Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas Series: Throne of Glass #4
on September 1st 2015
Pages: 656
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
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Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she's at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past . . .
She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die just to see her again. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen's triumphant return.
Celaena’s epic journey has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions across the globe. This fourth volume will hold readers rapt as Celaena’s story builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.
sarah j. maas did not hold back from being an epic fire-breathing bitch-queen.
QUEEN OF SHADOWS was a whirlwind, a roller coaster ride in itself. you’d expect that since it’s one of the “middle books” of the series, it would be a bit slower, but NOPE. sarah j. maas threw me on a rocket ship and began flying before i’d even sat down. QoS is filled with action and plot twists and deceit… truly a masterpiece. it was – by far – one of my favorite reads this year.
it was beautiful and AMAZING to see her writing improve and develop. THRONE OF GLASS is one of those series that keep getting better. i feel myself grow with the characters AND the author. i’d started the series feeling ehhhh, but now it’s YES YES YES. there really isn’t much i can say without spoiling anything. i sincerely enjoyed every minute of this book and can’t find anything to complain about, unlike my HEIR OF FIRE review. i usually like being picky about what went wrong with the book, but i can’t find anything. it’s just that good.
personally, i think i enjoyed this book so much because i enjoyed HEIR OF FIRE. to me, the series continues to improve, but to others the series is getting worse. you should pick up this book depending on your thoughts of HEIR OF FIRE. if you’re not particularly keen of the direction it was going, i don’t think you’ll be super happy with this novel. but if you really loved it, as i did, definitely pick this installment up!
[rating-report]
spoiler-filled discussion beginning!! please do not read unless you’ve finished the book. you’ve been warned.
plot and recap
let’s get right to it, shall we? we start the novel with aelin back in rifthold and beginning her first task: stealing the final wyrdkey from arobynn and then murdering her former instructor. things kinda got sidetracked with the task of saving aedion from his death sentence. she made a bargain with arobynn in order to save her beloved cousin. she begins learning more about what arobynn did, with the help of her new friend and former nemesis, lysandra. they follow the assassin king’s plan and successfully save aedion from his demise.
the next part of her plan was to kill arobynn (slaughter the awful dude). but first, ROWAN COMES BACK!!! with news, of course. lorcan is trying to track aelin and hoping to get the third key for maeve. aelin, being her ever clever self, decides to trick him and have his scent on one of the wyrdhounds she found. HAH. he totally deserved it. she gives arobynn her end of the bargain and successfully gets her necklace with the wyrdkey back. YAS. then lysandra murders arobynn and all is well. (you go, lysandra!!) especially after aelin switched his will, making her the heir of all his property and money. the girl power in this book is really real.
once aelin found out how to restore magic, thanks to the help of chaol, she sets on doing that. along the way, a few problems rise: they find out that the king of adarlan is actually planning on releasing the demon king erawan and things are NOT GOOD. then, lysandra gets caught for murdering arobynn and HELLLLL NO. aelin finds out she is being sent off with the blackbeak witches and sets off to free her friend.
they manage to save lysandra but chaol – stupid, stupid chaol – decides to kill dorian to save him, but ends up (almost) getting himself killed by stumbling into a group of witches and their wyverns. *facepalm* aelin comes to save the day and ends up in an epic battle with manon blackbeak and nearly kills her, but ends up saving the witch in the end. they go back to the city and proceed with their plans for the next day.
aedion and rowan plan on destroying the tower while chaol and aelin plan on destroying the king. however, all hell breaks loose when things don’t go as planned. on aedion and rowan’s side, lorcan didn’t actually kill the wrydhounds but gave them rowan’s scent. WE ARE DOOMED. they end up succeeding because lorcan comes back to save aedion due to his heritage. magic is released but all is still hell-ish because they’re weak and can’t run away fast enough and THERE ARE SOLDIERS ON THEIR TAIL. lysandra comes to save the day because PRAISE that she’s a shape shifter.
meanwhile with aelin and chaol, she successfully made it into the castle but – OH NO – the king of adarlan know’s who she actually is. chaol sacrifices himself to kill the king while aelin runs far far away to defeat/try to find dorian inside the demon’s body. when magic is released, aelin releases the fire and somehow manages to burn away the demon inside him and DORIAN IS BACK ALL HAIL QUEEN AELIN. the two of them reunite and bind their powers to defeat the king. BUT, plot twist that i kinda saw coming, there was actually a demon inside the KING and he’s been waiting and wanting to be saved all this time. he told them lots of vital information – like what duke perrington ACTUALLY IS (erawan), why he banned magic, and more – until dorian lost it and killed his father by shattering the glass castle. the king of adarlan is dead.
