Review: Crown of Midnight by Sarah L. Maas

Published August 27th, 2013
Bloomsbury
420 pages (Hardcover)

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An assassin’s loyalties are always in doubt.
But her heart never wavers.

After a year of hard labor in the Salt Mines of Endovier, eighteen-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien has won the king's contest to become the new royal assassin. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown – a secret she hides from even her most intimate confidantes.

Keeping up the deadly charade—while pretending to do the king's bidding—will test her in frightening new ways, especially when she's given a task that could jeopardize everything she's come to care for. And there are far more dangerous forces gathering on the horizon -- forces that threaten to destroy her entire world, and will surely force Celaena to make a choice. 

Where do the assassin’s loyalties lie, and who is she most willing to fight for? (From Goodreads)

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I'm going to focus on the characters here.  The plot and setting and all that were decent enough.  It's the characters here that I feel the need to discuss.

Celaena did absolutely NOTHING for me.  There is something about her that just didn't make sense to me.  She was an assassin, but so materialistic.  Apparently she has no problem with blood money and burning dresses.  Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't figure her out.  Add on her attitude and I was annoyed.  Everything is black and white to Celaena.  It seemed that every scene ended with some melodramatic woe-is-me statement.  This started to get on my nerves very fast.

That being said, I really enjoyed the perspectives of Choal and Dorian.  I wish that there had been more Dorian.  His story actually got really interesting, but more focus was placed on Choal.  This is justifiable, given what is happening in the book, but I really would have loved more Dorian.  As characters, both were a lot more, in my opinion, likable.  I felt a lot more for these two than Celaena, and found myself skipping chunks of the book in order to get back to Dorian and Choal's perspectives.

That all being said, I think that any fans of Throne of Glass will be blown away by this sequel.  There is lots of action and romance and good stuff in there that I really did enjoy, I just grew tired of Celaena's perspective.