Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Empire of Storms

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

9 reviews

aksmith92's review against another edition

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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tiredtori's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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ect625's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? Yes

5.0

There have been storylines of side characters running parallel to Aelin's through the last few books, and they all come together in an incredibly meaningful way in this book. It's quite possibly my favorite book of the series so far.

There is a lot of debate in the fandom about reading Empire of Storms on its own or as a tandem read with Tower of Dawn. I chose to read it as written in the series and loved the uninterrupted unfolding of the story. SJM wrote each book with its specific content and pacing for a reason, and I ultimately decided to trust her expertise of her own work.

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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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gcjay1994's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

3.0

My biggest note when it comes to SJM is that all her books could stand to be 200 pages shorter. I like her ideas and always have a fun time, but I think I would really enjoy her work with a tighter edit.

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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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amanda_reads13's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful 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

4.5

We continue to follow Aelin in her quest against Erawan.

The first part of the book was slow, but in Maas style, the last like 30% of the book had me in a chokehold. There were so many twists that I didn't see coming.

I have not been a huge fan of Aelin throughout the series and that attitude continued through most of this book. I found her to be pretty immature and impulsive. BUT I was proven wrong in the last part of this book. Behind the scenes and behind everyone's backs (even her own group) she was plotting some genius moves. We don't get to see how she navigates the world like a chessboard, moving everything perfectly in place, it's all behind the scenes, not reveleaed until

her showdown with Maeve.

We find out along with her group that

she has called in all of her favours to build an army, married Rowan, devised a plan with Lysandra to replace her, and is fully prepared to die to create the lock and save her people.

Manon is quickly becoming one of my favourite characters. I am very excited to see her

embrace her role as Queen.

I highly recommend reading this in Tandem with Tower of Dawn as the two stories overlap! So much was revealed about Maeve in Tower of Dawn, so I think the tandem reading made it reading this book much more suspenseful!

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erafact's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny reflective sad 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? Yes

4.75

Did a Tandem read

which i highly recommend because tower of dawn is alittle slow

, so this is for both "Empire of Storms" and "tower of dawn". A great story that ends on a cliff hanger

that breaks your heart

there is so much left to do for there being only one book left im not sure how I feel about it.

Content Warnings

annabeth_jackson's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

1.5

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