Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Heir of Fire

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pkreads2024's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

"To Whatever End."

This book was amazing!

Celaena Sardothien aka Aelin Ashryver Galathynius. Embarks on her journey to Wendylnn her distant relatives to kill the king and his son. Minor Spoiler:

That quickly ends up not happeing;)

she is taken by a mysterious Fae individual named Rowan. To which she is to train with him in order to fulfill her part of a bargin with her wicked Fae aunt Meave.
While meanwhile Choal and Dorian, continue on without Celaena after the events of COM. We are introduced to some new characters and some of them have connections to Terrasen. Such as Alein's cousin Aedion, and at least two others.
While Dorian's part in the story is mostly in the castle, and introduces a new side charcter. That has been in the past books.
Also, Choal might be the most indecisive charcter EVER.
Then we are introduced to the witches of Blackbeak and the three other covans. Manon Blackbeak and her thirteen, and how they will impact the story. Minor spoiler:

with thier impact as witches and how they will be the kings aerial army through the weveryns.

Overall, lots of characters/ world building are added into this book, and LOTS of character growth expecilly with Alein. We get a lot of her past, and what happened prior before her ten years as Celaena Sardothien.

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booklov3r5019's review

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Oh. My. Gosh. I absolutely LOVED this book. Not my favorite of the series but ROWAN?? Oh my gosh that man is the literal love of my life. It doesn't seem like he's great at first, but Good Lord. He's amazing. Anyway. Not completely why I gave this 4.75 stars, but he was definitely a big part of that.

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dragonaion's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

By the third book in most series, the story and it's characters begin to fall apart. A groove is lost and the story often falls of the rails. In the hero's journey, the hero simply continues to be amazing and fights another 'dragon' with ease.
This is the third book of the series, but promises a beginning that I am dying to follow! This book is a hard read and many who have endured trauma will find themselves more in Celeana's shoes than they might ever want to admit. You will find her back at the beginning of the hero's journey, at her lowest and most defeated, rising from the ashes once more in a way so natural, you forgot this is a fantasy. Brace for impact, get lost in the words, and hold on tight for the ride to come!

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helfire124's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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micaelamariem's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

It was time for my annual dive into the Throne of Glass universe.

Seriously, I'm averaging a book a year in this series, oops.

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas, published by Bloomsbury, is the third book in the Throne of Glass series. As such, I won't be able to talk about this with some spoilers for the first two books so be warned!

In Heir of Fire, Celaena goes to Wendlywn but ends up in the land of faerie, facing her aunt and her magic, Dorian begins to understand his powers, and Chaol struggled to pick a side.

I had a really good time reading this, much better than the first two books! I don't know if it's because I didn't much like my last two reads so this was better by comparison, or that the writing style got a lot better. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

What I think made Heir of Fire a good read was that the story could finally progress because we are now acquainted with the world and characters. The first two books were really just a set up. Now, we're getting into the beginning of an epic war. The multiple points of view added a lot of depth to the story, too, and was done in a fantastic way that kept the plotline still straightforward. We also learn a lot about Celaena's past, that connects us to her powers, her birthright, and her trauma, and makes her past actions make sense.

I was also stoked to meet a couple of characters I heard about in social media but hadn't yet seen in the books. First and foremost, Rowan. I started out hating him, but over the course of the story, loved him. A slow burn for the reader. A lovely sarcastic asshole. And the other character was Manon, terrifying yet also might be the catalyst for change the witch covens need to see. I'm excited to see how her storyline will cross with Celaena (who after this review, I think I can start calling Aelin, if only because the spelling is easier).

I really enjoyed Celaena's pov chapters--it's mainly her story, after all. I also adored Dorian's. I didn't like him until he got magic, but now I like how his arc is progressing. He really doesn't deserve the tragedies that happen. Chaol, while once being my favorite, had the most boring POV's, but maybe that was because it was very military-like, which befitted his character.

