This March I was able to finish 6 books (3 of those books being very very short). This puts me at 18 read books so far this year out of my 50 book reading challenge, putting me at 36% done with this year's reading challenge. How are your reading goals going so far?
Crown of Midnight (TOG 2) ⭐⭐⭐
Celaena is now the king's official assassin and is being sent on all kinds of missions to assassinate different important people. But, she now has a concious and can't bring herself to kill these people. So she instead pretends to assassinate these people by convincing them to fake their own deaths and get out of town.
Personally I found this plot point a little hard to swallow. I just can't imagine that really working, that no one argues with her and everyone goes through their own efforts to fake their own deaths and leave everything they've ever known to flee into obscurity. Like not a single person argued with her on this? They all just listened to her and cooperated? It seems like a cop out a bit to me, to avoid Celaena being forced to actually do anything wrong while still maintaing the charcter title of assassin.
One major complaint I personally have with this writer is that I can never fully trust or believe in any of the romantic partnerships. In book 1 we had this really beautiful relationship budding between Dorian and Celaena where he was saying things like "I can't imagine living my life and growing old with anyone but her" but for her, she seemed to enter and exit that relationship on a whim. Same goes for this book with Chaol. I just want to believe in love, but every time I think, "maybe this guy is the one!" he's actually not.
The ending half of this book piqued my interest. I love the magical lore with the word marks and the doors and the king's monster creations. I also loved finally finding out more about Celaena and how she's fae, that makes her abilities make a bit more sense to me.
I did find it a little bit comical how many names Celaena is burning through though. Like she was Celaena, then Lillian, then Elentiya kind of and now Aelin. That's 4 different names now and we're only on book 2! This series could be called, "The Girl with Many Names." I don't really know why finding out her true identity warranted a fourth name change. I also don't really understand why we're only learning these origins about Celaena now when she has technically known she was fae and who her parents were this entire time? I think it would have made more sense if maybe she had traumatic amnesia or something rather than her just not sharing this info with us until the very end of her second book.
Book 10: Barbarian’s Heart (Stacy & Pashov) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is book 10 of the Ice Planet Barbarians saga and so far in the story, Stacy and Pashov have been side characters. By all accounts it didn't seem there was really a story to tell there, but I was delightedly surprised by how interesting their book ended up being.
Stacy and Pashov might be my newest favorite pairing in this series. Their trials post getting together were very complicated and I quickly became very invested in whether they would work things out and if so, how? It's funny too because at the end of the book the author also talks about how she wanted this book to be more exciting and adventurous but with Stacy's character it just didn't work out that way. I honestly think she still managed to make a really intriguing and adventurous story with very gripping interpersonal action rather than external action.
Hier of Fire (TOG 3) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
So much happened in this book, I'd definitely say its the most interesting book in the series so far with more characters in play and more interesting characters in play too. I also loved learning a lot more about Celaena/Aelin/Elentiya and her background, etc.
I thought it was interesting the parallels between Aelin + Rowan and Feyre + Rhysand (Aelin's an "assassin," Feyre's a "hunter," both Rowan and Rhysand are dark and mysterious men and are both enslaved to evil ladies and both Aelin and Feyre free them). It made me wonder if the parallel was done purposefully, like if Aelin + Rowan and Feyre + Rhysand are incarnations of each other, or if it's kind of like a recurring trope, specific to this author. Anyway, the parallels felt so apparent that I'm pretty sure Aelin and Rowan end up together now, but it's hard to be sure lol.
The main beef I have with this book is Nehimia's death. It would have been a great death that Celaena could beat herself up about and really hurt over, but then we learn that Nehimia literally orchestrated her own death for the sole purpose of getting Celaena to be the hero, something she was basically already doing though right?
"Nehimia thought her death could spur me to action, so she orchestrated her own death." (a literal quote from this book from Celaena/Aelin/Elentiya/Fireheart). This is just a wild plot point to me and totally unecessary to make this the circumstances around her death. It would make way more sense to just let it be an assassination, not like this on-purpose suicide plan Nehimia had, that's so weird to me.
Book 5: Ice Planet Holiday (Claire & Ereven, Georgie & Vektal) ⭐⭐⭐
Claire and Ereven's story was super adorable. I did feel like their journey to finding each other was a bit easy, like there could have been a bit more conflict for them to deal with before finally getting together. But regardless, their story was very charming.
I also wished we saw more of the actual holiday fesitivities with this new holiday the tribe decides to create. Georgie gives birth to Tallie in this book and almost dies and that was also stressful and not my favorite stuff to read about but other than that a cute novella to the series.
Book 7.1: Having the Barbarian’s Baby (Megan & Cashol) ⭐⭐⭐
This short story was just okay. It was mostly about the month or so prior to giving birth and the stress of all that. But Megan and Cashol were very cute.
Book 7.2: Ice Ice Babies (Nora & Dagesh) ⭐⭐⭐
Nora and Dagesh have twins and a lot to juggle because of it. They learn to ask for help and take needed breaks and make time for each other and that's great. These last couple novellas have been fun to see the new parent realities of these couples and it's nice to see them work things out.
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