Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Queen of Shadows

Felt like the pacing was a bit off and that some of the character arcs changed a bit too fast in a short number of chapters to really be able to take in the change for the direction the story was going in.

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jelkebooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

We have finally arrived at the point in the series I did not get around to last time I tried to read it. I left Heir of Fire really excited for this book, and very curious to see what was going to happen in this book. I now have to report that all of this was wasted hope. This book just didn't work out for me. It felt very drawn out to me.
A lot of big and interesting things happen in this book, however they are few and far in between. In between these events not quite much happens at all. It's just our characters sitting around, messing around, doing nothing really. The actual big events in the book were also glanced over very quickly. It felt a bit dissapointing, and just easy despite having been building to these things the entire book. I don't know. I just feel like we could have spend more time building out these moments, actually make them as heavy as they were foretold, and then have less time just shitting around.
When it comes to the characters I was dissapointed. I feel like Aelin went through a lot of developement in Heir of Fire, and all of it was completely thrown in the trash. She completely acted like she did before, hotheaded, rash, completely selfish, and highly hypcritical. It's made worse by her inner monologue constantly beating you ever the head with how "Celeana Sardothien is dead, and nothing about her is still around" when she's just still her whiny self but with complete ass kissers this time. I don't know how Sarah J. Maas did it but everything I loved about Rowan last book was completely ereased for his ass kissery of Aelin in this book. He and Aedion acted the exact same. It was nausiating.
Contrary to popular opinion I actually love Chaol. I feel like he's the only character the feels realistic, and still has his actual brain in his body. He's rational, careful, but still effictive in his goals. He actually keeps the bigger picture in mind, while still fighting off rational he's been raised with basically. It's just extremely sad to me that it is entirely obvious in the way he's written that Sarah J. Maas does not give a shit about him anymore now that she has found a shinier new love interest for Aelin. Dorian was in an interesting place this book. He was not entirely himself, and we didn't got much of him, but I did think his storyline was interesting, and I'm curious how the events of this book will influence his future actions.
There were also quite a few new characters in this book, and I quite liked them. I think they were great additions to our cast of characters, and I'm curious to learn more about them as the series continues. I even liked the inclusion of Manon and her witches in this book. I think they were much better included in this book than in Heir of Fire. They actually felt like an important part of the story, and I loved seeing learning more about the Thirteen, and I'm honestly most curious about the future of this crew of characters out of them all. So yeah, this book wasn't my favourite but I am still excited to continue on.

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