Heir of Fire by Sarah J. MaasSeries: Throne of Glass #3
Published by: Bloomsbury USA Childrens on September 2, 2014
Genre: Fantasy, Magic
Pages: 565
Source: BookExpo America
Book Details
Rating: ★★½
Lost and broken, Celaena Sardothien’s only thought is to avenge the savage death of her dearest friend: as the King of Adarlan’s Assassin, she is bound to serve this tyrant, but he will pay for what he did. Any hope Celaena has of destroying the king lies in answers to be found in Wendlyn. Sacrificing his future, Chaol, the Captain of the King’s Guard, has sent Celaena there to protect her, but her darkest demons lay in that same place. If she can overcome them, she will be Adarlan’s biggest threat—and his own toughest enemy.
While Celaena learns of her true destiny, and the eyes of Erilea are on Wendlyn, a brutal and beastly force is preparing to take to the skies. Will Celaena find the strength not only to win her own battles, but to fight a war that could pit her loyalties to her own people against those she has grown to love?
I think there’s something wrong with me. I didn’t love Heir of Fire! 🙁 I look around and see people talking about loving it, about having cried and bawled their eyes out. But me? I was kind of bored.
The book is 569 pages long, but I swear the first 400 pages were so uneventful. It was told from multiple points of view, but they were all just training, waiting, stalling, gathering forces, learning information.. but nothing actually happening.. for 400 pages. I was soooo bored. I never felt a strong pull to keep reading or pick up the book in every ounce of my free time, because I wasn’t hooked.
This huge chunk of the book (~400 pages) quickly became like a two-star read for me. I didn’t mind it at the beginning, but I think that’s largely because I was excited and wanted the book to be amazing, so I was almost forcing myself to like it. I think I was actually smiling and trying to pretend I loved it, because I wanted to so badly. But finally that wore off and I realized just how bored I was. It took me like a week and a half to finally get through it!
Maybe part of the problem was that there was no romance in this book. One of the reasons why I adored Crown of Midnight was because of the EPIC SWOON. Celaena and Chaol were deliiiicious! Well in Heir of Fire there is zero romance (except for a small one with Dorian and someone else). I think the lack of romance really made me like this book less, but when combined with the lack of action as well, it made for kind of a boring book.
We are introduced to a few new characters in Heir of Fire and I didn’t love all of them. The characters themselves were fine, but it was hard for me to adjust and appreciate the new points of view. For example: Manon. I won’t say too much about her, but she’s a new character and kind of a whole new branch of the series. At the beginning of the book, I didn’t like her POV. Whenever I got to her chapter I’d be like UGH TAKE ME BACK TO CELAENA!!! Towards the end, she and her POV did grow on me a bit and I got more interested.. It just took a long time to get there.
Things did pick up in the last 100-169 pages or so. There was finally some serious action and plot progression: a few epic battles, Celaena becomes even more of a badass and gains a lot of confidence (win), and we get a bit more information. This part of the book was more like 3.5 stars for me (I’m not even sure it reached 4 stars, but maybe for a few moments here and there).
Do you ever feel like you’re doing something wrong when reading a book? That’s how I feel now. At the time I’m writing this (June 9th), there aren’t a ton of Heir of Fire reviews out there, but there are a couple, and all of them (except one) are RAVING about it. People are saying things like “Heir of Fire is effing brilliant”, “The best book I’ve read since Crown of Midnight”, tons of people saying that they cried fountains of tears, etc. And I didn’t feel any of that! What did I do wrong while reading this book?? How could I have loved the first two so much, and now be so indifferent about this one? It breaks my heart. 🙁
The Verdict
Don’t be too hard on yourself, Ashley! This happens 🙁 I haven’t read this series yet, but I would love to check it out!
I know, I’m just so disappointed because I LOVED the other two books. 🙁 I wanted to love this one so much.
Witch! Witch! Evil!!!! No one look into her eyes, she will put a spell on you!!! The spell of ‘No likey Heir of Fire!’
Awww, this sucks. I have a bad feeling if you were bored then I will be too. I am putting this one off a bit longer.
Ugh I’m SOOOO mad! And I waited in line for like two hours to get this ARC. Humph.
I agree with Jen on this one. Ash (and Jen too) your reviews ALWAYS seem to sync up with how I feel about a book…and I LOVED both of the previous books in this series. Sarah Maas is an extremely talented YA writer! Ugh, so sad to read this! 🙁
So I loved Heir of Fire, but I do agree that it was slower than the first two books. It could have just been that you weren’t expecting that. Have your read any adult fantasy? I felt like it read more like an adult fantasy. I mean, this series has changed a lot since the first book and I think with HoF it became a true epic fantasy. Lots of world-building, tons of characters, magic. All the elements of an epic fantasy. I missed the romance too, but I really think they needed to be away from each other. There was a lot of character development in this book. It took Celaena a long time to start healing, but I think she needed that time if you think about all she’s been through.
So it’s ok that you didn’t like it! I think that some ppl are going to have that reaction because it’s sooo different from the first two. I just happened to be one of the people that LOVED it. 🙂
Yeah I think maybe I don’t like adult fantasy. For example, I hated Game of Thrones for similar reasons (suuuuuper slow).
It looks like there are more books in this series, so at least it has time to redeem itself! I haven’t read this series yet, but it’s actually on my Top Ten list for today – I know I need to read it!
I’m still reading this one since I adore this series, and I’ll hope for the best 🙂
Oh no Ashley… Oh no;( yes I am one of these that found Heir of Fire was brilliant!! and you know me, I usually need the romance, but I was fine here with the lack thereof. I adored Rowan – he was such a complex and amazing character and brought Celeana back to herself. I could have done without the witch parts of the story, but other than this I simply loved it..
Maybe you were simply not in the mood for it Ashley:) Just don’t give up on the series… I Love it so much!
Oh noes!! I’m not going to read the review because I just started this…but the rating is definitely disheartening 🙁
I started this last week, got maybe 8%, and just wasn’t feeling it so I put it down for now to start something else. Plus it’s almost 600 pages, which is daunting right now. *sigh* I hope I end up enjoying it more than you did…
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!
Sorry to hear that you didn’t like it. 🙁 And, I’m super bummed out to hear there’s no romance. Celaena + Chaol forever! I’m still super excited for Heir of Fire, but maybe I’m slightly lower my expectations. Thanks for the honest review!