YA in Review: Kingdom of Ash (Sarah J. Maas)

This post will essentially be Spoiler Free, however comments by other users may possibly contain information that spoils portions of the plot, so read at them your own risk. As this is part of a series, this review may spoil portions of the plot from previous books in the series. Now, are you ready for a monster-sized review to go along with a monster-sized book?

amazon.com

What it's about:

It is the end. Aelin Galathynius must put everything on the line one final time to stand against Erawan and Maeve - saving not only her people in Terrasen, but all of the land of Erilea. With her loved ones by her side and Aelin's immensely powerful gifts, they could just stand a chance against all of Morath's evil forces. But, where is she? Captured by Maeve and separated from her husband, cousin, friends and allies, Aelin is unable to be found, let alone able to fight. With battles raging all around and all those she loves fighting constantly for their lives, how can they possibly be expected to win? And how will an army rally without a queen to lead them to victory?

Why it's worth a read:

• Everything feels wrapped up beautifully. The whole series comes to an epic conclusion, and those loose ends you’d been wondering about? Resolved. Yes, not every single thing gets the full fairytale, totally-wrapped up ending – that would be beating the book to death to the point that you wouldn’t want to read it, but Maas does a great job here.
• This book is an absolute journey. From despair to hope to despair again all in a few pages, you don’t really know where you are going at any moment, and you don’t really feel like your favourite characters are safe. There are some extremely emotional and impressive moments in here that Maas writes beautifully, and are extremely impactful.
• Yes, everyone finally comes together. I know, I know, tiny spoiler. At some point or another everyone basically gets to see each other again. Reading these interactions is fantastic, and seeing how everyone has grown and changed based on their experiences is perfect.
• Characters go through a lot of trauma, and it is handled well. Although I think some of the length of this book could have been better used to handle some of the effects of the trauma experienced by the characters (save for one, which was done quite well), it is at least brought up and not ignored unlike in many other fantasy series. The characters are not just expected to experience horrible things and then blink and have it all be okay again.
• There are a couple of absolutely fantastic twists, that I think were completely perfect. They made the book what it is, and brought out some incredible sides to characters to make them even better. The end is so satisfying because of this especially.

Where it disappoints:

•  It’s about 200 pages too long. In all honesty, the book is a little repetitive and a lot of things would have had the same impact if they were cut shorter. I spent a lot of time wondering when we were going to get to the concluding points. Even the “aftermath” and conclusion felt a bit too drawn out (although I did appreciate getting to hear how everything tied up).
•  There. is. so. much. war. No duh, this is a final battle for the world, where good fights evil, but with the storylines of all of the other Throne of Glass books having so many other things going one with intrigue and romance and general badassery (yes, that is now a word), the two note feeling of this book was a bit of a disappointment. That isn’t to say that other things don’t happen, but they don’t feel like they get quite enough focus to make this book as multidimensional as I feel like it should have been. So, if you want a book that has war as a major part but doesn't overwhelm the plot, then this will be too extensive for you. The entire book is war and torture, with only a few snippets away from it.
• Like previous books in the series, some moments feel like they were engineered in Kingdom of Ash to make certain plot points work out to suit the author’s needs. Without spoiling anything, I mean that “since we stated prophecy A, that means B is going to die. But I don’t want B to die, so I am going to throw C in there and force it to fit in prophecy A even though it seems super random so that B doesn’t die.” It really just felt like a bit of a cop-out to me. Catering to a young adult audience, I definitely understand that you might not want to mention your plot point hints back in the first book and hope readers remember (sorry George R. R. Martin), but at the same time as an adult reader I want to be at least a little surprised instead of “well yeah, you just mentioned that for the first time in this book, so of course I knew it was important.” Hinting just a book earlier would have made a huge difference.

Final Thoughts:

There is something a little bittersweet about writing this review - these books were the first ones I ever blogged about here at Clockwork Bibliotheca, and now they have come to an end...unless I read Assassin's Blade haha.
I really enjoyed Kingdom of Ash for sure, but I wanted to love it a lot more than I did. If you've been following me closely, you'll know that I had a bunch of weird things going on related to this book right from the start. I ordered it, but knew I would have to get through another one first, so I didn't get to it instantly. Then, I had another book I wanted to read more that was coming out just after, so I didn't start it so that I could start that...long story short, when I finally started Kingdom of Ash, I was about a third of the way through when I learned that my copy has multiple printing errors, and I was missing at least half of the book (duplicated pages out of order). I know this definitely affected my attitude towards the book, unfortunately.
In terms of the whole series, I think that for the most part it was a strong way to wrap everything up, and I feel satisfied with how it ended. There are absolutely some things I would have liked to have changed, but I know those things are looking at it from the unusual perspective with which I happen to see the world. I think most fans of the series will be very happy with how Maas tied it all up. In future, I would like to reread the series one after the other to see if my opinions change. My absolute favourites of the series would have to be Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn (in no order), however KoA would most likely sit as a comfortable third place behind them.