Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3) in QoS Buddy Read #AEJreadsQoS

Sep 18, 2015 Anjie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015

Warning: There will be spoilers for the first 2 books of the series & some spoilers for Heir of Fire.

Plot/Concept: SJM does it again! I don't know how! This book is just so insane! I don't even know where to begin. The plot alone was amazing enough. The direction that SJM is taking the series is just perfect and unexpected. I love we got to see a whole other world in Wendlyn. I love seeing just rulers in the world haha. I love seeing magic being used. Heir is definitely my favorite so far. The p Warning: There will be spoilers for the first 2 books of the series & some spoilers for Heir of Fire.

Plot/Concept: SJM does it again! I don't know how! This book is just so insane! I don't even know where to begin. The plot alone was amazing enough. The direction that SJM is taking the series is just perfect and unexpected. I love we got to see a whole other world in Wendlyn. I love seeing just rulers in the world haha. I love seeing magic being used. Heir is definitely my favorite so far. The plot in Adarlan was just as amazing. You see more of the rebel movement in play and we're introduced to so many new characters! I'll talk about my favorite new characters a little later. SJM puts in some great plot twists that you wouldn't see coming and that ending. Ugh, my heart still hurts from it. You have no idea.

Writing: I've always been a fan of SJM's writing and I feel like it's gotten better with each book. I really enjoyed her prose here and the world building, character development, and Celaena's history, they were all so wonderful. You can clearly tell that there was a lot of planning in writing HoF! Everything connected and made sense. The character additions and changes in point of view were done flawlessly. Reading certain parts of the book were definitely more enjoyable the second time around. There really isn't much else to say about the writing. SJM has been very consistent with her writing, her prose, and the imagery are just so great. She has a way to beautifully writing the romance but then takes this 180-degree turn to describe the blood-curdling things that go bump in the night.

Characters: Like I said earlier, we got a whole bunch of new people. Let's start with the veterans. Celaena's story here is just so heartbreaking. Seeing her mourning and dealing with the loss of Nehemia hurt so much. Her death opened up the metaphorical box where Celaena pushed down all her emotions until it all spilled out and she was left dealing with like 8 years of repressed guilt, shame, regret, hate, hurt, and anger. It was hard to read how low she got and how devastated she was -- to the point of suicide.

Dorian is probably one of the lesser developed characters but he does show growth here. He shows the traits of a king worth following. He takes the backseat in this book where a lot of his scenes were focused on his budding romance with Sorscha. Either way, I still ate it up. I love him haha. He has some really fantastic scenes though. And I can't talk about Dorian without talking about Chaol. You know, Chaol who's supposed to be his best friend but spends most of the time avoiding Dor. Chaol was an even bigger headache here than he was in CoM. My main issue with him here is his struggle to pick a side because he's too afraid.

Aedion and Rowan were both great additions. They're both very interesting and fierce. I love Aedion's absolute loyalty to Aelin and to his people. I love Rowan's ferocity and refusal to baby Celaena. That doesn't mean I was okay with him randomly beating her up for no reason. If he hits her during training, then fine but not because she said something that bugged you. After Rowan & Celaena form their friendship, I ended up loving him. I can't wait to see what happens when Aedion and Rowan meet.

The last POV added in this novel is Manon, an Ironteeth Witch. To be honest, when I first read HoF, I skipped her parts. However, knowing that Manon would play a big role in book 5, I made sure I read each part haha. It turns out, I really liked her point of view. I love the story with the wyverns, the Crochan witches, and the other Ironteeth clans. I can't wait to see more of her in Queen of Shadows.

Memorable Moments: My absolute favorite part of this book is the scene towards the end where Celaena is fighting the Valg princes. This is where Celaena is peeled to her core. She's vulnerable and you just see the truth that she has been hiding all along. I was so glad to get more information about her life before Throne of Glass and The Assassin's Blade. I wish that we had a book about her life before, not because she's was a cool kid or something, but because her parents' and uncle's court were so amazing. I wish we could meet them all personally. That scene was so intense and emotionally heavy. The tears were real, people. ...more

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Sep 11, 2014 Seahorse Library rated it it was amazing

Shelves: active-series, genre-ya, genre-fantasy, on-my-bookshelf, following-email

Read: September 24, 2014

Re-Read: September 2015
I'm not too sure why, but I loved Manon so much more this time round!

