Reviews

Okay, this was probably 4.5 stars for me, but I'm rounding down because I usually do and also because I have to admit that I was a little disappointed by this book, especially by the end. This book was roughly 690 pages, and it honestly felt like an enormous set-up to the final installment in the series, which isn't out for roughly another year. (And that's fine because there does need to be build-up to what I hope is an epic conclusion to this story arc.) However, I would have appreciated it more if there were one or two story threads that both started and finished in this book, so it felt more like it could stand on its own instead of being a very, very long attempt to put all the pieces in place for the final confrontation with evil.

I don't want to get into too much detail because of spoilers either, but I wasn't entirely happy with the direction in which Maas decided to take the plot either because it seems completely predictable and a pretty useless exercise in martyrdom when Maas has more or less avoided that sort of grand gesture previous to now. (Outside of bit characters in scenes telling the history of the fall of Terrasen.)

I did enjoy the cast of characters in this immensely though, and I'm interested to see what Maas does with them in the final installment of the series. (And I realize I've used that expression a lot, but it's definitely what's going to determine the success of this book, in my opinion since this book was mostly getting the pieces ready for that book.)

One final thought about this whole series: at least for me, the first two books were smaller stories about Caelena, Chaol, and Dorian. With the third and fourth (and now fifth) books, Maas has been attempting to take her smaller story and spread it across a more stereotypically epic fantasy plotline and world. I don't know how successful she's been at doing so, and again, that's something the final book will really reveal. As someone who enjoys the more epic fantasy storylines more than the smaller storylines (although clearly Maas needed something on which to build) from the first two books, it's a welcome change, but it might not be for all readers.