The book was fine. Don’t hate me for not loving it, but it was just too much. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if it had been 400 pages shorter…
I picked up Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas over a year ago, read a few pages, put it down, and forgot about it. I know, I know. This is the book that brings the whole Throne of Glass series to its epic conclusion and I should have been excited about it, but while so many people adored this series I thought it was just “good.”
Anyway, I finally picked it up again to push through and finish it.
THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW…not explicit ones. If you’ve read half this series, you probably could have guessed what was going to happen anyway.
Seriously, I liked it just fine
Stop being mad at me for not loving this.
There were seven books in this series plus the 5 novellas. Obviously I enjoyed the series enough to read all of them. I really liked the fantasy world building, the epic story, and the characters. I loved reading a female protagonist who kicked ass, didn’t make excuses, and worked to control her own destiny despite what she was fated for. (Spoiler alert: she was fated to DIE.)
I didn’t love Aelin Galythynius, but I liked her character. I think those are two separate things. I can appreciate how well a character is written, yet imagine that if I met that person IRL, I wouldn’t like them. I think that’s a sign of a good character because you don’t love everyone you meet, right? Aelin is cocky and thinks she’s the only one who knows what’s best for everyone. Her swagger gets really old after a while.
Everyone gets a mate
I’m also a sucker for a good love story and this series boasted several relationships. Maybe too many. Everyone got paired up. Characters I didn’t even care about got their own love story and pairing. I stopped caring about additional characters around Book 4, but everyone showed up in Book 7 ready to find true love…and they did. There will be no broken hearts here, folks. Everyone gets their happy ending! It was all very emotionally squishy…too squishy.
And there are quite a bit of sexy-time scenes. The scene on the beach—I forget which book it was in—was the most ridiculous of all. I wouldn’t even call that sexy-time. That was like what-the-heck-just-happened-time. It was out of control. Kingdom of Ash tamed down the sexy-time, but really I just started to roll my eyes every time some couple was about to get it on because THEY’RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE.
All the rippling fae muscles got old after a while too. We get it. Everyone looks like they’ve been chiseled from granite. I mean, of course there’s a preference to reading pretty people going at it, but maybe this wouldn’t have gotten so many eye-rolls if it wasn’t mentioned every time there was sex-magic. I’m not sure if that should have been a spoiler alert or not.
By the way, Book 7 is the only one I noticed that finally had a warning that said it’s for mature audiences. About time considering it comes off as YA. Or I’m just a prude. Whatever.
My favorite couple was Manon and Dorian—and their story didn’t end squishily if that tells you anything. That was a spoiler alert. I don’t know if it’s because they weren’t strangers to sex or what (she being old as heck because she’s a beautiful witch and he being a playah prince), but they seemed to struggle more with who they were. While they acknowledged that there was something between them, they actually acted like responsible people and not magic horny toads (even though there was that one scene where Dorian shape-shifted…). Dang, that may have been a spoiler. I don’t know.
Deaths and Plot Holes - Spoiler Alert
Seriously, why did Gavriel have to die? He was the one cool fae not boinking anyone and trying to fix his relationship with his son Aedion (who was boinking Lyssandra after saying terrible things to her and throwing her naked out of his tent because he was having a tantrum after battling all the things for several hundred pages). Gavriel was beautiful and kick-ass without having to prove he was. He finally has this moment with his son during the final battle—and by moment, I mean he just arrived to the scene and sees that Aedion is in trouble and has to save him. And SACRIFICE.
“Noooooooo! Father, I see now that everything you did, you did for me! Why must you die at this very point when there were 900+ pages for us to reconnect in some way?!” screamed Aedion.
I made that up. I don’t want you to be confused and think that was in the book. It wasn’t. I was summarizing.
Actually, there was one other cool fae: Fenrys. He turned into a wolf and also was not boinking anyone. He was awesome.
Then there were the plot holes. I don’t know, maybe plot hole is too strong. Maybe more like random events that kind of felt forced or weren’t really resolved would be more accurate. I don’t want to go into details, so here are a few thoughts:
Those badass Valg princess spiders kind of fizzled, didn’t they? So much build up…
The KEY that requires a sacrifice kind of doesn’t anymore? The gods get some weird scene where they talk to Aelin and everyone has an attitude? Then the gods get locked up in some world where they don’t want to be?
And the big bad Valg gets healed?
And the queen is suddenly Valg? And while she’s killing with illusion, no one is going to sneak up and stab her?
And did all the portals opening kind of feeling like Avengers: End Game?
Also, we’ll never be royals
…because every single character in this book took every possible title ever. Remember all those characters I stopped caring about? Well, you better bow down because those characters ended up being a Queen of this or King of that. Seriously, more royalty than a stacked deck. It was like when I was a little girl and I made every single Barbie or stuffed animal have a title. They had to be IMPORTANT.
You know, when everyone is a Queen, everyone’s a pawn.
Other random Thoughts
This is going to sound weird, but the sentence structures bothered me after a while. I’m not perfect and I’m not the syntax or grammar police or anything, but when something happens often enough it can annoy me. There were so many fragmented sentences it became jarring in my head. For example, I would write:
I tiptoed through the tulips, across the bubbling creek, and then into the dark forest where the Forest god waited. He knew I was coming. He had heard whispers of stories where a young woman sought to steal his antlered crown.
Corny, sure, but go with it. Here’s how it would have read in Book 7:
I tiptoed through the tulips. The bubbling creek. The dark forest. Where the Forest god waited. He knew I was coming. Heard whispers of stories. A young woman, seeking to steal his antlered crown.
It’s like William Shatner reading to me the whole time. (Love you, Mr. Shatner.) I’m all about dramatic effects, but sheesh. That said, I’m sure some readers probably hate on my long sentences and commas. To each her own.
Now that you are really hating on me, let me continue—even though I already said I enjoyed the series. Kingdom of Ash comes in at over 900 pages. I have no problem with big books and if it’s 900 pages of riveting, absolutely necessary content, I would have been fine with that. But it wasn’t. There was so much traveling and battling and extra characters that didn’t add anything to the story for me. Was it trying to be Lord of the Rings (loved it) or Game of Thrones (meh)? I kind of wanted it to be assassin Cinderella, but Aelin wanted more. She wanted everyone to drink her blood. Then it got weird.
3 STARS ON GOODREADS
I can’t stress enough that I enjoyed the whole series. I was thoroughly entertained, but I’m also so glad it’s over because there are so many more books on my list.
For quick reference, here are my ratings for all the books in the series:
Throne of Glass - 3 stars
Crown of Midnight - 4 stars
Heir of Fire - 3 stars
Queen of Shadows - 3 stars
Empire of Storms - 3 stars
Tower of Dawn - 3 stars
Kingdom of Ash - 3 stars
The Assassin’s Blade (novellas 0.1 - 0.5) - 4 stars
Here’s my rating system:
5 stars: I love this book so much that I must own a physical copy of it. I’m definitely going to recommend it to people.
4 stars: This was a great book. I love it, but I don’t need to own a physical copy. I’ll definitely recommend it to people.
3 stars: This is a really good book. I was entertained.
2 stars: This book was fine. I don’t hate it or anything. It was fine.
1 star: This book wasn’t for me. It might be for someone else, though. There are probably a lot of reasons why it isn’t for me. I’m not hating, though.
0 stars: I’ve read it, or maybe I didn’t finish it, or maybe I didn’t enjoy it. Could be anything.
Comment below and let me know what you thought of this book if you’ve read it!