Nikki

Ugh maybe I would've felt different about this if I'd read this when it came out but, ten years later... I'm just annoyed at the characters, at the plot, at the dialog.
The plot feels so dated and honestly, rather stupid and contrived. What society is going to scientifically alter it's population just to remove their ability to feel love? It's ridiculous, it's not like not feeling love would keep them from uprisings and that removing all poetry/classic romantic literature (except Romeo and Juliet conveniently) would do anything of value. The characters are insipid and predicable most of the time, and I just didn't want to be in Lena PoV after awhile. I understand Alex and Lena are suppose to be in ‘young love' but it's too cringy and too dramatic to be romantic. The ‘we've got to runaway together and then we'll be happy' cliché is so overdone.

I went into this thinking I wasn't going to enjoy it that much, mostly because a couple other books on this YA list, that I'm slowly going through, haven't been all that great, coughGracelingcough, and admittedly, for the first few chapters I was checked out because I genuinely thought it was going to be the same as the other newer high fantasy YA that've been on this list.
But it surprised me and I found myself actually invested in the story and completing the whole thing at 3 a.m. because it kept me intrigued till the last page.

After looking through the reviews I feel like a lot of people's critiques are that they found the heroine to be too ‘not like other girls' and I get why they feel that way however, I felt like that trope was done in a way that I didn't find Celaena to be annoying. It wasn't like crazy good assassin from birth, somehow gets plucked off the street by prince to compete in competition, being a crazy good assassin was something that took years of training and didn't come easy and she wasn't plucked off the streets, she was dragged out of a death camp where she was imprisoned.

Another criticism was too much show not enough tell, that one has merit in some aspects but, I was okay with it. It allowed for the story to move along. Calaena was malnourished and emaciated from being in the camp how are you going to ‘show' that she's highly trained right away, in a way relevant to the plot? could it be done? sure, maybe, I'm not a writer, but I was fine with just being told she's a ‘amazing assassin' until it could actually be shown.

Low key feel that a sizable portion of bad reviews are from people who just don't like Sarah. J. Maas, and hate read this, Which, hey, whatever floats your boat man, if that's not the case then I'd be surprised. It's a really good YA fantasy (I'm looking at you, the reviews that thought it was going to be GoT, why would you think that? GoT is 600+ pages of adult fantasy told from like 15 PoVs. If someone told you this was gonna be that, then they don't read fantasy at all). I don't know, maybe it's because I didn't read the synopsis or watch any in depth reviews before I started it but, I thought this was an intriguing story and paced really well. I thought it better than most other YA fantasy that've read. 

I'd give it a solid 4 1/2 stars.

Would've been a four star read but, the last 30-40 pages were dragging, felt a bit like they were just there to reach a page count number/or for another conflict after there was already so many conflicts. Other than that, it was an enjoyable read. Anyone who already likes BDSM, troubled people kind of genre would like this book.


(sort of a) Minor Spoiler Ahead:



Also, (although it does seem to just be used for the friction) I would assume that someone with trauma of their own would be more understanding of someone else's, that they wouldn't just demand answers then walk out on them when they don't say the right thing. Maybe I'm wrong, but it felt odd.