Queen of Shadows Review.

Hellooooo.

Okay, so yes, I’ve finished all the SJM books that I own, it’s a sad day. This books just perfect, and I just.can. not. deal.

By the way, I will be doing a spoiler section below, so watch out for that if you haven’t  read it yet!

Honestly I can’t. I mean, this book was great from the very first sentence. I cannot deal with not knowing what’s going to happen next.

The queen has returned.

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.

(GOODREADS)

So where to start with this book?

Aelin was absolutely fabulous in this book. So unexpected, and clever. I couldn’t get ove the cleverness of her character in this book. She was so ruthless in this book and it felt like she was finally who she was meant to be, especially after HoF.

Aedion is still just… aaaammmmzing. I honestly love him and he’s just my smog bean. He’s so loyal and caring. At first I felt really bad for him, as Aelin wasn’t always telling him what was going on. worrying him, but it only made me cherish him even more as he cared. so. damn. much.

Chaol put me on edge this book because I was unsure as to if he truly trusted Aelin and her companions. I feel like he has massive character development that may not be seen that much? What I mean is that he isn’t really highlighted as a character with large development (well, I feel that way) but I still feel like he grew loads.

Manon was just amazing. In HoF she shows sighs of starting to care but that was blow out of the water in this book. I mean I don’t think that I expected her to grow so much and it just makes me love Sarah J Maas’s unexpected writing even more. I’d love to see her in the next book (maybe she’ll become allies with Aelin? And in the future books I would totally ship any romance scenes between her and Dorian—if that even happens—because I just see the possibilities there).

Lysandra is a new character that hasn’t been mentioned in the past three books,  but may have been mentioned in The Assassin’s Blade, I haven’t read it, so I don’t know. At first I wasn’t sure if I trusted her, but then I found that I really liked her cheeky character. She was such a lovely addition to the book and I can’t wait to see her in future books and and love interest that SJM may conjure up for her.

Nesryn is another new character that was prominent in the novel. I personally find that she reminds me of Inej from Six of Crows as she really had that slinky spy personality, yet wasn’t cold hearted. She didn’t soak up the lime light in this book, but was still very prominent, if you get what I mean? I’m not really sure how to explain it.

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Again, there are a bunch of other characters that I would LOVE t =o review independently, but it may ruin the plot/some events, so I’ll have them in the spoiler section below!

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I found this book really mysterious because I felt like I never knew what was coming and then got really surprised by what happened. But it made me admire SJM wayyyy more because of how everything pieced together even more and has made me think loads about what could happen in EoS.

I can’t remember a dull moment from this book. I really can’t. I feel like it was so intense and fast paced—in a good way—that it gripped me from the very first page. And it didn’t slow down, either. The pace just got more and more intense, that I read it over two days.

I had no idea that the book would take this turn. What I mean is that I didn’t expect so much magic and dark forces involved. I didn’t think it wouldn’t be as complex as it is. Like I dais with HoF, the series is like a thousand little puzzle pieces, and in this novel so many more got put in place.

I feel like in this book we really got to know the characters personally, as the writing style in non-fight-scenes seemed much more fluid and personalised than the first two and a tad more than HoF. I think that’s because the more comes clean about Aelin’s past and the past of other’s as well.

I loved Manon in this book. I liked her in HoF, but I feel like in this book I preferred her PoV way more because it intertwined with the plot more and more over time.

Throughout the series I’ve loved the world building, and because of everything going on plot-wise, I feel like some of the setting description was lost/inconsistent throughout the novel. We had a lot of description about what the characters looked like, and the smells and sounds, but I feel like the plot mainly focused on the events. It’s not a bad thing though, I actually liked the fact that we were given bits and pieces of description as it didn’t clog up the pace and also left things to imagination and made us conjure up our own interpretations of the world they’re in.

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SPOILER SECTION! 

Aelin and Aedion reuniting was amazing, and I adored how they both questioned whether the other would be ashamed of them or not, and how just seeing each other again is what they really wanted. It was so hart warming, and I think it’ll be one of my favourite scenes throughout the whole series because it wasn’t about relationship-love, it was about family and friendship and justttttt:

“Her scent hit him. For a second, he could only breathe it deep into his lungs,his Fae instincts roaring that this was his family, this was his queen, this was Aelin. He would have known her even if he were blind. Even if there was another scent entwined with hers. Staggeringly powerful and ancient and—male. Interesting.”

I’m thinking that this “male” scent is Rowan? And that there is perhaps a ‘MATE’ situation occurring? I would ship that.

And then afterwards:

“He stared at her; she stared right back.
Unyielding, unbreakable. They’d been cut from the same cloth.
Aedion loosed a breath and looked at their joined hands – then opened his to examine her scarred palm, crisscrossed with the marks of her vow to Nehemia and the cut she’d made the moment she and Rowan became carranam, their magic joining them in an eternal bond.
‘It’s hard not to think all of your scars are my fault.’
Oh. Oh.”

Gosh that just hits me right in the feels.

this image literally sums up what I’m talking about between Aelin and Aedion.

Okay. So I LOVED that Rowen came back! Page 234 couldn’t have been more perfect. I loved having it from Aedion’s third person PoV thingy because that whole moment was just so good!! It was just SHIP WORTHY. I just. And then when he finally said this my heart. just. stopped:

“I missed you,” he said quietly, his gaze darting between her mouth and eyes. “When I was in
Wendlyn. I lied when I said I didn’t. From the moment you left, I missed you so much I went out of my mind. I was glad for the excuse to track Lorcan here, just to see you again. And tonight, when he had that knife at your throat …” The warmth of his callused finger bloomed through her as he traced a path over the cut on her neck. “I kept thinking about how you might never know that I missed you with only an ocean between us. But if it was death separating us … I would find you. I don’t care how many rules it would break. Even if I had to get all three keys myself and open a gate, I would find you again. Always.”

Likeeeeee… I couldn’t carry on…

“I spent centuries wandering the world, from empires to kingdoms to wastelands, never settling, never stopping—not for one moment. I was always looking toward the horizon, always wondering what waited across the next ocean, over the next mountain. But I think … I think that whole time, all those centuries, I was just looking for you.”

—Rowen.

And I am so happy that the whole damn book didn’t revolve around their relationship—unlike this spoiler section—and even through the whole “don’t touch me like that” part, it didn’t really influence what went on between the others, and I really liked that. Dropping another quote, because…

“He must have had death wish, because Aedion even raised his brows a bit at the Fae Prince before he sauntered down the street after her. He’d heard their little fight on the roof last night thanks to his open bedroom window. Even now, he honestly couldn’t decide if he was amused of enraged by Rowen’s words—don’t touch me like that—when it was obvious the warrior-prince felt quite the opposite. But Aelin—gods above, Aelin was still figuring it out.”

END OF SPOILERS! 

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I have so many other thoughts about this book that I would love to share, but this review would be about 5000 words long! Have you read this book? Let me know!

I am so excited for EoS!!!

THANK YOU FOR READING!

Lu x