Book Review: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Crown of Midnight

by Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass #2
Published: August 27th 2013
(418 pages)

"A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.
It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend."
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.

In Crown of Midnight, Celaena is now the king’s personal assassin and she pulls a Jason Bourne because she has a conscience. Celaena is such a great character. She’s flawed but there’s a lot to like about her. She collects books like I do which is to hoard every single book she can find and never get rid of it. It’s so clear what Celaena wants which made her very relatable. I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people want this:

“She had a flicker of memory from a time when, just for a moment, she’d been free; when the world had been wide open and she’d been about to enter it with Sam at her side. It was a freedom that she was still working for, because even though she’d tasted it only for a heartbeat, it had been the most exquisite heartbeat she’d ever experienced.”

– Sarah J. Maas, Crown of Midnight pg 81

What a beautiful reminder to never take that kind of freedom for granted.

The back story from the prequel (The Assassin’s Blade) shows up in this book. Everything that’s needed to tell the story in Crown of Midnight is there and it’s not confusing. But the prequel filled out the details for me making it a little easier to follow what was going on.

Three plot twists! 1st one – called it! View Spoiler »Celaena is the lost queen. Totally saw that coming « Hide Spoiler 2nd plot twist – WHAAAAAT View Spoiler »The prince has magic and it’s hidden and dangerous. Oooh I love this!!! Did not see that one coming! And it’s so cool. It’s like a Jedi trying to use the force. « Hide Spoiler 3rd plot twist – this is so obvious – wait it’s not!! View Spoiler »The threat to Nehemia seemed so obvious to me. It must be the king. But it wasn’t! Yay! Well sad actually because she died but yay that I didn’t figure it out! « Hide Spoiler In short, lots of juicy secrets going on and it’s so fun.

Love triangles are done a lot but I have to say I really liked this one. I thought it was well done. It didn’t drag on. Feelings change, as they should, which lent it a feeling of maturity.

The political and historical elements are complicated with no easy answers which I really liked. The lack of magic is mentioned again as part of the world which I also really liked.

In the first book, Throne of Glass, a writing quirk that stood out to me was lots of exclamation marks. There’s a new writing quirk in Crown of Midnight that bugged me, but the good news is that it isn’t exclamation marks – it’s something totally different! There were times when words were repeated three times like this: “chocolate, chocolate, chocolate (pg 89)”. It showed up only a few times but I noticed it, noticed it, noticed it.

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