All Things Halloween Review - Tower of Down

Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, # 6)

By: Sarah J Maas

Publication: September 5th 2017 by Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children's Books

672 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Source: Borrowed from the e-Library

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Goodreads description--In the next installment of the New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series, follow Chaol on his sweeping journey to a distant empire.

Chaol Westfall has always defined himself by his unwavering loyalty, his strength, and his position as the Captain of the Guard. But all of that has changed since the glass castle shattered, since his men were slaughtered, since the King of Adarlan spared him from a killing blow, but left his body broken.

His only shot at recovery lies with the legendary healers of the Torre Cesme in Antica—the stronghold of the southern continent's mighty empire. And with war looming over Dorian and Aelin back home, their survival might lie with Chaol and Nesryn convincing its rulers to ally with them.

But what they discover in Antica will change them both—and be more vital to saving Erilea than they could have imagined.

I've really been in an anti-fantasy mood over the last year or so. Fantasy books can be so lengthy. World-building has to be established beyond whatever is going on with the characters. It's a necessity for the world to be explored. Yet for some reason, these books can also feel heavy--emotionally--to me. Empire of Storms ends with such a massive cliffhanger that I wanted to devour the next book in the series immediately (of course it wasn't released yet), but it was also so jammed packed with events that I needed a year to recover. But then I found out that the next full-length book in this series would be Tower of Dawn which would follow Chaol and Nesryn rather than Aelin, Rowan, Dorian, etc. And I was really disappointed because I didn't want to detour from the main storylines.

Chaol was once one of my favorite characters in this series. When we start Tower of Dawn that's certainly not the case anymore. I still like him, but he's not my favorite. His prejudices caused a lot of negative consequences. But all of that was necessary for Aelin to grow into who she needed to become. I was once again disappointed to find that Chaol and Nesryn had such a surface level relationship in Tower of Dawn. I shouldn't have been surprised because Sarah J Maas is the master of transitioning relationships. I will say that Chaol redeemed himself a little bit through seeing him work through some of his past mistakes, decisions he's made, and things he's experienced.

I can't discuss Chaol without discussing Yrene. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that nagged me about Yrene but something about her just bugged me. I didn't hate her, but I didn't really fall in love with her character either. I don't know how to explain it. She wasn't hard for me to read or connect to at all really, but something was keeping me from really loving her. ***Highlight for spoiler:*** It definitely bugged me that it took Yrene WEEKS to heal Chaol yet nothing but a moment to heal Duva. I know that arguments could be made that Chaol's injury was physical. I mean he had a broken spine, yet it seemed that the biggest hindrance to his healing was this dark stain within him described as a remnant or an echo of the evil that was directed at him causing his injury. Yet this darkness wasn't alive. But Duva was possessed by a Vlag. This was compared to Hasar having a tapeworm--a parasite. Yet, it just seemed too simple for it to take weeks to heal an echo but a mere moment to evict a demon princess. ***End Spoiler***

I enjoyed the kaghan's family dynamics--at least when it came to the children. The idea of the children needing to compete with each other because none of them know who their father might choose as heir. The tactics each chose to use as their means of competing. It was interesting. I was easily a fan of Kashin and Sartaq. No one was meant to like Arghun. Duva was a non-issue. But Hasar. Ugh, I hated her. First of all, Sarah J Maas includes a gay character in every book, and I'm quite sure I've established how I feel about diversity for diversity's sake. But also Hasar was just a jerk. Yet because she occasionally had some brief moments of redeeming qualities or that she's madly in love with someone who seems like a decent person and if that person can be madly in love with Hasar then surely she's not so bad. I just don't buy it.

I briefly mentioned that I was disappointed that Chaol and Nesryn had such a surface level relationship and that I shouldn't have been surprised. I will say that I loved Nesryn and Sartaq's developments. If Nesryn's story has to move away from Chaol and Adarlan, then I ended up enjoying the direction her story took. I liked just about everything about Sartaq even if he seemed a little naive at times. Sartaq is a leader of the rhuks, and I will say that this area of the story felt a little repetitive to me. Of course, the rhuks are different from the wyverns, and we need an aerial fleet that will be able to combat the wyverns. But the area that they live, the pieces of the book that revolved around flying the wyverns vs rhuks....they were just too similar to me.

Tower of Dawn had a few Mountains out of Molehills moments. These are moments when I feel like I begin to look like a jerk by pointing them out because they can be so briefly mentioned. Yet just the fact that they exist within the story yet don't influence the actual story means the author put them in because of his or her own personal beliefs and not as a reflection of the characters or necessary for story development.

Favorite quotes:

"It is a soul-wound, Yrene. And letting it fester these years...I cannot blame you. But I will hold you accountable if you let it turn into something worse. And I will mourn you for it."

-"The darkness does not want to lose you."

Also a slight pet-peeve spoiler-ish thing I need to discuss. ***Highlight for spoiler: After Yrene loses her temper and pushes Hasar into a pool of water, she's warned by Hasar's lover that it would be best not to be there in the morning when Hasar gets up, Chaol and Yrene decide this is a great time to get it on. All night. Multiple times. In a tent. Really? Do these characters have a brain? Horrible timing even though nothing happens to them. ***End spoiler*** But all of that also leads me to mention that I'm frustrated with Sarah J Maas's continual increase in sexual scenes as well as the level of description. The books didn't start off like this. And while Tower of Dawn certainly doesn't have more scenes or description as say Empire of Storms, but I still feel the need to mention it.

And this is a huge pet peeve of mine even though it is such a small thing. But I hate when an author spends hundreds of pages slowly building a relationship between two characters only for them to decide to be together and one of them cheapens the journey by stating something like this:

"From the moment you walked into the sitting room that first day," {...} said. "I think I knew, even then."

And my last complaint about Tower of Dawn is that sometimes Sarah J Maas includes way too much description. This is exactly how a story that was intended to be a novella turns into 600 pages. I don't need to know the details of every meal the characters eat or intimate description of the city they're exploring in a one time scene meant to be a brief moment in the character's journey together. These elaborate, lengthy descriptions often pulled me out of the story and had me skimming ahead to find the action. I don't need EVERY detail possible. I just need enough for me to develop a picture of the events. Let my own brain fill in the gaps occasionally. Yet this isn't possible if there are no gaps.

I know all of that seems like a lot of complaining. I mean it was really. But in all honesty, I really wanted to keep reading Tower of Dawn to find out what was going to happen. Were Chaol and Nesryn going to be successful and if so in what ways or to what extent? I enjoyed Tower of Dawn much more than I expected to. It just so happened that what did bother me was easily identifiable. And I mean with a 600+ page book, you're opening more doors of opportunity for the reader to find issues. Tower of Dawn gets 4 Stars. Have you read Tower of Dawn? What did you think? Let me know!