then there’s that problem with kaltain and the witches. kaltain actually defeated her demon long ago and the clever, clever girl has kept quiet about it. she finds elide and saves her. then – OHMYGOD – cuts her arm to reveal that she has one of the wyrdkeys and says to give it to celaena. THE FEELINGS AND THE SHOCK. she ends up putting the mountain up in flame with her shadowfire. i never knew what to think of kaltain, but after those mere chapters with her, i truly felt and loved her character. she was such a fighter and often looked down upon, but that’s what’d made her stronger. in a way, she reminded me of lysandra because she pretended to forget, when actually her cunning heart was still beating and still fighting.
we end the novel with a lot of closure, which is what i love about sarah j maas’s writing. she clearly finishes everything in the plot but leaves lots of space for us readers to wonder what’s next. so many growing questions – how will they destroy perrington? what about maeve and her dreadful plans? how will it all work out with our crew of dorian, chaol, and aelin being seperated? will elide make it to the north and give aelin the second key? – and yet, i still feel complete after finishing this novel. there are some, especially the “middle books” of series, that fall short and feel like it ends in a middle of a sentence.
characters
there were a lot of people complaining about how they thought the characters in this book weren’t portrayed as they actually were, but i beg to differ. in fact, i thought the characters were more themselves than the other books.
the first character i’d like to talk rant about is chaol. there’s been a lot of controversy over his character in some reviews i read. personally, i was never a fan of chaol’s character. i never understood why everyone was so obsessed with him; i didn’t particularly like or dislike him, but this novel was the lowest of lows for chaol. i’m not sorry to say this, but he’s probably my least favorite character in the series. about 60% of this entire novel had me complaining about him. it was probably because i stand by aelin and the two of them were constantly arguing; it was probably because i was reading things from aelin’s perspective, i couldn’t understand (or care for) his side of the story. in HEIR OF FIRE, he said he accepted aelin’s magic and the fact that celaena is an assassin, but god, he did NOT act like it. in one of their first conversations in this novel, he’s calling aelin a monster and hanging archer’s death over her head. if you really accepted her, you wouldn’t have done that. if you really knew who she was and really cared for how she felt, you wouldn’t have said that.
celaena/aelin was hard to read in this novel. celaena was always aelin, but we didn’t see or know her until HEIR OF FIRE. it seems to me that this is how she actually is and “celaena” was part of an act she put up to keep herself alive. but after being celaena for so long, it’s become a part of her, so aelin in rifthold acting as celeana is how she – i don’t even know what to call her at this point – is. my favorite moments with her were when she acted like a queen – demanding, yet sympathizing. specifically when she took the throne for herself when dorian was knocked out, or when she fought manon blackbeak to save her friends, that was when i admired and respected her the most. in the first two novels, she’d hardly had any humanity left in her, and many people found her to be badass. i didn’t think she was REALLY badass until this novel when aelin fights for her country and so much more. the development of her character throughout this series is very profound and i cannot wait for her to surprise me some more.
dorian broke my heart, but i think he was the most developed of all regardless of the fact that we hardly heard from him. reading his one-page chapters made me so emotional. you could see him trying so hard and it’s not working out. but somehow manon blackbeak kept him from being completely devoured by the demon and they ended up saving him. *happy tears* he finally woke up when he heard chaol was dead (but not actually dead) AND THE BROMANCE WAS SO REAL. when he was back to being himself, there was clearly a cold cloud over his mind from what the demon left in him. i seriously hope he recovers, stronger than ever as a king. DORIAAANNNN.
i fell in love with all the girl characters in this novel: manon blackbeak, lysandra, and nesryn. i was growing to like manon in HEIR OF FIRE, but now i actually love her. she is a witch, a scary and powerful one, that has feelings! although she denies it, it is very very true. look at asteryn and elide. they are perfect examples of manon’s love. i hope her and the other blackbeaks find a way to help and be on aelin’s side. lysandra is AWESOME. i didn’t know what think of her at first, but now i’m just like YESSSSS. it was beautiful and refreshing to see aelin with a girl friend. nesryn is like a girl-version of chaol, but 100x better. also KALTAIN.
oh, and rowan. popping out of nowhere, joining in on their journey, staying epic without his magic, ALL THE THINGS. i loved reading from his perspective because we actually see that he has human feelings! an immortal fae warrior!! with human feelings! he gets hurt and jealous and adorably happy (and turned on by aelin’s night gowns) and I LOVE HIM.
