REVIEW: Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Synopsis: Lost and broken, Celaena Sardothien’s only thought is to avenge the savage death of her dearest friend: as the King of Adarlan’s Assassin, she is bound to serve this tyrant, but he will pay for what he did. Any hope Celaena has of destroying the king lies in answers to be found in Wendlyn. Sacrificing his future, Chaol, the Captain of the King’s Guard, has sent Celaena there to protect her, but her darkest demons lay in that same place. If she can overcome them, she will be Adarlan’s biggest threat – and his own toughest enemy. While Celaena learns of her true destiny, and the eyes of Erilea are on Wendlyn, a brutal and beastly force is preparing to take to the skies. Will Celaena find the strength not only to win her own battles, but to fight a war that could pit her loyalties to her own people against those she has grown to love?

Rating: 10 out of 10!

Overall:  Best in the series so far.  Beautifully written, heartbreaking and inspiring, Maas brings her world to a whole new level of awesomeness.  Before we had a kick ass assassin and now we have a kick ass assassin, fae queen.  Would 100% recommend to everyone.

Thoughts:  This is my hands down favorite book of the year.  The writing and story has matured significantly since the first book, and though there is not an overwhelming amount of action and danger until the very end, Heir of Fire brings out a side of every single character we have yet to see and introduces new characters as well.  It kept pace at a slow burn, the sheer intensity of it building with every chapter.  Celaena's story was heartbreaking and inspiring, and her relationship with Rowan was arguably my favorite part of the entire book.  I LOVE Rowan Whitethorn and how he and Celaena work to heal each other.  Aedion was my second favorite new addition.  Who doesn't love a loyal man who plays a dangerous game?

Manon's story was awesome as well and I can't wait to see how Maas is going to weave all the storylines together in the next book.  Chaol kind of pissed me off in this, just a little, with his reluctance to pick a damn side and his inability to fully accept Dorian and Celaena, magic and all.  Then we have Ren and Murtaugh Allsbrook, who were nameless rebels in Crown of Midnight and got to tell their story in Heir of Fire.  I liked them, especially the old man.  Now that it's just Chaol and Ren, I really want to know what they're gonna do for Aedion and Dorian.  Speaking of Dorian, if Maas turns him into one of the Valg, I swear to god, I'm gonna be pissed.  HE WAS FINALLY MATURING AND ON HIS WAY TO GETTING HIS OWN HAPPY ENDING WITH SORSCHA AND THEN MAAS WENT AND BEHEADED THE POOR GIRL.  I MEAN JESUS!

Also, are we ever gonna learn the King's name?  It's book three and, while we got a little more detail on his appearance, like scarred eyebrows/face and giant arms, we still don't know his name and its bugging me.

Finally, the two scenes that really broke my heart were when Celaena broke down right before she had to go get Luca off the monster infested lake Rowan chained him to and the second, when the musicians played after the slave massacres.  I mean really, you could open this book to any random page and have you heart torn to shreds...

Musing Mondays

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I'm currently (re)reading Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas.

When I first read this, it was as an ebook.  With ebooks, it's incredibly easy to miss small details so I decided to read it again.  I'm also working on rebuilding my bookshelf since for the last couple of years, I've favored ebooks and haven't bought many hard copies.  Well, now ebooks annoy me sooo...

I bought Heir of Fire in hard cover and have been taking my time reading it.  There are so many details I missed the first two times I read it, it's like reading an entirely new book!  Celaena and Rowan are my babies!

REVIEW: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Summary: From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil. Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart. Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie...and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Overall: A fantastic read. If you’re on the edge of deciding whether or not to continue the series if Throne of Glass didn’t live up to the hype for you, I would 100% recommend this book. I love the series’s first book, don’t get me wrong, but Crown of Midnight is ten times better in just about every aspect ever.

Thoughts: The sequel to Throne of Glass takes the series to a whole new level. Not only is Celaena a hell of a lot more kick ass in this installment, but the dangers of living in Sarah J. Maas’ world are a lot more evident in Crown of Midnight as shown by the presence of a rebel group in Rifthold. I love the fact Celaena worked with the rebels so readily that she didn’t give it a second thought, and by the end of the book, we know why.

The entirety of Celaena and Chaol’s relationship in this was beautifully done and it was a refreshing romance as Maas didn’t shy away from having multiple sex…I don’t want to call them scenes because they’re not detailed, but she doesn’t do the whole “fade to black” thing a lot of YA authors tend to do when it comes to sex and romance. Maas did a great job in this area. The progress of the relationship was realistic and didn’t have that instal-love feeling so many YA romances do.

Wyrdmarks have a much bigger part in this and the three wyrdkeys are introduced as being the most powerful objects to exist. It’s revealed that the King of Adarlan is in possession of at least one and he’s using them for some kind of experiment that resulted in the library monster.

Oh, and Dorian has MAGIC when magic is supposed to be nonexistent.

