Reviewed by thepunktheory on
Before opening Kingdom of Ash I kept thinking "If Aelin isn't out of that damn coffin by page 250, I'm hauling my ass over to Doranelle to finish off that bitch Maeve myself". If that doesn't echo your sentiments, you didn't read the book right. I thought that part was the most evil thing SJM could come up with, but boy was I wrong.
While the chapters concerning Aelin's torture were absolutely heartbreaking, that's not what moved me most. My favorite chapter of the entire series, as well as the part that had me crying the hardest, are part of Kingdom of Ash, courtesy of Manon Blackbeak/Croachan/Kin Slayer. I won't go into detail which particular moments I mean, but if you read the book, you probably already know and are now in search of a box of kleenex to dry your tears.
Honestly, that was such brilliant story writing, I still can't wrap my head around it. Be prepared that Kingdom of Ash has a lot of separate plot aspects that will come together at some point. There's Aelin, the cadre, the court in Terrasen, Dorian, Manon, and Chaol. I was always torn between wanting all the information on one aspect of the story and trying to just read all storylines at once.
Concerning the end of the series, it is what all the fans (part of me included) had hoped for but, to be honest, I'm not sure that it was the best way to finish off the story. I still need to put some more thought into that and will probably rant about it in a different post. However, some twists seemed a tad bit far-fetched and I had the impression that SJM was trying to please as many people as possible.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Kingdom of Ash, it's a brilliant book, but I think I could have been better. There are some more aspects that didn't sit that well with me, but that's for another day and another post as I can't talk about any of that without including tons of spoilers.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 19 February, 2019: Finished reading
- 19 February, 2019: Reviewed