Kingdom of Ash

I am so emotional right now I can't even!
This book was such a roller-coaster of emotions, I cried and laughed and sobbed and leaped with joy all within a few pages!

Before I start this review let me just say that Throne of Glass is one of my absolute favorite series of all times and it will always have a special place in my heart. But that doesn't mean I have a few things to say about it and not all of them are 100% positive. It doesn't mean I love this series or this book any less.

Okay now that that's out of the way, Let's get to business shall we?

First things first, let me get this out of my chest:
There are way too many POVs in this blasted book!
Yes, I know we have a lot of characters who have had their own POVs in the past, but the show more change from one POV to another sometimes just got me dizzy.
Like, one moment I'm reading about Aedion and Lysandra in the middle of freaking battle, and the next I get Chaol and Yeren being all lovey dovey.
And I'm like, look, I ship it, but BLOODY HELL SHOW ME WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BABIES WHO ARE IN DANGER!

Anyyyyyyyyways
So the first few chapters are kind of setting the tone to everything that's going on and all, but then you get Aelin and Rowan's chapters, and holy hell is that shit depressing! I wanted to rip my heart out so I wouldn't feel that heavy sadness.

After that a lot of things happened so I'll just mention the most important ones and how I felt about them. Those aren't in any sort of order, I'm just writing them as I remember.

- First we have the scene when Maeve brought Aelin in front of her and Connal was there and he was being a bitch to baby Fenrys (who btw has already went through enough) and then she ordered him to "do it".
At that moment I thought he was going to kill Fenrys and I swear I was gasping for breath, then Connal plunged the knife in his own heart and while I was relieved Fenrys lived, but at the same time my heart broke for my baby boy and his twin! (I admit, I was also sad the world lost one of its most beautiful creatures)

- When Dorian and Manon captured that spider-valg thingy and they kept her until she took them to the Crochans and then Dorian tried to learn shifting from her and he STEALS HER POWERS FROM HER
Oh my god! Oh my freaking god! My baby boy just slayed in that moment and I was so proud and happy even though the moron was planning to go to Morath and get the third key from Erawan.

- Aedion and Lysandra are not talking to one another, Aedion is still being a bitch to her and they're already in war and shit is so intense. Then a messenger from Darrow arrives and holy hell it's NOX!!!! (I was so happy to see him I can't even explain it!)

- The whole saving Aelin/Aelin's escape thing was really intense. I really liked how that went down and how baby Fenrys actually broke the blood oath to help her and attack that bastard Cairn. But then Aelin escaped and he was still inside and for a moment I thought Cairn killed him, and let me tell you folks, that was such a horrible thought. But when Rowan gets there we find that Fenrys is thankfully still alive! YET THE BROKEN BLOOD OATH IS GOING TO KILL HIM
Oh my freaking god was that an emotional moment! The only thing I could think about was that he just survived Cairn to die like that!
I was so happy when Aelin gave him the blood oath and ordered him, I shit you not she freaking ORDERED him to live and my heart leaped with joy.

- Aedion and Lysandra drew the short straw in this book, they've literally been in shit from page one and they kept going through worse shit every time, I honestly couldn't take it anymore. IT WAS TOO MUCH!

- Anielle is attacked! Chaol and everyone with him have to go there and defend the city and once there Lord Westfal is worse than a period cramp! But worry not! Yeren is there to hand him his ass on a silver platter!
The battle was supposed to be intense but tbh I wasn't feeling it because it was kinda all over the place and Chaol and Yeren were telling what happened rather than actually showing so I felt kind of disconnected from it. Like, I knew I should be more invested and touched by it, but I just couldn't!