Re-Read: August 2016
At its heart, this is the story of a girl coming to terms with her heritage and destiny. Sarah J Maas is so brilliant.

Re-Read: September 2017
Re read: December 2018
Re Read: November 2020 - I love so much that Aelin finally met her match in Rowan. I love so much that she found someone who she can really test her strength with. “She was outweighed, out muscled, ...more

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May 09, 2014 Anjie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019, 2015

Ughhh this book is still the best in the series for me. It's so so good! I hate Dorian's ending here because it broke my heart but man was it good lol ...more

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Apr 13, 2015 Cristina (My Tiny Obsessions) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Read full review HERE .

First off, this series just keeps getting better and better and I can’t wait to see what Queen of Shadows will bring.

I really loved that this book was about Celaena facing her past and come to grips with who she really is. Because, let’s face it, she’s magnificent! She grew so much in this book and we finally get to see what happened all those years ago, on the night that she woke up between her dead parents. I finally understood what stood in her way, and so did she, and ...more

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Sep 08, 2015 Josephine Knight rated it it was amazing

You know a book is amazing when you re-read it and it makes you cry more than the first time.

I found myself sobbing at so many moments and even during scenes which didn't make me cry the first time. This series remains my favourite of the year and it's going to take a damn good book to pull me away from my boundless love for this series, for Celaena/Aelin, for Dorian, for Rowan, for Aedion, for Chaol, for everything that makes up this series. But if I'm being totally honest, nothing will surpass ...more

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Mar 24, 2015 Cristina (Girl in the Pages) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own-physical-copy, re-read, genre-romance, 2016-read, favorites, 2018-read

I never thought I'd be a Sarah J Maas fangirl. I read Throne of Glass and was underwhelmed. I read Crown of Midnight, and it was shockingly good, but I was suspicious that it was more due to certain plot elements rather than an overall love for the series itself. However after I discovered my love affair with A Court of Thorns and Roses, I decided it was time to give the Throne of Glass series another chance to wow me. And wow me it did. Heir of Fire was long and angsty, sure, but it was also th I never thought I'd be a Sarah J Maas fangirl. I read Throne of Glass and was underwhelmed. I read Crown of Midnight, and it was shockingly good, but I was suspicious that it was more due to certain plot elements rather than an overall love for the series itself. However after I discovered my love affair with A Court of Thorns and Roses, I decided it was time to give the Throne of Glass series another chance to wow me. And wow me it did. Heir of Fire was long and angsty, sure, but it was also the installment that broke down the characters to their very core and allowed me to fully empathize with them. It was, in one word, epic.

Heir of Fire is very much a bridge book, in the sense that it is much more about exploring the depths of Celaena's personality, peeling back the layers of her self-hatred and guilt, than it is about plot momentum. Embarking on a literal hero's journey, Celaena spends this book away from Dorian and Chaol, off in Wendlyn, facing the truth of her heritage, confronting her inadequacies and fears, and dealing with the memories of her past that she's repressed for the past decade. I adored this change of setting. I loved learning more about the Fae world that runs like a dangerous, mournful current under the evil King of Adarlan's reign. I love learning about the systems of oppression that exists between the Fae and demi-Fae, and how the political nuances exist in their world even in the face of extermination by the King. Until I discovered Sarah J Maas I thought it was impossible for me to like a book about Fae, but she entices the reader with the ancient, mysterious, and yet vulnerable qualities of the Fair Folk, and its impossible not to be drawn to their lore and hidden worlds.

There's no denying that Heir of Fire is a long read at over 500 pages, and much of that can be attributed to the introduction of several new POV characters (always a dicey occurrence in the middle of a series). Personally, I felt that Maas accomplished the task of weaving in the new characters to the narrative, and making them integral and integral to the plot. Aedion proved to be an important part of the story, as the only POV character who knows Celaena before she was Adarlan's most feared assassin, and brings a fresh perspective to Aelin. His devotion and commitment to her is really honorable and is probably what kept me reading whenever the narrative switched back to Chaol (who I'm sorry, is really just sort of boring in this book). Then there was Manon, whose chapters I expected to hate (because it deviated so much from the other things going on in the book) but whom I grew to love because her relationship with Abraxos was just SO heartwarming (and also those ironteeth witches are pretty badass). The only new character who didn't work for me as a reader was Sorscha, as she really rubbed off on me the wrong way (I found her to read sort of holier-than-thou and sanctimonious) and I felt like her relationship with Dorian was for plot convenience more than anything else. And then there's Rowan...

