Title: Queen of Shadow
Series: Throne of Glass - book 4
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Rating: 5 stars
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Number of Pages: 645
Publication Date: September 1st 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Summary (from the back of the book): Celaena Sardothien is cloaked in her assassin's hood once more. She is back in Rifthold, but this time she is no one's slave. She must delve into her most painful memories and fight for her survival, while resisting a smouldering passion that might very well consume her heart. And she will face former master, the King of Assassins, again - to wreak revenge for a decade of pain...
I don't really know where to begin with describing how much I love this book...so I'll start with.. I LOVE THIS BOOK!! In fact I love this whole series, each book somehow manages to get better than the last.
I found this book to be a lot like Throne of Glass, that is more character driven than plot driven. But where I found Throne of Glass a bit slow for this, Queen of Shadows instead brought out some fantastic character development.
The character that stands out in this book for most character development would be Lysandra. As we learn more about Lysandra's past we begin to see how similar she is with Celaena. The two become what would have been just one book earlier, an unlikely team, yet they work so well together and become and unstoppable driven force.
The second character that makes some serious changes is obviously Celaena herself. First of all she now goes by her real name Aelin. Aelin begins to accept that she is the Queen of Terrasen and that she cannot keep running from her past. In this book we get glimpses of the queen that Aelin has the potential to be.
Chaol also makes some serious changes as a character. First off, Chaol finally realises that he has been blindly following his King for too long, which thank god! Chaol also begins to realise that magic is actually a part of the world and that he needs to stop thinking of everyone with magic, aside from Dorian, as a monster if they do. I have already seen many comments about how people found Chaol to be really different from previous books, but I found that this book revealed the person he has always been - as if for the first time we are truly seeing who Chaol is.
As I mentioned earlier I did find this book to be more character driven than plot but I actually thought that this was the best way this book could have been told. Like with Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows is told from multiple perspectives and with in seemingly unrelated sub-plots throughout, but once again Sarah J. Maas has managed to makes all of these moments a part of the larger story that you don't necessarily understand until you get to the end of the book. The way that Sarah tells her stories shows how talented a writer she is, that she manages to remember and include the smallest of details to give the story so much more depth and complexity.
Despite the fact that this book is getting up there in page numbers at no point did this book feel long and daunting. I picked this book up and flew through it. In fact I picked it up and got so lost in it that I didn't even realise that two hours had past.
My favourite part of this book would have to have been the ending of this book. Sarah's book endings always leave me with a certifiably insane need for the next book and waiting for an entire year is likely to give me an eye twitch but this book was different. I am not saying that this book did not leave me needing the fifth book because it did and I do. But it also left me with a sort of completeness and happiness...why?...because for once Aelin gets a genuine happy moment. Minor spoiler alert: Aelin gets to return to Terrasen. In fact the books last line is: "And at long last, Aelin Ashryver Galanthynius was home." I mean after everything that has happened does that not give you the warm and fuzzies. With a line like that I will be able to survive until the next book comes out.