- AELIN AND CHAOL MEET AGAIN AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!
That was a reunion I was waiting for and I was so happy to see them together again because I missed my og3 so much!
So Aelin, Elide and the cadre join Chaol and Co. and all are defending Anielle against those wicked valgs, but before the battle Elide is kinda still bitter over what Lorcan did FOR HER in Ellywe so she tells him she doesn't want to see him again or something, and what do you know? Our boy actually takes her words to heart and goes and gets himself -almost- killed in that battle.
One the battle is won, the DAM IS ABOUT TO BREAK AND WIPE OUT NOT ONLY HALF OF ANIELLE BUT ALSO THE WHOLE ARMADA THEY WORKED SO HARD TO BRING FORM THE SOUTHERN CONTINENT and most importantly LORCAN IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN!
I loved how Elide damned everything to hell and took everything in her hands and went looking for Lorcan ATOP FARASHA (remember her? The best damned horse in the whole damned universe?) and she finds him but he's basically half dead. My heart was bleeding as she got him on the Farasha and they began galloping at top speed but THEY WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO MAKE IT IN TIME but then Lorcan was like, I will leave so the horse gets lighter and you can reach the gate in time but thankfully Elide was having none of his shit.
THEN AELIN SHOW UP and she basically unleashes a 3 months worth of bolted up magic just as the dam breaks and HALLELUJAH the river is now steam.
That was such an intense moment, because for a moment there I actually thought they were fucked and I was preparing myself for their deaths.

- DORIAN! Dorian learns how to shift and goes to Morath, much to Manon's dismay (who is btw the new Witch queen now) and he's planning to spy on Erawan until he gets the third key. But surprise surprise, that bitch Maeve is actually there to become Erawan's ally. I swear through the whole thing I was just waiting for Erawan to say or do something, because he could obviously smell him and he obviously knew his scent from his time as Perrington but what do you know! It's actually Maeve who recognizes him AND PROPOSES AND ALLIANCE BY MARRIAGE!
When Dorian agreed I was so certain the dumbass fucked up and signed up for his own death. Then my baby boy surprised me by not only stealing the key and turning on Maeve and leaving her in Morath which was collapsing, but he also STOLE HER WORLD TRAVELING GIFT. When Dorian said this:

"World walker no longer, he said as his raw magic shifted her own.
Changed its very essence. I suggest you invest in a good pair of shoes"
I was screaming, I've never been this proud of a character in my entire life this much.

-Onyrth is in deep shit, Darrow stripped Aedion of his title as general and his sword, they're losing badly and all so Aedion asks Ren to send Nox to get a message to all of Terrasan's old allies asking for their aid and just as they're really fucked, Manon and the Thirteen AND the Crochans arrive to aid. Yet they're not enough because fucking Morath is 100 thousands strong and they have not one but THREE Witch-towers. Thanks to Aedion and co. they manage to destroy two of the Witch-towers but the third is still there.
Just as everyone starts hoping that maybe, just MAYBE they could actually win, MORATH GETS MORE SOLDIERS AND WITCHES AND SHIT!

- Manon is in the midst of all the fighting and she fights that bitch Yellowleg Iskra or whatever the heck her name is, and he wyvern BITES ON ABRAXOS' THROAT AND REFUSES TO LET GO!
I was sobbing at that point, because I thought SJM was gonna pull a JK Rowling and actually kill him and my heart was shattered beyond repair!
Then Petrah Blueblood comes to Manon's rescue and both her and Abraxos somehow manage to reach the castle and call for healers.

- The new Witches get a new wyvern to the Witch-tower still standing and Manon is calling the Thirteen back so they can figure something out or else they'd all be blasted to nothing. AND HOLY HELL THE THIRTEEN DECIDE TO GO AND SACRIFICE THEMSELVES LEAVING MANON ON THAT TOWER. Asterin's last words to her were "Live, Manon" and oh my god! As the Thirteen performed their yielding my heart performed its own yielding!
Still raw from Abraxos' close call, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed for the Thirteen.

- Still not over what happened to the thirteen, we switch PoVs and bloody hell DORIAN AND CHAOL MEET AGAIN AFTER ALMOST THREE BOOKS APART! Cue the ugly crying again.

- To be honest, I wasn't exactly satisfied with the whole key forging scene. Yes, it was emotional and heartbreaking at parts, hoping that Dorian and Aelin would survive by joining forces but finding the key just sucked more and more from them, Dorian's father appearing to take his son's place and even though I never liked him, I really felt for him then. But idk the whole thing felt kinda lacking. And I found Aelin not killing Erawan to save Elena kinda off-character-ish of her.

