Review: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

 "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 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.

   REVIEW: Throne of Glass is one of my favorite series right now. It’s probably my #1 favorite YA series, and it’s also the only one of my favorite YA series that isn’t ending sometime this year—WOOT. So, of course, after loving the first book so much, I was worried about book 2. How could it possibly live up to its predecessor?

But what I learned about Sarah J. Maas is that she is not a one trick pony, b/c Crown of Midnight was one of those perfect second installments. Everything was more. Celaena was more kick-ass. Chaol was more swoonworthy. The King was more vile. There was more action, more betrayal, more heartbreak—just more.

Celaena is now the King’s Champion, having killed (HA!) it in the competition (like we knew she would). But trained assassin or not, she of course has issues with her new job title. The King is responsible for the death of her entire COUNTRY (not to mention her immediate family) after all, so does she like being his personal, one-woman hit-squad?

Not so much.

But she’s not the only one, and up until the half-way point, this ominous feeling kept building and building. Nothing bad was happening yet, but everyone kept making bad decision after bad decision. Little things that kept up a steady flow of dread, b/c I knew that those little things were going to eventually combine to form a great, big whole. I knew something was coming, I just didn’t know what.

Then, suddenly, I was too happy to be bothered with silly, little things like bad feelings.

But a storm was coming, and that “happy place” was just the eye, meant to lull you into a false sense of security . . .

And then the Bad Thing happened. Which caused the Even Worse Thing to happen.

And I’m not gonna lie, it was T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E.

And then you start to cope. And just when you start to get your land-legs back, you get your mind friggin’ blown.

Anyone who was kind of on the fence about this series will get most, if not ALL, of their questions answered in this installment. And as terrible as the terrible things were (and man, they were terrible), Maas somehow managed to not only end on a hopeful note, but to also have me dying for the next installment the way the absolute worst kind of cliffhanger will have me dying for the next installment . . . but without the cliffhanger . . .

How did she do that?

                 Original title : Crown of midnight

                 Author: Sarah J. Maas

                Series: Throne of Glass #2

                                                                                              10/10 :)