Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas – Love Triangles, Devastating Loss, Hold On Tight!

This post may contain affiliate links. Disclosure here.

“Let them tremble in fear at what they had awoken.”

Goodreads / Storygraph

Summary

Celaena Sardothien has won the brutal contest and has become the King’s champion.

But not all of her loyalties lie with the crown and she hides her secret vigilante actions from everyone around her. 

Keeping up her deadly charade only becomes more difficult when Calaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. 

As she tries to untangle the secrets of the glass castle, her closest relationships begin to sour. Everyone begins to question her. 

One terrible night, all the secrets that have been kept well hidden lead to an unspeakable tragedy. 

Celaena’s world shatters and she will be forced to decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie and who she is willing to fight for. 

Thoughts on the Plot

Unlike Throne of Glass, this book starts off interesting and then hits an unfortunate lull in the middle of the book.

Then had me in a complete chokehold by the second half. 

I will admit, I do wish I had read The Assassin’s Blade first. Primarily because the ending of the book had me wanting to dive straight into the next book.

There were a few other subplots happening that I enjoyed.

Dorian’s subplot really intrigued me and I wanted to know more about that than whatever was going on with the King.

We got the smallest of crumbs and it wasn’t enough to hold my interest.

There is a lot going on with Calaena and I fear it is not a good thing. 

Thoughts on the Characters

Speaking of Celaena, I really enjoyed her in this book.

She comes across as far more confident and it was cool to see more of her relaxed personality. 

She felt like too much of a mixed bag, though. Calaena did also become a little of a Mary Sue as more is revealed about her, which is really disappointing. 

Beyond that, can I PLEASE get more Dorian? I am becoming obsessed with him and absolutely need to know what’s happening with his subplot. 

Then there is Chaol; I really didn’t like him in this book. 

He is so rigid and stuck in his ways of following the rules. It was exhausting and I really want to see where he and Celaena go from the end of this book. 

Maybe if we got more of his personality outside of work, I might have liked him better.

The King is also incredibly creepy. He’s meant to come off as scary and intimidating, but I just found him frustrating. And mega weird.

So much was stuffed into Calaena’s character when some of that filling should’ve gone to other characters. 

I can’t say much more about the other characters without spoiling anything, so I will leave it here.

But the loss hits real hard in this one. 

Overall Thoughts

I wish this series would stop being so boring in the first half. 

I enjoyed Celaena’s growth and the snippets we do begin to learn about her. It makes me even more interested in this series because I can feel it’s going to take a completely different turn. 

The romance didn’t hold my attention in this book, primarily because I was not a fan of who the love interest was. 

An excellent read, but I feel like this book is just a drop in the bucket that is all that’s happening in this series. 

So a solid 4 stars out of 5 stars from me. 

You might also like: Throne of Glass Review // A Court of Thorns and Roses Review