- Then there was the world travelling bit. I must admit it was really clever of Rowan and all, BUT I WAS SO PISSED OFF THAT AELIN ACTUALLY PASSED BY PRYTHIAN AND HAVING RHYSAND HELP HER SLOW DOWN AND WHATNOT!! Like, was that really necessary? Come on girl!

- Aelin comes back and she didn't kills Erawan so they're fucked but they go to fight in Terrasan anyways.

- Upon arriving, Gavriel fights his way into the gate Aedion is trying to keep closed by failing and he kinda fights alongside him and blasts valgs to shit then he dies.
To be completely honest I expected to cry so hard over this part I end up nursing a headache, but I didn't! Maybe if it was told from anyone else's point of view I would've felt it more, but with Aedion I just didn't really feel his grief. It felt kinda fake to me. Like, the guy was talking about his father dying and the only think I could think about was how he didn't even consider him as such 2 chapters prior to that scene.

- Then Maeve and Erawan arrive and everyone and everything is fucked. BUT Aelin manages to plant some doubt in Erawan and he ends up leaving to look for Yeren while she and Maeve hacve a final face off.
The final battle between the two was a bit meeh at first then Maeve had Lorcan and Rowan and Fenrys in this kind of embrace and she was showing them their worst fears or memories or whatever over and over and over, then Aelin gets them out of it and together they defeat her.
I liked that it wasn't just Aelin who did it, but a team effort! I especially liked when Fenrys plunged the sword in her heart!

- Meanwhile with Erawan he finds Yeren who turns out to be Dorian then he finds himself trapped in a wyrdkey then Elide plunges Damaris in his guts and Yeren is there destroying him with her healing power. And Dorian actually shares his magic with her? So does that makes them Caranam? I'm not sure tbh.
I really liked the part when Dorian forced Erawan to tell him his father's name and he said it's Dorian, that was the king's ultimate act of defiance!

- Once the evil is defeated Aelin, Aedion and the Cadre go to see Gavriel's body and Aelin gives him the blood oath, then one by one the cadre kneel next to his body and start to sing while crying. Cue the waterfalls. I'm so grateful for this moment because that was when I really got to mourn Gavriel and I would've been pissed off if I didn't get a proper moment like that.

That's basically the most important parts of the whole book!

Now, before ending this review that's so long I don't even think anyone would bother reading let me just talk about the MULTIPLE POVs we have:

Dorian: Great Pov, a character development worthy of a king! probably my favorite.
Manon: Awesome Pov, I really liked her development even though it was so frustratingly slow.
Elide: LOVED LOVED LOVED this Pov! Such great lady Elide has become!
Lorcan: LORD LORCAN LOCHAN (I'm never gonna stop laughing at this), Loved his Pov as well!
Aedion: I mostly liked his Pov (minus the Gavriel part) but sometimes it felt a bit flat?
Lysandra: I mostly liked her pov as well, but sometimes SJM would show us something through Aedion's pov then repeat it through Lysandra's and I honestly wasn't so into that!
Aelin: Honestly? SJM wrote better, the pov was a bit bothersome and annoying at some parts and I found myself not really caring for it as much as I should.
Rowan: As much as this pains me to say, this was probably the worst pov in this book. It fell flat 99% of the time and didn't really add anything. It was basically Rowan either worrying or worshiping Aelin. It started out good with all the grief and all but afterwards I just didn't like it.
Nesryn: Excuse me but what the fuck? I almost forgot this girl was even in this book! And she's one of my favorites!!! I'm so mad SJM treated her like furniture in this book tbh! She really could've brought a good side of the story by Nesryn's pov rather than benching her then remembering her every now and then and having her narrate what the others did.
Sartaq: Sarah what the fuck?????? You don't just make a character like Sartaq It's-Nesryn-or-shove-your-kingdom-up-your-ass just to furniture-zone him in this book!!!!!!!!!!