Despite the slight boredom with him, I still really loved this book. I daydreamed about it driving and missed my turn. Any book that can have me do that has to be five stars right?

Guess I'll be back next year for Assassin's Blade, because I really need to read that prequel before continuing with the series, much as I want to!

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krosebooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The ending of the book was amazing. It took me a while to get to that point though. I’m sure the other characters are going to show up in the next books but I found myself looking forward to only Celaena’s parts.

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leguminosae's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

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

3.0

Fuck

this dude. Made me cry and I’m not even the one he yells at. He’s not even real. What the heck.

In other news: I love my random evil girl on her dragon adventures yesssss good for her hoorayyy
😻🖤🐲🧙‍♀️🕸️🖤🐦‍⬛🐲🤩

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bree_h_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

Out of the three Throne of Glass books I read I think this was the one I had the most mixed feelings on. I honestly think I could have rated it mid to high 2 stars if not for the ending. It’s actually that ending that’s made me decide to stop reading the series, if not forever than at least for a while.

To start, I thought the intro was really strong. Celeana’s struggle with her past as a noble and the reality of who she’s become had a lot of potential. I thought it was fascinating to see how the last book ended with all this fear and tension around her reclaiming her place, only for her to get there and be overwhelmed by the past. I think this struggle makes for a great conflict for a main character, even if a bit basic. Not to mention, the exploration of her trauma and everything she’d been through was compelling. I think it really only fell short with the poor treatment of Nehemia as a dead BIPOC woman to motivate the white protagonist and almost everything about her dynamic with Rowen and their training. I felt like a lot of Celeana’s plot and build up was pushed aside to setup a budding romance between her and Rowen, which I couldn’t really get behind. I thought Rowen was an overly aggressive jerk and I just couldn’t find myself enjoying their dynamic.

Back in the castle, I wasn’t overly interested in what Chaol had happening, but was very interested in Dorian. I thought he and Sorscha were super cute and I loved how he and Aedion played off each other. I honestly wish Dorian and Chaol’s plots had played on each other more and wove together DESPITE their interpersonal conflict. Forcing to characters with an already unsteady relationship together would be very compelling!

The only other big plus I can give the book is the build to the climax, or what I assume was the climax. The big battle Celeana and Rowen had to go up against was interesting and actually had me excited. The build up to it was deeply haunting and captured a chilling atmosphere. I really felt the tension leading up to this fight.

Outside of my already noted critiques, I think Manon’s plot was questionable. I didn’t feel like it had a good balance with everything else. Dorian and Chaol’s plot felt overshadowed by her’s. I didn’t think it was a level of detail needed (unless the later books aim to humanise the witches and provide them more moral complexity). I think finding a way to focus Dorian and Chaol’s plots around UNCOVERING these wyvern riders would establish solid tensions for the readers while having someone Celeana isn’t and CAN’T be aware off while allowing the boys more things to do.

There was also an issues with the book seeming to have a weird interest in incest. It felt really weird how it kept narrowing in on Rowen and Celeana being cousins, despite also heavily leaning towards a romance between them. While not first cousins, Celeana referred to Rowen as her cousin more than once. Not to mention them both referring to the same woman as ‘aunt’ over and over and over. If you’re going to do a romance, don’t focus on how these two are related and share an aunt. It just left a weird taste in my mouth.

Finally, the book should have ended two hours sooner. Once they recovered from the fight and Rowen had to struggle with his deal and Chaol and Dorian and Aedion had this hopeful plan to topple the King I think the book should have ended THEN picked up with these events at the start of book four. When I saw I had two hours left in the audiobook I actually almost started crying. I didn’t know what else it could do that would be compelling or interesting in two more hours. While it certainly continued to have a plot, I didn’t feel like it justified having the book carry on. I do think it could have been ended much sooner and would have had a much tighter plot and story.

Overall, I do think this book had a lot of potential. However, it had just enough flaws to put me off from continuing.

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