Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

Oh. My. God.

This is the best book in the series yet. Honestly I fond it so difficult to put this book down. There was jus so much action from the off. 600+ pages of stress. There was not a single moment where I was allowed to rest. Even from the beginning so much had happened between Heir of Fire and Queen of Shadows.

There are so many god damn twists in this book. I didn’t see half of the shit coming when it did because I was reeling from the last reveal. I feel like I need some time to just sit and breathe after finishing this. I honestly can’t believe I’ve finished it. I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL SEPTEMBER.

I honestly don’t know where to start with this review. I wish I could give this book more stars than I can on Goodreads because it was so phenomenal.

I guess I should start by saying that I absolutely love Aelin. She’s had some prickly moments for me, but she became a true heroine in this book. She’s become the person she needs to be for the people of Terrasen and the people of Erilea as a whole.

My feelings towards Chaol have changed. He was still being a little shit for most of this book, all he could do when Aelin came back from Wendlyn was guilt trip her, but there’s a change in him and I think he could truly become a better person in the next installments. Similarly for Manon, I still wasn’t sure how I felt about her for a lot of this book but then there’s a moment where we actually get to see her for the person she actually is instead of a figure head for her grandmother and my God I could grow to love her.

Nesryn, who is a secondary character introduced in this book, is great, as is Lysandra. Honestly Maas’ characterisation is so fantastic, there isn’t a single boring or badly written character in this series.

Now Rowan, I ADORE ROWAN. He makes everything more interesting and him and Aelin are such a force to be reckoned with. There was so many moments in this between them that had me grinning in my bed or flailing my limbs like an excited child. And some of the things Rowan says to Aelin got me so hot under the collar honestly.

There was so many lines that just had me smiling from the word usage and the feeling it gave me, I haven’t felt like this about a book in such a long time. I physically hd to force myself to put the book down last night when I realised it was 2am and I had 100 pages to go and could easily stay up until 4am despite having class today. It was such an overwhelming feeling of anticipation and love for this book that it felt like that first time I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and stayed up until 8am finishing it.

As a fun little aside, I gave my dad Throne of Glass to take home with him last time I saw him and he’s really enjoying it. He’s a 57 year old man enjoying a young adult book about a female assassin, I love it.

The King of Adarlan feels like a true villain in this book, not that he hasn’t before but throughout the length of this book we learn more and more about what he’s capable of and what he has been doing over the 10 years of his reign of terror. He reminded me of Ganondorf from the Legend of Zelda series of Nintendo video games.

We also get to meet Arobynn Hamel in this book, the man who has been spoken about so often before the man who made Aelin into the assassin she is, and honestly, he was nowhere near as bad as I expected him to be. But I think that’s because Aelin has become so much smarter than him and so much more than she was when she worked for him that she easily easily worked her way around his tricks.

I really just can’t wait for Empire of Storms. I loved Queen of Shadows so much and I’m so incredibly anxious for what is going to happen to the characters I love and where things are going to turn next. I don’t honestly have any idea of how things are going to go and that’s what is so enjoyable about Maas’ writing.