Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5)

by Sarah J. Maas

I read this book together with the next book, Tower of Dawn, so the reviews of these books might be a bit mixed.
I absolutely loved this book, however, it felt as if Sarah J Maas suddenly discovered that she liked writing sex scenes, and she went for it. Personally, I do not mind sex scenes and I think they are often underrepresented in YA novels as if we do not know that teens have sex. However, it became a bit too much in this book. We already know that Aelin had sex before, that was described in the second book of this series if I am not mistaken, but somehow she changed into this always horny person, who did not care who knew or saw it. And it was not just her, it was everyone. I do not mind that Manon and Dorian started out this way, with just having sex without talking about what it means because that happens. It just annoyed me that when they were almost in a battle or preparing for a battle, some people, *cough* Aelin, could only think about sex. Even if it was that good, we get it. Oh, and what is with all the pain sex, dominant sex, and everyone forgetting their names during sex? Surely everyone cannot be that great...
This did not really annoy me, but it did feel ridiculous, especially because the wedding is not described at all! We have enough pages about sex, so why can't we get just one page about Aelin and Rowan marrying? Even after it had happened, just a longer description would have been nice, and this is coming from someone who is not even a fan of Aelin and Rowan being together.

The main reason why this I did not give this book five stars is the fact that everyone is paired up with someone. It annoys me so much! Not everyone finds love in real life. Not everyone is cut out for a relationship. Stop pairing people up. I hope some characters die / break up / whatever just so we do not have this situation where a book ends and everyone is paired up in one big group of friends. It is just not realistic and can make some romances feel forced, like Elide and Lorcan's romance. Oh, and why is everyone royal all of a sudden? I mean, I loved it, but what...?

However, I really loved this book and most of the things I am pointing out above are things that made me realize that some parts are ridiculous, but still highly enjoyable. I love how this series started out very normal, nothing special, and turned into a complete network of things that are woven together, that are complicated but still work well for the story.