Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2) by Sarah J. Maas

My rating: five stars

Genre: YA, fantasy

Edition: paperback

Goodreads Summary: From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.

Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.

Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena’s world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie… and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.

The Throne of Glass and Shadow and Bone series are two of my most anticipated series to read of the year. Since I can’t choose between the two, I am planning on going back and forth between the two. I loved Throne of Glass, but the ending was odd and therefore I didn’t have the highest expectations for Crown of Midnight. I was unexpectedly surprised with how incredible it was!

Likes: I had no clue where this book was going to be going with how Throne of Glass ended. However, I really liked it! The mysteries, the secrets, and the new discoveries kept me on the edge of my seat. The entire book Celaena is trying to figure out a certain mystery, and I loved getting snippets of information continuously throughout the story. This is one of the only books that made me cry and cry and cry, want to throw it on the ground, and yet, still love it. There were parts that had me crushed, wanting to hate the book, and somehow I don’t. There are few stories that I have found that can make me feel this way, and though I want to put it in the dislikes – because this story broke me – I won’t, because that is a sign of beautiful writing.

Dislikes: There are so many secrets between characters and honestly there is no point to a lot of them. This frustrated me throughout the whole book, and made me honestly angry with one of the actions a character took that completely changed the story. If the characters would have just talked then so many horrific things wouldn’t have happened and that was annoying. There was so much trust between many of the characters so it doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t share information.

Overall, I did love this story. It had added elements that the first book didn’t have, and though I thought I wasn’t going to like that, I ended up really enjoying it! There was more political intrigue in this book, more insight into Celaena’s background, and more POVs in this story which I loved. The only dislike was the catastrophes that could have been easily avoided if characters would have just talked with each other. However, I loved it so much and it ripped emotions out of me that most books can’t. Because of this I rated it five stars and can’t wait for the next one!