All in all this was such a bittersweet ending to such a wonderful journey and I'm so glad I went through it! show less

“It is the strength of this that matters. No matter where you are, no matter how far, this will lead you home.” 💖 (I find such strength and peace in this quote. I had to include it in my last review!)

Kingdom of Ash is where everything finally comes together and the final war begins.

Aelin spends much of the beginning imprisoned and tortured. When she returns, she's deeply physically and emotionally scarred. She won't be the same Aelin who went into that iron coffin and watching her find the strength to keep going somehow makes me love her even more.

Manon finally claims her Crochan heritage and unites witches who hated each other for centuries.

And then...

The Thirteen.

Genuinely one of the most heartbreaking scenes in fantasy.

They show more perform the Yielding and sacrifice themselves to save Manon.

Abraxos survives. (Thank God we don't lose Flower King.) But nobody walks away from that moment unchanged. I absolutely did not and still haven't. 💔

Dorian, apparently unwilling to be outdone by the rest of the cast, quietly outsmarts nearly everyone and becomes more powerful than anyone expected.

Our girl Yrene proves exactly why Tower of Dawn should never be skipped and becomes the key to defeating Erawan.

In the final battle, Aelin sacrifices most of her incredible magic to seal the gates. And in a very Sarah J. Maas way, instead of ending as an all-powerful queen, she becomes something much more human.

Meanwhile, Manon survives but must somehow lead the witches into a new future while carrying the grief of the Thirteen.

Now for the romance updates! Don't worry, I'm keeping everyone's socials current. 🤣

❤️ Rowan & Aelin end up married and ruling Terrasen. (Nobody made me swoon more than Rowan.)

❤️ Chaol & Yrene are together and expecting a family. (We love this.)

❤️ Elide & Lorcan, these simmering slow burners, finally admit they're hopelessly in love. (And yes, I desperately needed confirmation that they made it.)

The end.

I missed these people the moment I left their world. I've revisited this series and loved it every bit as much, but nothing compares to meeting them for the first time. And if you're about to open Throne of Glass for the very first time...

I'm so unbelievably jealous. 🖤📚✨ show less

"So she would not yield to this. What had been done. What remained."

What do I even say. I went into this series with no idea of what to expect. I think that at each point I was always amazed at how the story managed to catch my attention. So naturally the last book in the series is always a hard one. It's the point where you know you have to let go of these characters who have consumed your life for a while. It took me a minute to get into the story in this one. I think in part it was because I knew once I finished that would be it and also because we have finally reached the major battle that the other stories have been building up to. The court they have established over the last few books is fractured and in different places.

Aelin show more obviously is being tortured by Maeve and the willpower she has to withstand what is being done to her is a testament to just how much she loves her people and friends. Rowan and a small portion of the group have spent the months looking for Aelin and in the process it leaves Aedion and Lysandra to hold the lines and motivate the army. An army that is slowly realizing the insurmountable odds they face. An army that is constantly hoping for more friends to come to their aid. Dorian and Manon are on a search for the final key and the Cochran witches. Chaol and Nesryn have made a detour that could have reprecussions for the army.

I think the story was beautifully written. I am just gonna say that I both loved and hated this book. And both those emotions are for all the same reasons. Maas really plays on your emotions in this one. She presents this moment when you know all hope is lost, gives you just a tiny glimpse that it won't be, and then she destroys you in a completley different way. This book left me an emotional wreck. It was the perfect ending to this series. I just don't have words other than to say it was a beautiful experience that I will never forget. show less

I can’t believe I’ve reached the end of Sarah Maas’ epic fantasy series. What a journey it’s been. Things aren’t looking so good for our band of heroes. I don’t want to give away spoilers for those who haven’t read (I’m a late to the party girl, myself), but suffice it to say there is plenty of conflict to fill up all those pages as Rowan, Dorian, Manon and all of Aelin’s friends struggle to find her and bring down the evil forces holding Teresen hostage. This had so many great story arcs. Chaol and Irene. Rowan’s desperate quest to find Aelin. The twin wolf shifters. The Valg. The witches continue to be my favorite girl-power heroines in the bunch, and the Dorian/Manon snarking was a delight.

