Book title: Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)
Author: Sarah J Maas
Summary:
Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past . . .
She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.
She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return.
The fourth volume in the New York Times bestselling series contrinues Celaena’s epic journey and builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.
That was the official synopsis of the book. Now, here is an accurate summary of this book from a goodreads review. Okay, let’s begin. *deep breath*
*SPOILERS WARNING FROM BOOK #1 – #3*
The good
The new characters. If it’s wrong to love Manon Blackbeak, then I don’t wanna be right. Her and Asterin’s relationship is part of the reasons why I kept on reading even when I sometimes want to stop. It’s rare for an author to successfully introduced new characters that could be accepted by the fans, but I think Sarah J Maas managed to do just that. Fans already liking Rowan from the previous book will love him even more in here. I don’t really care about him, but many do ship him with Aelin so that’s a success in my book. Manon, Aedion, and the fabulous Lysandra are other major new characters introduced in book #3 (and #4) and their story continued here.
The writing. The book in this series got thicker and thicker. Queen of Shadows is about 650 pages long, significantly longer than the first Throne of Glass that has around 400 pages. The number of pages is not the only thing that has improved. Her writing is also getting better and better. If you need convincing, go ahead and re-read a few chapters from the first book.
The not so good
The old characters. Why oh why Sarah? She made Chaol almost unrecognizable in this book. This was Captain Westfall, the one who loved Celaena so deeply in Crown of Midnight? That was how he’s going to welcome her back? Beloved Dorian is barely in the book thanks to the thing happened at the end of Heir of Fire, which is to be expected, but can be frustrating to fans.
Aelin Ashryver Galathynius. This book made it seems that simply disliking Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the rightful Queen of Terrasen, is a crime. I get that she’s beautiful and fierce and cunning and interesting, but how is it that every males in the series want to be with her and all the females want to be her BFFs?
Final Words
I had such high hopes on this book, but left sort of disappointed. It was tad a bit too slow and the characters from the first book have changed so much and/or shoved aside. On a positive note, Sarah introduced new interesting characters and her writing is even better with each book. Four books down, two to go!
Final Score
3 stars (out of 5 stars)