ROWAN. The only character who eclipses my love for him at the moment is TAMLIN from Maas' ACOTAR series. I love him. He is the one true bae. I didn't think it was possible that he'd grow on me, because he was so wicked and nasty at the beginning of the book and I thought to myself "I know what you're trying to do Maas, you're going to try to make me think he's a jerk and then slowly fall in love with him but it WON'T WORK." Well, I must eat my words because not only did it SO TOTALLY WORK but it runs deeper than him and Celaena being my one true Throne of Glass ship (bye, Chaol). I loved how Rowan was so layered, so ancient and tormented by what it means to be immortal and the multiple lifetimes worth of tragedies that one accumulates after living so long. Rowan and Celaena really were mirror images to one another, one young and one very, very old, and there bond grows into something so much deeper than a potential romantic pairing by the end of the book. Rowan and Celaena, in my opinion, epitomize the idea of a soul mate, wherein you are inescapable tethered to a person through a deep, unyielding understanding of that person's self regardless of if you're lovers or even friends. I love that Maas was able to show such a strong connection outside of a standard romance story line although I WILL THROW EVERY PART OF MY BEING HOPING THIS SHIP SAILS.

While this book brings about so many new character and elements to the series, it also circles back to plot points from much earlier on and ties their significance into Celaena's-Aelin's- existence even more strongly. What really resonated for me as a reader was the reflection on Celaena's time at Endovier, how it haunts her not by reliving her own pain, but by forcing her to ruminate on the torture and slaughter of so many others that she witnessed. How those stuck in the salt mines drive her more than anything else, and the shame and pride she carries in her ruined back as a sign that if anything ever motivates her to ascend to her throne, it will be the helpless soles in Endovier, rather than a sense of duty or pride or birthright or even her people. It's powerful and painful and beautiful all at once.

"...I also think you like to suffer. You collect scars because you want proof that you are paying for whatever sins you have committed. And I know this because I've been doing the same damn thing for two hundred years. Tell me, do you think you will go to some blessed Afterworld, or do you expect some burning hell? You're hoping for hell- because how could you face them in the Afterworld? Better to suffer, to be damned for eternity..."-375

Overall: Heir of Fire is a long read that focuses on character development and the introduction of new players to the plot, but what it lacks in quick paced action in more than makes up for in gut-wrenching feels and insight into Aelin's past. Even with this being a more insightful installment of the series, there's still momentum, such as watching Aelin develop her affinity for fire and an epic battle at the conclusion of the novel. Heir of Fire is the kind of book I needed to fully become invested in this series, and I'm so glad it's taking its time in developing across multiple books so I can soak in the nuances of this fantasy world, as new elements are introduced at every turn in Heir of Fire. It's immediately onto Queen of Shadows for me!This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages ...more

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Jan 07, 2015 Liv rated it it was amazing

Review originally posted on Fluttering Pages

-- Celaena:

I guess the best place to start is with Celaena. Before Heir of Fire, I had a hard time imagining myself thinking of her as anyone but “Celaena”. I thought to myself “Sure, she’s Aelin, but she’ll always be Celaena to me.” But, throughout Heir of Fire, I found myself thinking of her as Aelin. I wanted her to refer to herself by her REAL name and be proud of it. It’s another testament to Sarah J. Maas that she can change your viewpoints like ...more

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Feb 24, 2015 Josephine Knight rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Heir of Fire was absolutely amazing. Sarah J Maas did not disappoint at all with the third installment in her Throne of Glass series. Although this book went at a much slower pace and I can agree with others who say that Crown of Midnight was slightly better than Heir of Fire, I think it was written perfectly and it's slower pace served for a purpose. There was a lot more character development and story development in this book. We got to learn more about Celaena and see her struggles and battle ...more

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