Kingdom Of Ash Review

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I think that there is allot to discuss regarding Kingdom Of Ash. But first lets go back to book one and the novellas.


Novellas- 3/5
They were mildly interesting but very few characters stuck around for the main series and of the few that did only Yrene became a main player.

Throne of Glass - 5/5
This book was amazing, with action, romance and world building tied together perfectly... this book was everything I could ever want from a fantasy novel. Excellent character building combined with superb storytelling combine for a wonderful book.

Crown of midnight - 4/5
I loved this book, a bit slower perhaps than Throne of Glass but many of the love triangle issues from the first book are somewhat resolved. However this is the last book with the "original gang". The stakes are high and all decisions have severe repercussions.

Heir of Fire - 5/5
Wonderful continuation to the series, interesting new love interest as well as some new supporting characters.

Queen of shadows - 3/5
Slow but interesting. This book has it's moments where it absolutely shines but overall it fell short of the stranded set by the first three books in the series.

Empire of Storms - 4/5
This book was epic it had me laughing and crying it definatly brings back some of my favorite aspects from the first two books. In this book we begin to see a small erosion of the male characters (their personalities fall short of what was originally established) which was more than a little disappointing.

Tower of Dawn - 1/5
Oh god this book was just horrible. So many characters introduced last minute, trying to remember their names just gave me a headache.

Kingdom of Ash - 2/5
The beginning aka Aelin in the coffin dragged on FOREVER. The thought of her losing all her scars felt a bit like a cheap shot. Nox is back (yay!) Elide refuses to forgive a man who was a slave for a large part of his life and made a decision in his own favor but still regrets it. Besides her drama with Lorchan, Elide plays no role in this book. Gavreal is amazing as always but his death was insignificant and poorly written. Connal's death was too swift. Aedon and Lysandra have perhaps the most realistic relationship. Lysandra lies to Aedon therefore losing his trust. Aedon is constantly warring with his emotions because he does love Lysandra but the fact remains that he cannot trust her and he is still angry with her. Evangiline acts as their child and brings together. This book was well done. Manon and Dorian never had a relationship in the first place it was just sex. Glad they broke up. The thirteens death was poorly explained and even more poorly written. I've never cared much about the thirteen so I was actually glad to see them be killed off. They were annoying and added nothing to the story. Yrene's relationship with Chaol felt rushed. And why was she pregnant? What's the point of having a pregnant character if your just gonna send them into the worst of the battle? The best part of the book was when Dorian became a woman and groped himself. I laughed so hard. Then the moment was over and it was boring again. Anyways there's also the fact that this book had absolutly no stakes.
Here is a short list of characters I would have killed off in this book:
1. Ren - adds literally nothing to the plot
2. Dorian - Should have been killed off while closing the gate
3. Lorchan - Has been reduced to Elide's punching bag.
4. Yrene - She is pregnant, and annoying. Her death could have tugged at our heart strings.
5. Chaol - As one of the original three (Chaol, Dorian and Celeana) his death would have pulled at every readers heart strings.
6. Manon - She is annoying
7. Evangaline - Show that there are stakes and that death does not discriminate by killing off a child. This would also make or break Lysandra and Aedon
8. Lysandra - If not Evangaline then Lysandra. She is annoying and a pawn in the later books. Loved her in Queen of Shadows but after that her character just diminished.
9. Hassar - Annoying
10. Nesryn - Nesryn is so freaking annoying. She was barely introduced properly and tbh I forgot she exsisted. She adds nothing to the story.
11. Sartaq - He is literally just Nesryn's manic pixie dream boy.

And here is a list of characters I have chosen to live.
1. Maeve - She had good reason to flee her valg life I think that she should have been banished to another realm opening up the oppertunity for a novella
2. Erawen - He said he loved his brothers I would love to see them reunited. See what valg life in their original dimension. Maybe have Erawen redeem himself and see the light. I could totally see him as an old storyteller. Or flee and pull and Ender Wiggen.


Just to clear some things up, I ship:

1. Dorian x Sorcha

2. Chaol x no one, ( him and Yrene just don't work)

3. Elide x Nox (They are closer in age than her and Lorchan and may have had the potential for immediate chemistry as they are both from Perranth)

4. Aelin x Rowan (or Fenrys they just went through so much together, however they do seem more like best friends.)

5. Manon x No one ( All she wants is sex and despite what most people have convinced themselves, she was never lesbian. She treats Elide like a little sister. She seems like the type of woman who would be a miserable partner. I'm glad Dorian got away.)

6. Aedon x Lysandra (Enough said)

Now to address one thing that absolutely ruined this book: the overwhelming, unending feminism. This book was pact full with feminism and it made the story almost unreadable. Here is a list of all the feminist ideas that made an appearance.
1. Men are nothing but disgusting dirt bags
2. Woman are their boyfriends/husbands keepers and their men should do as they say and not question them. They should also worship the ground they walk on or they are a dirtbag.
3. Women don't need men in their life
4. Men cannot be complex characters like their female counterparts. Instead they must be one of three generalizations: A brute, A love interest, or A jerk.
5. If a man likes sex he is a whore if a woman likes sex she is empowered.
6. Woman should rule, men should bow to them (there are 5 queens and 1 kings) and though these queens have husbands, not one of them is called king. Rowan is a freakin consort, what the heck.
7. If a woman lies repeatedly and/or betrays her friends it is presented as being heroic, if a man lies and/or betrays his friends it is presented as them being an awful person.
8. Only women can REALLY fight. Even the untrained female fighters are better than the ancient males with superpowers!
9. Guys only want sex
The feminist ideals really messed the characters up. The amazing character development for characters like Chaol, Lorchan and Aedon were tossed to the wind in this book and they just became annoying, pining for their girlfriends. Again annoying.
There were however a few male characters that weren't totally stripped of their personality for example Darrow and Fenrys and that is about it.



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