Reviews with content warning for War - Empire of Storms

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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smilagros's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I did the tandem read and honestly I think that was the best decision for me. This didn’t get a five because I was not on the edge of my seat the entire time like others. The ending was very emotional and I don’t know if I am ready for Kingdom of Ash.

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adoptedbuttons's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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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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iloponis's review against another edition

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5.0

what the fuck man. what am i even supposed to say after that

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jas_thompson's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny 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? No

5.0

This was one of the best books I’ve ever read. The plot is genius and the bond between the characters is unmatched. I read this is tandem with Tower of Dawn. I highly recommend the tandem read.

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