Review: Heir of Fire

Title: Heir of Fire
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: September 2nd, 2014
Series: Throne of Glass #3
How I Served It: Hardcover
How I Got It: Library

"Lost and broken, Celaena Sardothien’s only thought is to avenge the savage death of her dearest friend: as the King of Adarlan’s Assassin, she is bound to serve this tyrant, but he will pay for what he did. Any hope Celaena has of destroying the king lies in answers to be found in Wendlyn. Sacrificing his future, Chaol, the Captain of the King’s Guard, has sent Celaena there to protect her, but her darkest demons lay in that same place. If she can overcome them, she will be Adarlan’s biggest threat – and his own toughest enemy. 

While Celaena learns of her true destiny, and the eyes of Erilea are on Wendlyn, a brutal and beastly force is preparing to take to the skies. Will Celaena find the strength not only to win her own battles, but to fight a war that could pit her loyalties to her own people against those she has grown to love?" -- Goodreads
Review:
 Okay, so I'm not good at regular updates. Sorry. Life's been weird, I'll be better! 

You know what my main issue was?  Television. It came back. All of my lovely melodramas and comedies and soap operas that are socially acceptable because they're on ABC, they all came back to me a torrent of LEDs and long lost sisters and murder. Maybe I'll start reviewing television too. This is my catch all blog after all...

So anyway, I've been reading the Throne of Glass series since it came out. It was one of the first times that I trusted a Goodreads recommendation. I liked the first one okay, but adored, ADORED, the second one. It was the romance.  Call me thirteen, but I love a will-they, won't-they, snarky relationship. Basically all of my favorite pairings in any genre started with mistrust and sarcasm.  So I loved the caelena/chaol pairing. And I really liked the increased level of intrigue and the revelations about what was really going on in the palace and everything. Suffice it to say that Crown of Midnight and I were tight, we got along great, it was a happy read. 

Heir of Fire is a sharp break from Crown of Midnight. That does not mean I did not like it. To be honest I'm still not sure how I felt. It just means that... Well I had just finished rereading Crown when I started Heir. I was coming fresh off of everyone being in the castle together causing a ruckus.  Coming into this new book, with the split storytelling... It took me a solid quarter of the book to adjust to it.  I get why it needed to happen, I think both sets of character (Chaol and Dorian vs Caelena and Rowan) benefitted from the time apart, but... It was a little depressing.

No wait, depressing should be reserved for Caelena's storyline.  She was down on herself the entire book, and yes, I get that Nehemia died and it was kind of her fault, but... It got old fast.  In the first two books I had always gotten the vibe that she, Caleana was a bit of a whiner, but she had always compensated with her incredible skills and abilities, so it never mattered much.  In this book she's learning how to control her magic, which means that she's not a super-powered war machine, which means that her excessive moaning is not compensated. 

I liked Rowan. I liked how he was introduced as a platonic character and did not become a love interest at any point. I like it whenever YA authors acknowledged the possibility of boys and girls being just friends and working together in a productive way, WITHOUT any feelings involved. I hope she maintains the whole no-feelings aspect of this relationship in the future books considering Caelena's already got plenty of men to choose from haha.

This brings me to Aedion. I like him and his character arc a lot.  I kind of feel like he's being set up as both a foil to Chaol and a tragic hero. He's potentially the only other character in this book who could really relate to what Caelena has had to do to stay alive... So maybe he and her are meant to be or something? I don't know.  I still love her with Chaol... But maybe that's just because I haven't seen Caelena and Aedion actually meet in the present. Right now he seems to be infatuated with the idea of the her and the idea of knowing her and serving her. Based on the flashbacks it seems like modern day Caleana and the girl of the past are two very different people.  And part of me still thinks that Maas is setting Aedion up to die some heroic death to save the kingdom... He has that character skeleton.

Oh and Dorian! Dude, without spoiling the (totally epic, OMG) ending, all I can really say is that this kid is seriously going to need therapy.  I have a feeling the answer to "Tell me about your childhood" goes way deeper than we've learned so far.  His sweet romance with Sorscha both answered the plot hole of how none of their injuries were ever reported to the King, and provided some seriously needed character development.  I really liked her, she was so... Good for him.

Final Noodle: So this review had way too much to do with relationships and way too little to do with plot... But I decided that, since this is honestly what I associate with the novel, it's what I should talk about. I still strongly recommend the series to anyone who likes fantasy or medieval-ish politics... And I'm still waiting with so so much excitement for the fourth book. This third book seriously set up some crazy expectations!