This definitely had show more nods to Lord of the Rings. Many epic battles, sweeping landscapes, the chain of fires, an army holed up in a mountainside keep as the enemy advanced. But as we progressed through the dark middle section, and chess pieces moved across the board, inching our heroes closer to victory, it was a treat to read. I will admit crying big, babyish tears for the fate of the thirteen, as the witches have always been a personal favorite of mine, and I have loved the way Maas writes them. I loved that if they had to go, they had a truly glorious heroic moment that was worthy of their badass selves. So many great conclusions in this one.

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader show less

This book is one gut punch after another with very little tike to recover between each. That isn't a bad thing it works very well in the story building up tension and wondering how the hell are they going to fix this or get around it? But there were a few times I actually had to close the book and stop for a second because I was getting so anxious at what was happening to the characters, especially anything involving Maeve and Cairn. The lack of hope and rising dread throughout the book is so well done and makes you really question if things are going to work out or not. Excellent finale to the series, I was hooked from page one.

January 9th edit: yall I totally forgot to rename this. Here are all the previous books in case you forgot too:

0.5 The Assassin's Blade AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Cross-Country Murder Spree
1 Throne of Glass AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Weakest Love Triangle
2 Crown of Midnight AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Most Mood-Swings
3 Heir of Fire AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Book She Remembered What Her Real Name Was
4 Queen of Shadows AKA Aelin Galathynius and the Sudden Romance With a Previously Platonic Character
5 Empire of Storms AKA Aelin Galathynius and the Horniest Road Trip Ever
6 Tower of Dawn AKA Chaol Westfall and the Book That Was Good Because Aelin Wasn't In It
7 Kingdom of Ash AKA Aelin Galathynius and the Deus Ex show more Army-Out-of-Nowhere Machina

(original review before I read it)

What I want to happen:

~Aelin dies and stays dead (good riddance)
~Dorian stops being a gross sexist pig, or dies
~Rowan can die too tbh
~Manon kills her grandmother, unifies the witches, and returns home
~Aedion and Lysandra stay okay, I guess, idrc about them much tbh
~Maeve dies
~Chaol is finally happy and stays happy, with Yrene
~Elide finds something to do
~Lorcan grows as a person without his blood oath to Maeve holding him down

What I think will happen:

~More gross sex scenes between Manon and Dorian
~More Rowan being obsessive
~More Chaol worrying about everyone
~More Aelin being ~the most important, most speshul girl in the whole wide world~ whose absence will prove how necessary she is, unlike Chaol in Empire of Storms
~Elide and Lorcan quickly make up and have grossly and unnecessarily descriptive sex
~More Queen Maeve being one step ahead of the court
~More obvious or groan-worthy "plot twists"

(review after I read it)

What actually happened:

~An obnoxious amount of perspectives, locations, and last minute army-out-of-nowhere saves
~The purplest prose you've ever seen. And no paragraphs longer than 3 lines unless they were dialogue. And even then...
~An overabundance of repeated exposition every time a new perspective character (all 13 of them) learned any piece of information whatsoever, even if 5 of them were in the same scene together. They must all describe how that makes them feel, even though the reader has known this info for 200 pages already! They must!!!
~Not as smutty as I was expecting, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good that I only wanted to vomit three, maybe four times. Bad that I even had to feel that way
~Dorian surprised me by not being entirely disgusting. Only a little bit horrible. But the personality that evaporated from him in Empire of Storms came back a bit and he was finally doing anything besides gnawing on Manon's mammary glands for ten pages straight
~Aelin was not as annoying as usual. Mostly because she was suffering from PTSD, but still
~All personality was stripped from Chaol and Nesryn
~Some decent enough shocks and plot twists (and one actually good one!)
~Characters that seemed to fade away into oblivion once they were no longer important to the plot
~980 pages for no reason whatsoever when it read like 400 or 500 and probably was, given the idiotic paragraph lengths

