Rating: ★★★★★
Firstly, I'm gonna come out with it; and please don't attack me like a swarm of angry bees, but there were parts of this book that made me want to hit my head against a wall repeatedly bored me to SHREDS. Don't get me wrong, I loved this book so much that I had to put it down at one point just to get my breathing in check, but I think it's really important that I recognise that the book has its faults and not just gush relentlessy. Obviously, after the past three successes that Sarah J. Maas managed to pull off, she decided she wanted to experiment. Before, especially in Throne of Glass, the story was limited to Celaena's POV, and that was cool because Celaena is totally awesome. And sometimes, when she was really outgoing, we would get a glimpse into Chaol or Dorian's mind which I totally haven't bookmarked, and then, when the ball starts to really get rolling, you see that different viewpoints are explored - like Nehemia's before THAT THING HAPPENED WHICH WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT.
But then, in Heir of Fire she's like BOOM MOTHERFUCKERS HOW D'YOU LIKE ALTERNATING VIEWPOINTS I'M INTRODUCING NEW CHARACTERS AND SHIT THIS STORY'S GETTING PRETTY BIG NOW AND IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT CELAENA ANYMORE YOU WITH ME?
And I'm really cool with that. I love new viewpoints, and I love to watch author's develop and change their style, not just sticking to the same old stale way of writing. I'm all for it.
The only thing that really didn't fit with me was the viewpoint she decided to periodically switch to. This viewpoint, dear friends, was that of Manon, a Blackbeak witch (maybe? There are lots of different clans, and I can't remember them for the most part), this supposedly beautiful, evil (?) character who has literally just been introduced to us in this book.
And it aggravated me so much, because I just didn't care about her. Here we are, Celaena Sardothien, a complex, badass, ironically empathetic assassin who has these secret powers and a heartbreaking heritage, basically running the whole storyline with new interesting characters (like Rowan my bby) that actually RELATE to the character that we've spent three books building a connection to, and months waiting for the fourth, why in hell would I be interested in a character who is actually going to fight with the freaking king, and therefore, ultimately against Celaena, and who, as we've been conditioned to think for the past few books, is totally evil? I didn't care if she lived or died, she wasn't interesting or kind or, well anything.
She was just sort of there.
Those chapters (god forbid the ones that were sometimes two in a row) were so unbelievably boring for me. There was this bit at the end where Manon did the thing she wanted to do and she sort of did some soul searching about who she really was after this supposedly "good witch" guilt tripped her. And then she had the attitude of 'lol kay well my grannie is sitting over there and she's real scary when she's mad so i'm just gonna kill u no hard feelings respect' and then boom shakalaka the deed is done close the door on your way out.
Other than those really annoying intervals, those chapters did give me some appreciation for the ones that I legitimately cared about. In Heir of Fire, Sarah J. Maas manages to completely blow you away with her writing, and I SWEAR THAT THERE'S A TON OF MORE HEARTBREAKING SCENES LIKE NO FUCK YOU I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS even though I kinda did
In this instalment, Celaena does some soul searching and I guess power searching that doesn't involve her killing someone who's totally innocent cough Manon cough, and along the way she encounters a ton of new characters (I know!!!!!), which I was SO EXCITED about because otherwise it would have felt like the book was just really limited to Dorian and Chaol. Not that seeing more of Chaol would have been a bad thing, but still.
Along the way, I was really scared that we would start to get a love square, which would have involved multiple face palms. I was like, no, no. I understand Celaena is freaking amazing, you don't have to prove this to me by having not two, but three men throw themselves at her. Like, dude, that's just getting ridiculous. But then this amazing friendship blossomed out of two really broken people and I pretty much died right there and then.
Let's all admit it though, the lead up to that friendship was one of the most heartbreaking things in the whole series.
Along with that end. What even...what even was that??
Just...
I'm really kind of incapable of words at the moment, I mean this entire review has been a struggle, because my specialty is putting books down, not gushing about them, which I don't even think I've done nearly enough of. Like...how do I form words??? About how heartbreakingly unexpected that final chapter was and you guys know what i'm talking about
All I'm saying, is that I'm terrified. So terrified for the next book. All I want to see is the King of Ardalan bleed BECAUSE WHAT HE DID TO DORIAN IS UNFORGIVABLE and for Celaena to whoop his ass the next dimension.
Until then I'm gonna cry.
But, seriously, if you haven't read this series, read it! It's one of my favourite series of all time, and I only reserve that title for series' that leave me emotionally impaired and yet overly excited for everything in it.
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