Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2)

by Sarah J. Maas

• ISBN10: 1639730966
• ISBN13: 9781639730964
• Publish Date: 14 February 2023 (first published 15 August 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 21 January 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
• Edition: Adult hardcover edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

[EBookObsessed]

There is some good and some not great aspects to this story. Might have continued if this was a trilogy or even a set of four, but it currently shows as possible six books. I am not willing to become that invested.

Be back shortly with a full review.

Read more at EBookObsessed.com

[Sam@WLABB]

Again, I berate myself for waiting so long to read this series. We catch back up with Celaena as she assumes her role as the King's Champion. We get action, adventure, mystery, romance, and pain, so much pain. We learn so much more about Celaena. We learn more about her past, what governs her heart, and her fears. Chaol also gets a bigger part, and YES! But then, NO! It's a roller coaster. I also must admit, I shed some tears. Maas does such an amazing job of pulling you into the story, into the world, into the minds of the characters. I had a lot of questions and emotions to deal with out the end. Stupendous!

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

Holy freak! Rarely is a sequel ever better than the original, but Crown of Midnight definitely tops Throne of Glass. I'm so glad I didn't give up on this series.

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com.

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

UPDATE 4/13/2020:

I've just finished re-reading this and changed my rating to 4.5 stars. The first time I listened to the audiobook and, I'm not sure why, but I was really bored with it that time around. This time I was dying to get to the end and start book three!

Original review:

Throne of Glass was a book that I was really encouraged (read: forced) to read and finally gave into a couple months ago. I did enjoy it, but it didn't completely blow me away. Crown of Midnight was most definitely the better book of the two, but I still came away with a lot of questions.

This one picks up shortly after book one left off, with Celaena as the king's champion, going about "killing" all of his enemies. But is she really? In this book we see Celaena with a heart, which is a little confusing, to be honest, after book one went to such lengths to establish her as a badass assassin. Still, she continued to be an enjoyable character.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the romance with Chaol! The love triangle is GONE (thank goodness) and she can focus her attentions on the man she actually cares about. Dorian is still there, of course, but they remain (very awkward) friends, growing closer as more and more of the plot is revealed.

Nehemia is one character I actually didn't care for, and that may be going against the grain. She was pushy and downright rude at times, but I suppose she served her purpose. A few new, mysterious characters are also introduced and added a fantastic new element to the story!

While the world building was also really well done (again) I think my absolute favorite aspect of Crown of Midnight is the plot! The first book started to really bore me with the whole competition aspect that seemed to drag on and on. This one really picks up with the fantasy and mystery and it was really great! I loved each new piece of the puzzle that was introduced. There were still parts that I was left confused about.

It's revealed in this book that Celaena is Fae... and a queen. What? How were these things completely left out of the first book and until the very end of the second? Wouldn't we have learned this somehow through exposition. I feel like this is something Celaena would have thought about over the months. It almost feels like Maas had to add something in quickly to make the story longer. Didn't I read somewhere that this was never supposed to be a series? I like the direction that the story is taking now, but it seems a little thrown together, to be honest.

I definitely enjoyed this book more than Throne of Glass. The writing is terrific and kept me interested, the story is better, the characters are better... the whole thing is better! I can't wait to read book three!

[Angie]

So, I’m not sure what happened to my excitement over this series, but it apparently waned during Crown of Midnight. Finally there’s some assassinating, but not really, and only in the beginning since Celaena is sneaky and clever. But there’s a lot more going on; some I was interested in and some I wasn’t. Magic plays a much larger role in this sequel and I think I have an idea of where this is all heading now. I was expecting this series to be more about Celaena getting her revenge on those who ruined her life, but currently it looks like a overthrowing the monarch and restoring magic to the land type story.

Crown of Midnight is still really good. There’s no doubt that I was hooked and flew through this book, but it was more to see if my assumptions were correct rather than me loving it. A lot of stuff happens, but it was all building up to this one (or really two) big reveal. Reveals that I had already assumed while reading the novellas, and I was correct on both counts. This series is good, but surprising it is not.

There’s not much to say about Crown of Midnight. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t surprised by anything. For me, it only served as moving the character from point A to point B where I suspect some epicness is going to happen. Because while I wasn’t surprised by the big reveal, I am excited to see where it leads, because it’s an interesting factoid that means a lot in this world. I just wish it hadn’t been dragged on for so long, because it was rather obvious.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[shannonmiz]

Holy shit. I did NOT see that coming. Now the ultimate question: Do I read Heir of Fire now or wait until closer to QoS? Decisions, people. Decisions.

[Stephanie]

This review was originally posted on Once Upon a Chapter



Typically the second book in a series tends to suffer from "middle book syndrome". Middle book syndrome is when a book spends half of the book rehashing the first book and the other half sitting up the plot for the third book in the series. Not so with Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas. I think I enjoyed Crown of Midnight more than Throne of Glass because there was less to set up. Rifthold is already established, Celeana Sordothian is the King's assassin. She is his to use whenever he wants to get rid of someone. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. Celeana has to do what she has to do but that doesn't mean either of us has to be happy about it. I'm glad Maas covers this fairly early in the book.

Dorian and Chaol. Chaol and Dorian. I think I've spent an equal amount of time in both camps. I was leaning more towards Chaol throughout Crown of Midnight but with how things were left, I don't know where we'll end up. I still really need for those two to work through it.

Let's talk about plot line for a minute. Maas kept this book moving right along. I devoured it in two days. Palace intrigue, assassinations, and love fill the pages. At about halfway through the book, I needed someone to talk to. I'm here to tell you Maas holds no punches for something as trifling as feelings. There is so much new information to process as well. Almost all of it good.

