I love Chaol. In Crown of Midnight, he was hands down the hottest literary dude I've ever encountered. I still get the tingles thinking about him in that book. lol After that book, the series obviously went in a whole 'nother direction and Chaol's character sort of got the shit end of the stick as far as character treatment goes. I get it. This is Celaena/Aelin's story. I've come to peace with that. I've come to appreciate the fire breathing bitch queen for all that she is. In fact, I found that I missed her presence in this book. I was not expecting that. But here's my main beef: THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CHAOL'S STORY and I still feel like he was just a side character in this book. Overall, this was Yrene's story and I am disappointed.
Okay, so what I liked:
1) It was beautifully written, obviously. No one can deny that Maas has some serious writing chops.
2) That one scene with the tea. You know the one I'm talking about. Chaol at his finest, most chivalrous self.
3) That spooky scene with the Valg chasing you know who into Chaol's room. That turned out to be exciting and romantic.
4) That moment when Chaol decided to stop feeling sorry for himself and start kicking ass again. I liked that.
5) How it adds another key player to the story, one who is imperative to defeating the Valgs.
6) She managed to keep the sexy-time pretty tame compared to some of her other books so THANK BAJEEZUS FOR THAT!
7) Those cool ruk birds. Ba-ba-ba-bird bird bird. Bird is the wyrd.
8) This was the most culturally diverse out of all of her books. I appreciate that and getting to visit basically a whole 'nother world. A pretty kick ass world at that.
What didn't work for me:
1) I wanted more action! "But Kristen," you might say. "What are you smoking? There was tons of action!" Not good enough! For a book almost 700 pages long, I felt like not enough happened. More Valg action would have been nice. Throne of Glass was only like 400 pages and I felt like there was more going down in that book.
2) Nesryn. Am I alone in thinking that she is one boring chick? Don't get me wrong. I'm glad she found her happy ending but I had absolutely no interest in any of the parts with her in it.
3) Giant spiders. I feel like that's been done a few times before. Ahem. Lord of the Rings. Ahem. Harry Potter.
4) Awkward moments with Chaol and his body, including his manhood. I'm sorry, but some of the scenes with people trying to position Chaol since his legs didn't work were just so awkward to me. And leave his manhood alone! At first, Yrene was sort of treating him like a sexy sack of potatoes. lol
5) Chaol seemed to be pretty hung up on Aelin, even at the end. How badly did that monster break him? lol I still hope she dies in book 7.
6) Right from the start, politics were shoved down our throats. It took some getting into. I see how that information was important to the story, I just wish the author would have chosen a more natural way to incorporate it into the story. It was a pretty big info dump at the start.
So, I could keep going but I think these are the main points I want to touch upon. I tried to keep this as un-spoilery as possible. Overall, I liked the book, I just wish that it could have been better. Also, I'm severely biased because I have never shipped a couple harder than Chaol and Celaena and so my heart will never repair from their split for me to allow him to move on with anyone else - unless that person is me. lol