Hey all! I finally opened my Kindle and read the next book in Sarah J. Mass’s Throne of Glass series, Crown of Midnight! It’s only been, what, half a year since I reviewed the first book?
So, I have to be honest…I can’t quite remember everything that happened in Throne of Glass. And, having finished the second book, I have no idea why this one is called Crown of Midnight, unless it is referring to something in the last or second-to-last chapter (or something like that. One of the last chapters, in any case).
While I felt like the first book was more YA or maybe New Adult, due to the nature of a competition to become the king’s right-hand assassin fitting in with YA tropes nicely, Crown of Midnight blurs the lines even more. I can see teens devouring this book, and some things feel downright YA or even MG esque (talking door knocker). But the overall tone of the book has matured a lot compared to the previous book. Perhaps that’s in part because Sarah J. Maas improved as an author a ton between the two books.
However, some of the tonal shifts are a bit jarring. The Celaena of this book doesn’t quite feel the same as the Celaena of the first book, even though there has only been a few months, tops, between books. Same with Dorian, for some reason. And some obvious bits in the first book were played as unknown in this book, and I can’t for the life of me remember if this is something the reader knew at the end but our protagonists didn’t, or if the protagonists did as well.
So, what did I think of the story? I think having no competition this time helped the story a lot. We got to see our characters more in action, got to understand their motivations and watch them grow a bit. Some of the big reveals were things I’d figured out in the first book, or at least guessed at (one I thought, “well, it’s this or that,” and it turned out to be this and that).
All in all, I enjoyed this book. It’s not like I am screeching and flipping to the next one right away, but I will definitely go back to my kindle and read the third book. And I still think teenage me would be devouring the series (although I would be super duper nervous about the tame and not at all explicit sex scenes that occurred here and there).
Ellie Reads ~ a lot 