relationships
i’ve seen waaaaaay too many people hate on sarah j. maas because their “ship” sank. i find it very immature to rate a book one-star because the relationship you were rooting for didn’t work out. that being said…
sarah j. maas finished chaol and celaena’s relationship and i was quite happy. simply put, they weren’t fit for each other. i breifly talked about how chaol’s character and i don’t think they were meant for each other. at the time (aka CROWN OF MIDNIGHT), it worked fine but now that the truth is out there, there’s no going back. it was (kinda) nice while it lasted, but i’m just so glad it’s over.
aelin’s love life confuses me to no end. so far, she’s had four different love interests. it’s not even a triangle OR a square anymore. technically, sam doesn’t count because he died but he still sorta counts. i’m REALLY happy with aelin/rowan. actually, i’m just happy that aelin’s happy. as independent and fierce as she is, aelin is the type of person who needs someone by her side. i personally don’t care all that much who she ends up with (or if she ends up alone) as long as he brings her up as well. and as of right now, rowan is doing a great job. i know sarah j. maas mentioned they had a “non-romantic” relationship in HEIR OF FIRE, but i clearly saw it was more than that. the way they acted towards each other and the things they did together, i think it was more than “just friends” and so i knew (and hoped) they were going to end up together in QoS, which they did! if they don’t work out or something, i’ll be fine as long as aelin’s fine. #TEAMAELIN <333
overall thoughts:
Your gifs are very accurate. I also thought QoS was better than HoF and that the series is getting better as it goes on. I’m totally in the same boat that I’m loving getting to see Maas grow as a writer. Honestly, I’m also having a hard time finding like actual non-fangirly content to put in my review! It was just that good! Thank goodness Arobynn is finally dead, but I sorta wish we had been given some of the details of what he had done to Sam. I don’t know. But, I thought it was another testiment to Aelin’s growth as a person that she didn’t absolutely blow up upon reading Wesley’s letter. Chaol was soooooooooo stupid! Like his fatal flaw is that he has *too* much dedication to Dorian. I mean, I know he’s struggling with some internal stuff and going through some changes…but that DOESN’T excuse his stupid mistakes. I did not see the whole ‘he was actually being controlled by a demon this whole time thing’ your intuition seems to be much better than mine. I was completely thrown out of the water! I liked the ending, but I sorta didn’t because of how much it wrapped up. Like, I appreciate Maas for doing us that kind kind favor and I know that there’s more to wonder, but still. I don’t know I can’t really explain it.
THE CHARACTERS MY GOD.
Chaol- I sympathize with him so much. In Hof, his identity is totally ripped up, so I feel like he’s justified that he’s hurting. not that he has any right to always argue with Aelin.
Aelin- YES.
Rowan- HELL YES
Lysandra- YAAASS. I’m sooooooo excited about how she turned out. Aelin needs a girl friend and I feel that Lysandra has been through a rough life and can relate and understand Aelin. Plus, she’s a badass shifter.
Manon- I seriously love how she developed. I didn’t like her that much at first, but now I totally love her. Feelings. yes.
Nesryn and Kaltain- girl power
Dorian- god his chapters made me SO SAD.
Basically, I really really really liked the girl power in QoS. It rocked.
Aelin + Rowan- SIGN ME UP. I was originally rooting for Chaol, but he turned out to be a douche and Rowan and her are so compatible for each other. I also hate how people are hating on Maas for not putting her with Dorian or Chaol. Chill people.
OKAY I told you I wanted to share my feels so here they are. slightly sorry about this huge wall of text.
first things first, I LOVE YOUR WALL OF TEXT. i agree that i wish there was a little more on arobynn and sam, but i feel like it would be mentioned in assassin’s blade (which i’ve yet to read) and there was so much going on in the plot. :// it’s also SO REFRESHING to know i wasn’t the only one ready to smack chaol in the face. i read so many reviews complaining about 1/ sarah j maas splitting chaoleana, 2/ sjm not sticking to chaol’s character, 3/ chaol in general. rowan and aelin are *SQUEALS* i love them together. i feel like their chemistry was so much better than chaol/celaenas. is it just me? thank you for visiting the blog! xxx
YASSSSSSSSSS.
– Spoilery territory beyond this point –
LOVEDDDD QUEEN OF SHADOWS.
And so much of what you said I agree with soo much. The ToG books get better and better each time. Honestly, I don’t know how Sarah’s gonna top herself again.
THANK YOU FOR THE CHAOL PART. Grrrr he was acting so douchey. Sorry, nope, don’t like him. I was never a Chaol fan (or a Chaolena shipper) to begin with, so I wasn’t hung over the way his character went but it’s somewhat petty for people to just trash a book just because their ship hit an iceberg and sunk. If they have a proper explanation besides “they didn’t get together” then fine. But just because of the relationship? Sorry, no.
