Queen of Shadows is the 4th book in the Throne of Glass series, by Sarah J. Maas.
This review contains spoilers.
The queen has returned.
Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past…
She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.
She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return.
The fourth volume in the New York Times bestselling series continues Celaena’s epic journey and builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.
So, one thing that I remember not liking about Queen of Shadows was that there were so many points of view. The farther we go into the Throne of Glass series, the more POV’s we read from, and the more I feel like Celaena’s point of view on things gets washed away…
However, I remember liking this book simply because of how much happens. I also really liked how the story is filled with so much action—-in all of the points of view we read from.
This book review is actually a re-read book review. So this time around my thoughts on Queen of Shadows are, admittedly, a little jumbled.
I read Queen of Shadows within two days and There’s so much that happens within this novel that it’s hard to articulate all of my thoughts and feelings into one review. I know there are some things that will be overlooked but that is only because there are so many points of view converging and mixing into this story. There are so many feelings felt throughout Queen of Shadows; whether the characters feel them, or I did. Spoilers aside, Queen of Shadows was the end to many stories but there were just as many starts in the story as well.
There are multiple points of view in Queen of Shadows—- seven (7) to be exact. We read from Dorian, Aelin, Aedion, Manon, Elide, Rowan, and Lysandra.
Within the first 30 pages of Queen of Shadows we read from 3 different points of view, so I figured that Queen of Shadows would end up being a doozy. Fortuntaly, even though there are many points of view in QoS, we primarily read from Aelin’s view point.
What I found out with re-reading Queen of Shadows however, was rediscovering just how quickly the story moves. There’s also a lot of plot building as well. So I expect that in Empire of Storms there will be some Serious Stuff that plays out.
When I read Heir of Fire I could honestly say that I genuinely did not like Manon. I didn’t like Manon’s point of view either. However, that changed in Queen of Shadows because of what takes place in her story.
There were lots of revealing moments that both the overall story and the characters had. For instance we get to know an inkling of Lysandra’s history/backstory, and through that we get an image of what Lysandra’s life was like for her growing up. We also see snippets of this with quite a few characters we meet along the way.
We also get to see how much time has passed in the Throne of Glass world. Like, it felt like years has passed but it turns out that it’s only been what 12 months or so that has passed since this all began. Which is kinda mind boggling.
What ended up taking place in Queen of Shadows has me both excited and wary of reading the next book, Empire of Storms. I’m excited about reading Empire of Storms to be able to see what happens (since I’ve only read about 50% of the book), but I also don’t want my feelings towards the story to shatter. Which could very well happen when I read Empire of Storms.
Through this re-read I actually tabbed a lot of pages in my copy of Queen of Shadows. I didn’t expect to tab very much because I expected to not like my re-read of this 4th Throne of Glass novel.
Overall, I enjoyed reading Queen of Shadows. There were a few moments here and there that I forgot, so this re-read was a great refresher for me. I’m glad though that my favourite moments remained my favourite moments.
I give Queen of Shadows, 5 stars. As is my original rating of the book.
Happy Reading!
— Adele
Adele Is Reading 
I’m also very excited but scared of what’s to come in the last book!
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Right? So much could happen. I mean, it’s literally 992 pages!!!
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