Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas

(4 / 5)

Throne of Glass #6
Reading this book just makes me want the series finale even more! A great edition to the storyline, Tower of Dawn follows Chaol and Nesryn as they travel to the Southern Continent during the events of Empire of Storms. While our main character Aelin is most notably absent, I feel like this novel was a long time coming. For a while now I’ve felt that Chaol’s character fell flat after what happened between him and Celaena in Crown of Midnight. And this was finally Chaol’s time to shine. I really loved every moment of his journey, almost as much as Aelin’s in Heir of Fire. He’s been blaming himself for things for a long time and finally gets a chance to face that darker part of himself; so satisfying to read.

I was surprised by how much I liked Nesryn’s character in this. She never really stood out for me in Queen of Shadows, but she really comes into her own here. And her storyline accounts for most of the action in the book, which was fun and exciting and added a lot to the mythology of the world. And speaking about that mythology…it is definitely built up in this book, way more that I expected. I also loved the new character’s introduced, especially Sartaq and Hasar, though I find the whole khagan clan quite interesting. It took me a moment to remember Yrene from The Assassin’s Blade, but I enjoyed delving more into her character (so feisty). I love how Maas is bringing in characters from the short story collection here for the final showdown. As I said, now I just want the final book even more!

There was one thing that I really disliked about this book, but I can’t discuss it without major spoilers, so my rant is hidden below. Spoiler

At the end, I was disappointed that Chaol became paralyzed again. I feel like we’ve done that, he faced that demon, triumphed over it…and now we are going to do it again? There is nothing left to explore there…except that now when Yrene gets tired he won’t be able to walk anymore. I don’t feel like this will add to the story, just feel like “ok, now we’re doing this again…” But, that’s just my opinion. And I do like the added complication of the life tie Yrene and Chaol have, making each one strive even harder to survive knowing their death means the death of the other. That I can get behind, so I guess I’ll just have to get over the other stuff.

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