I was pretty excited to get to Crown of Midnight and now having finished it, I can't wait to get my hands on Heir of Fire. I'm not sure how you all have endured the wait between these releases!

[girlinthepages]

I’ll admit, I was a skeptic.

Going in, I was NOT expecting this to be a five star, or even a four star read. I was really underwhelmed by Throne of Glass, and I felt like a total outlier because of it. Everyone raved about the series, so when I was at the bookstore the other day looking for a new paperback, I decided to give the series another shot. And I am SO glad I did, because just as so many bloggers promised, this series gets BETTER as it goes on. Crown of Midnight corrected almost every complaint I had about the series.

Celaena kicks butt and takes names.

One of my main complaints in Throne of Glass was that Celaena was supposed to be the most feared assassin in the land, but it seemed like it was all talk. Not anymore. Celaena still retains her love for fashion, adoration for puppies, and obsession with food, but she also infiltrates secret societies, hunts down her targets, and, well, assassinates people. A lot. She’s a machine, without everything seeming too convenient for her. She doesn’t always have the upper hand, she isn’t always successful, but this makes her feel so much more realistic. Maas is also incredibly good at writing the shifts in Celaena’s personality when she has to be an assassin, taking the pain and numbeness crafting her into an almost disassociated state where readers can really see how she was morphed from a young orphan into a deadly weapon. Let me tell you, I would put my money on Celaena over Katniss, Triss, or any other YA action heroine any day.

My Ship Set Sail…Sort of.

I wasn’t really convinced about the romance in the first installment but now I can fervently say that I am a Chaol+Celaena shipper. I loved everything about them in this book, and how their lust and love felt fragile and strong in equal measure. Yet I should have known it was too good to true that I would get a fleshed out romance so early in the series, so my heart was lifted and dashed throughout the course of this book as Celaena finds love and then betrayal. Although POTENTIAL SPOILER: I thought Celaena’s emotions toward Chaol’s “betrayal” were a tad bit unfair considering how much less she shows towards the numerous instances she finds Nehemia hiding things from her…although perhaps what happened with Chaol was just the straw that broke the assassin’s back. I also love how this series doesn’t feel like a “typical” love triangle, how Chaol and Dorian aren’t pitted against each other, making readers decide who’s more likeable. I really like BOTH Dorian and Chaol for very different reasons, and I think they’re both going to be incredibly important to the story as the series goes on (especially Dorian!) And that SCAR on Chaol’s face….it makes my heart ache every time it’s referenced.

Tragedy Abounds.

This book is split into two parts, bridged by a horrific act of violence that rattles pretty much everyone. There’s gore and violence and plain evil stuff going on. I mean, we’re talking MAJOR characters deaths! While I was shocked, I think this proves what a deliciously ruthless author Maas is, as she’s willing to push the boundaries to shock readers and further her plot. I don’t think this is a series where we can expect all of our beloved characters to walk away unscathed.

Magic, magic everywhere.

It’s hiding in carnival caravans, in castle walls, in intuitive books, even in plain sight. Magic being banished from the land is a common trope in fantasy so when the series sets up with magic having been gone for the past ten years, all of the practitioners being gone or executed, etc., I was unimpressed. But it’s coming back, and it’s seeping into every corner of the series in unstoppable and potentially catastrophic ways. Elena’s tomb was just the beginning, and magic is so sneakily pervasive that it almost feels like a character in itself, and I kept preparing for it to jump out at me in the most unexpected places. With its inevitable return, it becomes much more clear how much thought Maas has put into laying the foundational framework for the series, and I have so many theories about how everything is going to go down once it returns full force.

Minor characters are starting to play major roles.

There’s Roland, who is a legitimate creeper who we didn’t get to know nearly enough about. There’s Avery, who it really took me a while to figure out. And there’s Kaltain, who is possibly the character I’m MOST intrigued about in this entire series (she was clearly NOT just a plot device for book one!) I hear there are a whole host of new characters introduced in Heir of Fire too, and I’m excited because fantasy series are so much better when you suspect everyone there are multiple motives, family loyalties, and personal stories to wade through. Yes, this series is about Celaena but it’s also about so many other people, which makes the world of Erilea feel so much more real. I NEED MORE MAPS.

Plot twists…so MANY plot twists.

Spaced throughout the entirety of the book, there were multiple shocking revelations to keep the book feeling extremely fast paced. I’ll admit that I caught the big one at the end (I do read a lot of books so you tend to catch on to things quicker when you read so much YA) but I thought it was REALLY well done because I could tell how the foundations for the plot twists had been set up since book one, and because even after guessing some of the twists I still cared about reading them, and seeing how the characters responded to them. EVERYTHING IS CHANGING because of this book. I can’t wait.

What would a fantasy series be without a quest?

Crown of Midnight leaves off with Celaena embarking on a quest of multiple sorts: self-discovery, magical discovery, and political discovery. So while I’m sad that all of my favorite characters will probably be scattered to the different winds in the next book, I understand why it must be done.

Overall: A HUGE improvement over Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight bucks any stereotypes of sophomore series installments being weak, emphasizing character development and world building that will makes readers so much more invested in this series. It’s darker, sexier, sadder, faster-paced, and overall a more dynamic installment in the series. I’m converted.

You can read this review and more at my blog Girl in the Pages

[Kelly]

A bazillion stars. Absolute perfection.

[Cocktails and Books]

There is so much that happens in this series I'm not sure even a quickie review could cover it. Another exciting page turner by Sarah J Maas. It's hard not to enjoy these characters or to champion their cause. For anyone who enjoys a great urban fantasy story, even with a main character who is 18, this is definitely a series to pick up.