A review by trinityb2021
Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

3.0

3 ⭐️

This was weaker than the last novel for sure. I also have to up my standards because this is no longer YA. This is NA which means its target audience is older.

There were parts I liked. I think the ending was pretty cool and clever. I liked Lorcan a lot. He was different enough from the other characters to hold my interest. Imagine my surprise when Manon becomes an interesting character. She is still kind of just Aelin pt. 2 but she was still fun to read about.

Surprisingly the romance is where this book fell flat. Normally I’d say that SJM can write a romance novel really well but struggles with the fantasy stuff but I feel the opposite about this. There was too much romance in this book. There’s what 4? 5? sex scenes? For reference a romantasy book this size usually has 3-4 and is marketed as romance heavy. Way too many for this genre (she’s trying to make this still be YA). Dorian’s romance was particularly weird. Even the Rowan and Aelin stuff felt kind of dumb. Sex on a beach? I’d rather die sorry. Sand everywhere it doesn’t belong.

The Dorian storyline was not interesting. He was kind of a doorstop for this entire novel which is too bad because he used to be my favorite. Chaol is missing because he gets his solo novel but he’s had the most character growth so I think him being gone made this novel a little worse as well.

I liked what the girls were doing; Lysandra, Manon, and Elide especially carried. Why does everyone more interesting than Aelin? How does this happen?

However, this novel was wayyy too long. There was lots of fluff that needed to be cut. We’re getting to the point in SJMs career where she doesn’t have to listen to editors and that is too bad. After the success of the earlier TOG books, and by this point ACOTAR, she can just write absolute CHONKERS and get away with it. Cut 150-200 pages and this book would be a good bit better. A lot of that could be romance stuff tbh.

I’m very excited for Tower of Dawn. Although, even the TOG girlies don’t like this book. I heard a B&N employee say you HAVE to do the tandem read because “this book is boring because it’s not in the main characters point of view”. My hope is that this book is secretly amazing and the TOG girlies just don’t know good fantasy when they read it.