And it still utterly baffles me that there's a bad guy named Cain in the first book and a bad guy named Cairn in this one. How does a fantasy author run out of names? Aelin, Elena, Cain, Cairn. At least it's better than Isaac Hale, the worst fantasy name of all time show less

3.6 / 5

WHAT a journey, dude. 7 books, 3500 pages, over a million words. i feel like i’ve been with my girl aelin from day one. remember celaena? WOW it’s been a crazy series, and i look back at most of it with fondness - i definitely think SJM phoned it in for some parts, but all flaws aside, TOG is epic. there’s just no other way to put it. i have personal thoughts and opinions on the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, but maaaan. you can’t deny that this is one hell of a fucking accomplishment.

***spoilers throughout***

from world class assassin celaena sardothein to sovereign ruler aelin ashryver galathynius. we have traveled all over erilea, we have met all kinds of kooky characters, and we’re finally at the end. show more the one thing i will always admire about SJM’s works is their totality - this series feels finished. it wraps up quite nicely (a little too nicely if you ask me), and really feels like an ending.

i know people love this finale. i know they do. but it just didn’t satisfy me! i appreciated the fond farewell to my friends, these characters i’ve read multiple novels about, but i’m realizing something - i gave up on these books a long time ago. it’s not that they’re bad. they’re actually really good. but in every way, they were not the books i WANTED them to be. aelin is awesome, sure, but she’s not the kind of queen i wanted her to be. she’s haughty, she’s mary sue, she’s mean, she’s all important… i don’t quite know how to explain it.

the driving conflict of the series (erawan, maeve, the valg) loses steam over time until it’s utterly ineffective. any attempt at deepening or furthering the valg plot line didn’t work for me. and without a true sense of fear over the main conflict, i just didn’t buy into the premise or the stakes or any of it. i honestly felt like it was a pretty weak magic system (elemental magic but some people get multiple elements and some people don’t have magic tied to the elements at all - like, what’s going on here? someone call BRANDON SANDERSON).

the strongest thing about this series is aelin. but more specifically, celaena. her assassin’s background, her secret keeping - she’s the most interesting part. without aelin, i doubt i would have kept reading. but you know what bugged me? we never got the anti hero aelin we deserved. aelin is MORALLY GREY. SJM could have and should have leaned into that way, way more.

i find myself.. disappointed honestly. it ends too easily, the war is boring, maeve and erawan are hardly worth the screen time, the romances have all basically played out by this point… i mean, i know this series is beloved. but i have higher standards than this, guys.

i could talk for a whole century about chaol. i had so much faith, so much trust that SJM would deliver chaol from the side character hell she put him in. but she didn’t. i will always and forever mourn the man from CROWN OF MIDNIGHT. chaol, baby, you mattered to me. you were bigger than the whole sky. by the end, i wished you had died
i needed more time with aelin, chaol, and dorian - i needed a scene with just the three of them, a scene dedicated to clearing the air and forgiving each other and saying all the things that went unsaid. for all the many side characters, these three deserved that closure and i didn’t feel like it landed quite right for me. sure, I CRIED, but i needed it to be more intense plz. i needed a full circle moment.

if i’m being completely honest, the second one is still my favorite. man, SJM had me going in CROWN OF MIDNIGHT. i feel like from that moment in nehemia’s bedroom, with her body lying there and celaena attacking chaol.. nothing was the same after that bro. i appreciate the hell out of this series for what it is - but it’s not the ground breaking, life mirroring saga of power and choice that i wanted it to be. if i had read this as a teenager, or even as someone with lower standards, it probably would have changed my brain chemistry. but i have already met the fantasy series of my dreams (looking at you, DEMON KING). this fell short of my expectations in a lot of places, but i am really glad that i read it. aelin will stay with me. chaol (bigger than the WHOLE! SKY!) will stay with me. dorian? i don’t know man, i think i’ll forget him soon enough LMAO.

because i had given up by the end, it didn’t hit the same. i wasn’t in it to win it anymore. if i had one thing to say about this series… it would be… aelin and chaol supremacy IM NOT SORRY! 3.6 / 5! show less