The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! š
kayceeisbookish's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Murder, Torture, Cursing, Blood, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Animal death, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Violence, Alcohol, Physical abuse, War, and Death of parent
ladydeathnesta's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Slavery, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Death, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Violence, War, Physical abuse, Classism, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, and Panic attacks/disorders
kristalll151's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: War, Death, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death of parent, Animal death, and Pregnancy
booksofautumn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Confinement, Death of parent, Death, Pregnancy, War, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Grief, Murder, and Violence
vanessabrown's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, War, Cursing, Blood, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, and Mental illness
katsventures's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Death of parent, Physical abuse, War, Violence, Murder, and Emotional abuse
aileron's review against another edition
- 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
2.5
Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Violence, War, Gore, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Death of parent, and Gaslighting
Minor: Slavery, Pregnancy, Animal death, Vomit, and Emotional abuse
bblatnik's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: War, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Death of parent
angelofthetardis's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Having made it through the previous books, you will now be familiar with all of the characters and their backgrounds, unless you have a terrible memory and have to rely on the library delivering the books to you, like me. In which case, there are a LOT of different story threads you now have to follow, each of them vital to the plot in their own way. For the vast majority of the book, the perspective shifts between at least four different spheres of action, and each chapter takes you to a different thread. Given how short the author's chapters generally are, you would be forgiven for getting into a spin trying to keep everything straight! It's not hard to do, but to me it does make the book feel rather choppy - I'm not sure if another tandem read situation followed by a smaller finale book when everyone comes together might have been a better way to go. That way, you could have the choice of taking it all in in one go, or choosing to focus on one or two threads at a time.
I do think a lot of my opinions rest on the fact that I haven't been able to binge-read this series (see library comment above); I'm hoping that I will get more out of it when I finally get around to buying the series and reading it straight through. But right now, I feel like I should be more affected by the Valg, Maeve and the other darker aspects of this book than I am. I can't say I've ever found the Valg part of the storyline that straightforward to follow, but now I'm at the end I found their ultimate story arc to be quite lacklustre. Likewise, I didn't see the need to add another layer to the 'Wicked Queen' storyline; I actually found Maeve worse when she was supposed to be just Fae! Ultimately, although there are dark moments, Aelin's fire shines too brightly to give them any real depth or impact for me.
SJM is a queen of worldbuilding; she has an amazing ability to paint vivid and ridiculously detailed images with her words. While in broad terms this series is no exception, by the time I reached 'Kingdom of Ash' a part of me was thinking that she's almost gone into too much detail, which means I now have a less clear picture in my mind because I've got too much to consider.
I've come to love all of the main characters and their personalities; some are so easy to picture (I'm sorry, but I can only see Tom Hiddleston with his 'Loki' attitude playing Lorcan!) Their personal journeys are so well thought out and executed, it really is a pleasure to watch them mature and adapt. However, in this book it was really only the fate of the various romantic entanglements that gave me any sort of visceral reaction; the need for the right people to end up together became more important to me than the outcome of the war. I feel like a significant shock was needed to properly tear out your heart, but nothing ever really materialised. There is character death, yes, but for once in my life I am slightly disappointed that there wasn't more... I don't want any of them to die, but I just think the story was crying our for it to turn it from good to great. It's also in dire need of an epilogue!!! I need a 'One Year Later' (or similar) update!!!
The series overall is very enjoyable and a great read, but ultimately it does feel like the dress rehearsal for ACOTAR, which I do still prefer. But I'm hopeful we haven't heard the last of Aelin, Rowan and their Court... keeping everything crossed!!!
