the other books in the series it is a hard read. Which is sad because I love Chaol’s character. He’s been one of my favorites. 
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mcpopish's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

One of my favorites of the series so far. 
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anndreya's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

4.25

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liesthemoontells's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A welcome disruption to the drawn out repetition of the previous book. The worldbuilding of a new civilisation and continent injects some variety into the series, although at times I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief at the glowing descriptions of the khaganate's empire and political structure. 

While I don't know if Chaol *needed* a redemption arc, this book executes one remarkably well for a character who was so insufferable in earlier . 

While this book at times felt like it is just moving the chess pieces into place for the finale, it also includes some delicious twists and revelations to be explored in the next book.

I took half a star off for the overuse of classic Maas phrases such as "eyes lined with silver" and characters saying something "too softly" - girl needs to pick up a thesaurus.

PS: lampshading the irony of me accusing Maas of needing to pick up a thesaurus when I use the word "book" five times in four paragraphs
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chapters_and_pages's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I’ve been loving rereading this series and this book was no different!

As this is a sequel, I won’t go into the storyline. This was my second time reading this book, and my first tandem read, with Empire of Storms, and I have to say, even though it took awhile, tandem reading is the way to go with these two books!

From Heir of Fire onwards, Chaol is one of my least favourite characters… honestly, he gets on my last nerve. However, about halfway through this book, Chaol begins to redeem himself in my eyes. 

I absolutely love Yrene! She’s just as strong as the other female characters, but as she’s a healer, as oppose to an outright fighter like Aelin or Manon, she’s got this understated strength that is very enjoyable and makes you love her even more. 

Nesryn was also an interesting character who I’m glad we saw more of, especially as an individual character, not just as a part of Chaol’s storyline. 

Overall, I did love this book, but I did find myself missing the other characters of the series, so I’m really glad I did the tandem read! 
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hollymileham's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

was a bit unsure on what to rate this bc 3 stars felt too harsh but 4 feels a bit extreme for me, the overall reading experience was really positive but i just found myself always wanting to go back to empire of storm because i found it a lot more interesting, i think the focus on less storylines compared in this one made it feel a bit slow paced, and though i did enjoy this book for what it had to offer it think it would have been more interesting interwoven into empire of storms rather than doing it as a tandem read. things i did really like about this book was yrene, chaols character development and how everything in the tog is linked that's something i really appreciated finding out about, the plots twists were really good too. but i do think this book was maybe just a bit too much world building for my liking tho i do think it was a good story

ps why were there so many spiders in this. literally traumatising 
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noetical's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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? No

5.0

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undecidedpersonality's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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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annamary54's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

If I didn’t do this as a tandem read with Empire of Storms, I think this would’ve been more of a 3.75 ⭐️ read. Having the action of EOS really helped move this plot along. I’ve never been a big Chaol fan, but the development in this book is INCREDIBLE. I actually started to like him towards the end. I really enjoyed Nesryns journey especially because it brought more action to the book. The world building in this series is CRAZY, SJM you are amazing! My head is exploding at the last 50 pgs of every book. Could’ve done with out the explanation of their HVAC system for like two chapters in the beginning, but I understand why that point was really made at the end. Overall this was a very good character building story, I am glad I did the tandem read, otherwise I probably would have been a little bored at times. 
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