Monday 27 April 2015

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas


***The following synopsis and summary contain spoilers for Throne of Glass and Crown of  Midnight.***

When Celaena Sardothien is sent off to Wendlyn, the King of Adarlan expects her to kill off the royal family. But Celaena has other plans, plans the king wouldn't be happy about. Maeve, the immortal Fae Queen, has agreed to give Celaena answers about the Wyrdkeys and help take down the king, but for a price. When Celaena deals with the darkness of her past and guilt, she doesn't know if she'll be able to take fulfil her deed to the queen, let alone take her place at the throne of Terrasen.

Rate: 4.5 stars

Wow. This series just keeps building and building. Even though I didn't like this book quite as much as the last two (don't get me wrong, I still really liked it), it did a lot of building for the next three books. I'm so excited to see how everything plays out. In this book, we are introduced to new characters and we got to see the world through their eyes. It'll be interesting to see how they will play into the next books.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Okay, I've decided that I'm going to do this review in three parts. One for Celaena and her adventures in Wendlyn, one for Dorian, Choal, Adeion and Sorscha back at the castle and one for Manon and the other witches.

Part One


Let's start with Celaena. She was brought to Mistward by Rowan. Even though he was harsh at first, Rowan turned out to be a good friend for Celaena. He'd had his fare share of hardships as well and was able to relate to Celaena's misery and guilt. And that whole carranam thing is pretty interesting, I thought Celaena and Rowan would end up as carranam.

In this instalment, we got to see that Celaena wasn't better than everyone at everything. She had to learn to control her magic, and she struggled for once. The Fae seem to have really cool powers, Celaena can control fire (it seems that they can control some sort of element), they have heightened senses, they can switch in between their Fae form and an animal form, the list goes on and on. But once Celaena learned to control her magic, she became even more deadly than before.

Celaena really developed as a character, in the first book, she only did things for herself and those who she thought she owed something too. In this book, she finally decided to come back as Aelin, the Queen of Terrasen. Imagine the king's reaction to finding out that the assassin he hired is the Queen of Terrasen.

We got see a bit more of Celaena's past in this book as well. I liked the scene from her memories were she met young Dorian and offered to be his friend. But the rest was horrible. We saw that the king manipulated her powers when he visited Terrasen when Celaena was young. Then we saw the night of her parents death, she climbed into their bed without knowing they were already dead. After we got to look into the memory of the night Celaena escaped her own assassination and was found by Arobynn. Then she figured out that the necklace that was given to her by her parents was a Wyrdkey and that Arobynn most likely has it.

Now, the ending was the best part. We had the battle with the Valg at Mistward, which was pretty awesome. We learned that the Valg we being put into bodies of demi-Fae (that was pretty cruel). Then Celaena made Maeve release Rowan (that ring she gave her must have been important, otherwise, I don't think she would have let Rowan go). She really was horrible, wasn't she? Then we learned of Celaena's plan to return to Adarlan to find her old master, Arobynn so she could get her necklace/Wyrdkey back. Then she will gather the rest of her court and build an army to fight.

Part Two


The next part of this review is dedicated to Dorian, Chaol, Adeion, Sorscha and everybody else at the castle.

We were introduced to some new characters; Aedion, the General of the North and cousin of Aelin  and some of his friends; and Sorscha, a healer at the castle. Immediately we were lead to believe that Aedion was a traitorous jerk. But we later discovered that he was not in fact working for the king, but for Terrasen. He turned out to be fiercely loyal to Aelin. I can't wait for the two childhood friends to meet again.

As soon as Sorscha met Dorian in this book, I knew they would end up seeing each other. She did turn out to be a nice person and was kind and brave enough to help Dorian learn to control his magic. What I was not expecting though, was her death at the end of the book.

In this book Dorian, Aedion and Chaol figured out how the King of Adarlan banned magic. He built three towers made of this special stone (Wyrdstone, maybe?), and a spell was sent out from each tower freezing magic in between the towers. I thought that was a really cool concept. I hope that in the next book, a tower is nocked down so magic can return. That would give both sides advantages in the war though. But hopefully it would give Celaena's side more power.

Again, the ending was the best. Aedion, Chaol, Dorian and Sorscha were called down to see the king. He figured out what was going on. He killed Sorscha (I wasn't too, too sad about that, we only just got to know her), and almost Chaol. Dorian saved Chaol with his magic, thank goodness. But now Dorian has one of those Wyrdstone collars on him, allowing the king to control him. I really hope that that will be fixed in the next book. Thankfully Chaol was able to get away though.

Part Three


Manon and the witches were a nice addition to the story. We got a look into what the king was planning for the war. And the gathering and training of the witches and wyverns was only part of it. The witches were really vicious and competitive. They were always trying to outdo the other clans, even if it meant death. They were raised as killers.

Now, I wasn't surprised when Abraxos was able to take over Titus and I wasn't surprised when Manon chose him. I liked how we had an underdog story woven in. The witches weren't supposed to have a heart, but I could see that Abraxos started to make Manon care. I mean she stood up for him after all. Then she tried to save one of the other witches, from another clan, we she began to fall. That doesn't look heartless to me. 

Manon can't be that bad. Will she realize that what the king is doing is wrong? Will she fight for the king, or will she switch sides? And how will their lost kingdom play in?

It was also mentioned that the men that were there to instruct the witches and wyverns tasted funny. I wonder why. How will that play out?

Like I said in my review of Crown of Midnight, this series is going to be huge. This book was just a building block compared to the whole story. I can't wait to see what will happen next!

Friday 10 April 2015

The 100 Society by Carla Spradbery


To join the 100 Society, Grace Becker must tag 100 different locations around the city, each location posing a greater risk. When Grace and her friends are close to reaching 100 tags somebody begins threatening them. Determined to complete the one thing her older brother didn't,  Grace doesn't want to turn back. But as her situation gets worse and worse, Grace wonders if joining the 100 Society is really worth it.

Rate: 3.5 stars

If you are looking for something that will blow your mind or has a deep message, this isn't the book for you. But, if you are looking for a quick, easy read, then this book would be a good choice. I got through this book pretty quickly, even if it was just because I wanted to find out who the culprit was. Overall it was entertaining, but not what I thought it was going to be.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

First off, I just want to discuss the characters. I found that they were pretty two-dimensional and didn't have a lot of depth. Grace was just kind of there, she didn't do much for me. And being the main character, I thought she should have been more developed. The most developed character seemed to be Trick, so wouldn't he be the best option for a main character?

During the book, Grace's situation got progressively worse. First her blog was hacked (What was with the blog? Why would you post pictures of your graffiti if you didn't want to be caught?), then she would get anonymous emails and texts, Cassie was sent to the hospital with acid burns, Daniel fell off the cliff and was supposedly dead (why didn't they call the police and explain everything instead of letting guilt build up?), and then people started dying. During these events, the group's "strong friendship" started to crumble. These events were entertaining to read, but sometimes the characters would act in extremely illogical ways.

Anyways, like I said above, I got through this book quickly mainly to find out who the culprit was. Daniel was acting too suspicious, so I knew it couldn't be him. So I wasn't too surprised to find out that Pete was behind it. When he revealed why he was did everything that he did, he seemed mentally ill. He was doing everything to get Grace to like him, but what normal person would kill his crush's friends to win her over? 

The book ended with Grace in Trick in the hospital, and I would have liked to see what happened in the aftermath of all the crime. What happened to the victim's families? How did Grace's brother and father react to all this? 

Overall this book was okay. The characters didn't really have depth, there wasn't any real message that I could grasp, but it was entertaining.