Queen of Shadows ~ Sarah J. Maas

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Publisher: Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children’s Books
672 pages
ISBN: 9781619636064
Source: Barnes and Noble

Queen of Shadows just takes everything from Maas’s first three Throne of Glass books and dumps it out, right on its head. I can not catch you up for that very reason but I will say that love and alliances? Just don’t get too attached.

This is said for better or for worse because I found myself hoping to high heavens that some of the couplings and catastrophes laid out in the story would be broken. Basically, Maas has zero respect for the readers’ hearts but, in the end, holds them lovingly as if she never stomped all over us to begin with.

And, dear Sarah, I say that with love.

Because one of the brutally beautiful things about her writing is that it is real and rough and honest. There are no perfect people nor perfect situations, only reality and the gray that we all exist in. Throne of Glass has always been about survival and, my goodness, I wasn’t sure we were actually going to pull even that basic guideline out of this one.

As I said with my romp through her Court series, Sarah J Maas is excellent with relationships. Her sense of not only love but ride-or-die friendship is untouchable. In whatever world, whatever realm, she is able to take the broken, worn out underdogs, loners that they are, and forge the most heartening bonds.

Oh, I am just so in love and, yes, I am ready to break into Empire of Storms, right this very second.