Moderate: Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Gore, Torture, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
toastyghosty13's review against another edition
- 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
3.0
i do think there are an immense number of loose ends that i donāt feel were tied up properly by the end. so many characters that were mentioned in previous books, and plot lines/details of characters that were never elaborated on only to be treated as if they had never existed. i know this is SJMs first major series and how she got into writing professionally, but 8 books deep and iām kind of disappointed with how rushed and thrown together the ending felt.Ā
despite all of this, i still really enjoyed the series as a whole and will absolutely reread in the future.
edit: changing my rating from 3.5 to 3 after thinking it through more. also here are the exact loose ends i had in mind and vaguely mentioned above
Ā WARNING HEAVY SPOILERS
- elide has witch blood, but then how do we know she isnāt immortal? her witch blood was mentioned once and never really brought up again. this could have helped with lorcans fear of her growing old while he stays young, besides binding his life to hers like he canonically does. this would also give elide a connection to the witches now rebuilding their kingdom in the wastes at the end of all of this, since she could help and still maintain a regular cadence withĀ some of the friends she made there
- dorianās mother and brother never being heard of after initial mention
- same with chaols mother and brother for the most part. at least we got some closure about them wanting to live with chaol & yrene and reconnect but it would have been cool to see more of them and his father too
- i also wished we would have had literally anything with aelin in eyllwe like meeting nehemias family especially when they were so close around the time they found the mirror in empire of storm. she was very close with nehemia and iām shocked there was no mention of them or trying to get more support from them for the war
- it would have been cool to see more about the gods, theyāre very mysterious the entire time yet are pivotal in how everything happens. how did the gods get here in the first place? are there more of them? also why do they suck so much? you would think they would actually try to help aelin with bringing them back to their own world, they really made everything more difficult for aelin & crew after their āspecial questā was the main plot pusher the entire timeĀ
- same goes a bit for the valg, mainly with what are erawans brothers up to right now. while reading queen of shadows i would have bet money that they would have come through a portal for an epic showdown with aelin.
- who is the owl at maeveās side? was it silba? why bother mentioning it at all if itās never brought up again. i really thought that would play a pivotal point in the war and being an ally
- what happened to cressida blueblood? she ran off after facing manon but wasnāt mentioned again, unlike the blackbeak matron who was killed in a main battle by asterin when the thirteen sacrificed themselves
- aelin losing her powers for literally no reason at all, the gods suck and if anything i feel like this loss made the final showdown against maeve/erawan kinda lame
- aelin might have seen a certain main man from ACOTAR while falling through worlds; i havenāt seen any mention of this in the ACOTAR books though. will that also conveniently be forgotten?
- sol, ravi, galan, ansel, ilias, and other characters that came to aid in the war; sjm really didnāt go into detail about them and i want to know more backstory about who they are and why i should care about them. ansel and ilias should have had some sort of catch-up scene that shows what theyāve been doing the last 2 years since aelin last saw them in the assassins blade prequel events.Ā
- vaughn, who is apart of the group of warriors that took the blood oath of maeve. i think heās been mentioned twice throughout the series. why bother even mentioning him when itās just another character to keep track of that yields nothing to the plot despite heavily implying that he could be important?
- rolfe and the mycenians. they come through big time and save aedion and lysandras butts. they are supposed to be this wondrous mythical group of people from the sea, yet they are barely talked about despite being the main reason there are any survivors in aedions legion to go protect terassen after perranth falls.Ā
- the whitethorn squad that turns on maeve. we meet their characters initially but they are also barely mentioned again. would have been nice to see anything of the whitethorn family dynamic.Ā
i really wanted to like this book more than i did. i donāt think it did the series justice as the way to tie it all together in the end. imo, about half of the books that came before it had much more pickup and more interesting plot points, so this felt like it faltered in the greatness it was set up for.
Ā
the first half of kingdom of ash felt like there was a lot of build up of traveling and dwindling forces on the terassen front all for a (imo) lackluster payoff of what it could have been.Ā
this should have been 2-3 more books, with 2 of them being tandem like how empire of storm and tower of dawn are. the 2 tandem could have been one POV from where aedion and lysandra are and how they are managing with perranth/terassen, while the other could have been rowan/lorcan/elide/fenrys/aelin and their adventure and battles. then a 3rd and final book to actually tie it all together once both sides of the tandem have truly met up, since they didnāt even meet up until the last ~90 pages of kingdom of ash anyways.Ā
Graphic: Torture, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, War, Blood, and Death of parent
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Fire/Fire injury