Maas is also not afraid to kill off her characters in horrific ways. Nehemia’s assassination through dismemberment was detailed and as the reader, you feel every moment of shock, pain, horror and anger that Celaena does. Especially when Nehemia orchestrated the entire damn thing. To be honest, that kind of pissed me off. I get why she did it, but she’s also not the only one who died either. Her two guards get taken out with her.

And then there’s Chaol’s role in her death. A minor role, but the fact that he knew about the threat to Nehemia’s life and kept his mouth shut is horrible. I don’t care if the king ordered him to stay quiet, that’s the kind of thing you find ways to warn people about. Celaena’s desire to kill him was extreme, as she recognizes later on, but it was grounds to end their romantic relationship. And to be honest, I never really saw Celaena being with either Chaol or Dorian for very long. They were cute together, but I didn’t love-love either romance.

After Nehemia’s death, Celaena falls into a pit of depression and becomes a broken version of herself. And that broken-ness spurs her onto desperate actions. Like opening a portal to talk to her best friend one more time…fun times, especially when everyone almost dies. It’s during this portal opening fun where we find out that Celaena is fae and has FIRE MAGIC. That was really cool.

Earlier I mentioned that Celaena is a lot more kick ass in this book. Not only is she not killing her assigned targets, but when the rebel group she’s been helping abducts Chaol, she cuts through them as if they were untrained and unexperienced. She tortures and kills Graves, her former competition and Nehemia’s killer. And then there’s the portal/magic chapters. But I have to say, the best scene was when Celaena gutted Archer, in part because he hired Graves to take out her friend, but also because Archer calls her a good person. Celaena responds by gutting him, telling him Nehemia was the good person and throwing his body in the sewer after taking his head.

REVIEW: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Summary: After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.  Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.  Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.  Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Rating: 7/10

Overall:  A good read.  I would recommend it to just about anyone.  It has its pros and cons, but so does every book.  Throne of Glass will not disappoint.  This review turned into a bit of a rant, but oh well, I love this book so that was almost a given.

Thoughts: What's not to like about an assassin for a heroine?  We're introduced to Celaena as she's being taken out of the salt mines and offered a chance at freedom.  And guess what?  After a year of slavery, she's still got a mouth on her and she's not afraid to use it.  I think that's what really had me hooked on her character from the start.  Also her inner dialogue on ways she could kill everyone.

She's really arrogant and that blinds her to some pretty crucial, and sometimes obvious, points and strategies, but she makes up for that in skill and small endearing moments.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to strangle her at certain points, especially when she couldn't see the benefit of staying out of the tip top rankings during the competition.  But those moments filled with arrogance lessened towards the end of the book until the point where she’s not entirely sure if she can survive the competition or the creature killing competitors in the castle. 

The competition isn't center stage.  The murders of the competing champions fills that slot, particularly since Celaena has the ghost of Elena, first Queen of Adarlan, giving her no choice but to chase down and stop whoever and whatever is doing the killing.  This is where the fantasy aspect comes in.

The wyrdmarks are an interesting alternative to magic.  Because as the character Nehemia, Celaena’s first true friend in this book and an admirable character herself, points out the wyrdmarks are not really magic.  I think she says they’re an ancient language that when used correctly, can do all sorts of things like open portals and protect people.  But the “not magic” distinction is important.  Even though it’s basically magic.

More on Nehemia.  Nehemia is awesome.  First, she pretends not to speak the common language, making everyone underestimate her intelligence while simultaneously making them uncomfortable.  Second, she doesn’t scrap her kingdom’s traditions, including her style of dress, just because she was sent to Adarlan to learn their customs.  Third, she’s a rebel.  A rebel princess who knows how to fight.  How awesome is that?  Especially since its made pretty clear her crown and her father’s crown are basically just Adarlan’s way of keeping Eyllwe under control.  They have the titles, but Adarlan has the power.

I’ve heard this described as having a love triangle, and I guess there is, but let’s be honest, there have been way worse love triangles than this.  Celaena uses Dorian’s romantic tendencies toward her more as a distraction, though she does care about him.  Chaol is working up to truly caring about/loving her, but in this book, they’re not quite on the romantic relationship level and by Crown of Midnight, Dorian and Celaena’s kind-of-relationship has been over for a while.

Then there’s Celaena’s love of fine clothes and books.  Most people talk about this as a turn off to her character, but I liked it.  She knows how to use her beauty as a weapon and reading is always a good trait to have.  And who hasn’t stayed up all night reading when they have an important test or something in the morning?  I sure as hell have.  

That doesn’t mean she neglects her training.  If anything, she trains more than the other competitors because the mines ruined her body and she’s not healthy for a good chunk of the book.  She vomits after short spurts of running and she doesn’t get her period for the first few months of her being at the glass castle, which is why the chapter where she gets her period is necessary.  And really, how many books have you read where the teenage girl menstruates?  I’ll bet you can count on one hand.