Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas | Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5)She looked at them, at the three males who meant everything—more than everything. Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”
Well, there goes that book. I'm burning through this series like mad. Okay. So. I have a lot of feelings about Queen of Shadows and more than my fair share of disappointments. While I feel, 100%, that this was an improvement on Heir of Fire I will never not think that the series needs to live up to its full potential. Further, I felt that a lot of the characters were acting more out of their own traits than usual (Chaol, Aelin) and--frankly--was more than a bit confused by a lot of things.
First: Aelin is still one bad b*tch and I love her. It felt like a lot of her previous development from the first three books was wasted/ignored this go around but not everything. She was still partly the woman we love; the queen, the assassin, the lover, etc. Aelin is hands-down one of the best in this series and there's no going around that. What I didn't like, however, was the relationship with Rowan. I missed the focus on her relationship (i.e: friendships) with Dorian and Chaol (I missed both of them in general--Dorian was possessed the entire time basically and Chaol just... wasn't Chaol) and felt like it really deteriorated the quality of the novel.