I feel like people arguing over the fact that Aelin didn’t act like Celaena from ToG & CoM are clinging on to the character of “Celaena”, you know? I mean, I believe there was a reason Sarah called Aelin “Aelin” instead of “Celaena” – to symbolize a character change. She is no longer Celaena. She’s a different person now. And so she’ll act different, especially after that epic character development in HoF.
OMGGG MANON. Wasn’t that fight scene awesome? I just wish it was longer. Maybe we’ll get more in the next book.
The girl power here was THROUGH THE ROOF. Like, okay, there wasn’t THAT much female characters but there were soo many of them here and they were all AWESOMEEEE.
Love this review!
I LOVE YOUR COMMENT!! i felt like i was going to have a huge crowd of people throwing tomatoes at me for (kinda) hating on chaol, so it’s nice to hear i’m not the only one who wasn’t a fan of him. i was reading all these goodreads reviews giving sjm crap because they didn’t like who chaol became/their ship didn’t end canon and i was SO FRUSTRATED. if you knew how you wanted the story to be, go write fanfiction instead of saying sjm is “writing it wrong.”
i also wish the manon/aelin fight was longer or they interacted some more! i feel like there was so much going on in the plot though that if sjm really did go into detail about everything, it’d be 800+ pages. i really hope manon and aelin cross paths again, now that they actually know each other! thanks for visiting the blog! xxx
For me personally, I’m disappointed about the whole Chaol thing because I feel like he wasn’t given a chance. Just as he started to understand who Celeana was, she was sent away to another continent, and his life and alliances changed. But he was her first PROPER love (that we see, anyway), and even though having more than one relationship IS normal and reflective of our times and what most teenagers/young adults go through, I just love the whole first love thing. So I’m less upset about the sinking of my ship because of the characters, and more because of what it represents to me.
Also, I haven’t read QoS yet… I should be picking up my copy today though! Eeeeek excited!
Beth x
OMG You are like my brain twin as far as this series is concerned I was reading along all of your thoughts going YESSS YESSSS YESSS.
I did not enjoy ToG at all, I liked CoM, I loved HoF and now QoS has slayed me and I am SJM’s fan body and soul forever! I feel like that series didn’t actually start until HoF bc as you said, Celaena now feels like an act rather than an actual character. Just a swagger she put on to protect herself. I don’t really get the Chaol love in the other books either, I actually didn’t feel he was too far out of character because his personality was always a bit bland IMO – at least he had some interesting conflicts in this book. Dorian and Chaol’s relationship makes me weep real tears, though. I think anyone who have seen my twitter feed recently knows that I am in love with Rowan lmao, I feel he’s a great fit for Aelin despite sometimes being a bit overbearing -as she ends up doing w/e the hell she wants anyway. ARGH I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT BOOK. The ladies in this one were all so fantastic and blimin’ beautiful, like Lysandra, Manon, Asterin, Elide, Kaltain GAHHH *clutches all to my chest*
I haven’t read QoS yet but I have to say that I’m glad you enjoyed it! It’s surprising to hear that there’s action throughout because I feel like all the books before only got fast-paced and actiony in the 2nd half of the book. That’s a huge improvement if it’s really fast-paced for the whole story 😀
Okay. I agreed with every single word. I never liked Chaol. I found it SO difficult to get through the second book cuz I kept cringing over Chaol and Celaena. Lol. Frankly, I wanted to kill Chaol a million times over throughout the series. However, I fell in love with Dorian from the very first page and as a character Dorian made me cry a million times in QoS. The man has had a wretched time with losing Celaena and then losing Sorscha and then being bloody enslaved. My god. When he finally regained his powers I actually SCREAMED with joy. Hahaha. I love him. Gods above, I love him.
Rowan and Aelin are perfect. They are a unit and I loved every difficult step in their relationship from HoF to QoS so far. I knew he would fall in love with her from the SECOND he bit her neck. Lol. By all laws in every magical kingdom ever written, that action is a primal claim and it was sooooo obvious where their relationship was going. So YAY!!
I’m rooting for Aideon & Lysandra to find love and Manon & Dorian too. I think Manon & Dorian would be a powerhouse couple that would do more than rattle the stars.
Romance aside, the writing progression and improvement is REMARKABLE. You can see how much love she has put into the art form. The improvement is staggering. I’m absolutely hooked to her style now. It’s building into such an epic, grand narrative and her writing style is keeping pace beautifully. Good for Maas! I’ve been reading the books all week and have basically spent the last 4 days finishing one book a day. Yep. Reading till I go cross eyed at this rate. Thanks for a great review!
P.S. Sorry for the essay I wrote you 😛