385bookreviews

[385bookreviews]

1.45.3 Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

SPOILERS

Pages: 390

Time Read: 5 hours and 44 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 4.5★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: YA Dystopian

TWs for the book: Death, war, violence, child death, blood, murder, grief, torture, injury, su*c*dal thoughts/attempted su*c*de, fire and burns, gun violence, mental illness, panic attacks, gore, alcoholism, medical content/trauma, addiction and drug use, body horror, police brutality, genocide, confinement, classism, physical abuse, emotional abuse, self harm, kidnapping, forced institutionalization, child abuse, death of a parent, death of a sibling, vomit, slavery, mass shooting, psychosis, gaslighting, animal death, abandonment, toxic relationship, chronic illness, disordered eating, fake miscarriage, pregnancy, brief mentions of forced underage prostitution

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: Set one month after the events of Catching Fire in District 13, District 12, District 8, District 2, and the Capitol.

First Line: I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather.

Katniss visits the remains of District 12 alone. Most of the people didn't make it out and the street is littered with bodies. Her mental state isn't good, and District 13 only agreed to let her make this trip so that way she would be the Mockingjay publicly for them and be a symbol of the rebellion. Her old house was destroyed, but the Victor's Village remains. She goes to get some of her things, and also grabs Buttercup, her sister's ornery cat. When she goes up to her room, President Snow has left a genetically enhanced rose in a vase. This frightens her, and she leaves and goes back to 13 in a hoverplane. 13 is run strictly, the entire population basically a functioning military. Katniss chafes against the schedules and trainings and uses her mental disorientation as an excuse/reason for her absences. When her and Gale arrive back, they go to Command and see that Peeta, who was captured by the Capitol, is doing an interview with Caesar Flickerman. He says he had no knowledge of the rebel plot, and calls for a ceasefire between the districts and the Capitol. Everyone in the Command room immediately begins calling him a traitor. Katniss runs away. After talking with Gale and Prim, she decides that she will be their Mockingjay, but with conditions.

The next morning she goes to Alma Coin, the President of District 13, and lays out her demands. She wants to be able to go above ground and hunt with Gale, Prim gets to keep her cat, Peeta and the other victors are automatically granted immunity for all of their actions before they are rescued, even if they harm the war effort, and she gets to kill President Snow. She also demands that Coin publicly announce this to all of her people. After deliberation, she agrees. Plutarch and his assistant, Fulvia, both Capitol defectors, give her a sketchbook of Cinna's, where he designed the Mockingjay suit for her. They tell her they have the actual thing, and lead her downstairs for a surprise. The surprise, however, ends up shocking everyone. Plutarch had Katniss' prep team rescued, but they were being kept in dungeons in 13, shackled, starved, and beaten, for stealing a bit of extra food. Plutarch orders them freed, and Katniss takes them to the hospital to see her mother. After her and Gale hunt in the woods, Coin makes her announcement to District 13 about Katniss' demand to pardon the victors. She also threatens though, that if Katniss doesn't follow directions, the deal is off the table.

The next day, Katniss' prep team remakes her. She goes to see Beetee, and he has designed new bows for her and Gale. She puts on her suit and goes into a studio where they try to film a scene for one of their "propos". It is a massive flop and Haymitch, now sober, reappears to tell her so, and then calls a meeting with a lot of people from District 12. Everyone gives examples of moments when Katniss inspired them, and Haymitch uses that to make his point that she can't be fed lines, that she has to be on the ground, in the action in order to get spontaneous material. Everyone agrees on this and they fly her to District 8, where bombing from the Capitol has just ended. Katniss goes in and meets with the wounded, talking with them and encouraging them. Just as they are about to leave, the Capitol begins bombing again. They try to hurry Katniss into a bunker, but her and Gale abscond to the roof and begin shooting down Capitol planes. When they come back to the ground, the hospital has been bombed and everyone in it killed. Katniss, at the prompting of Cressida, a film director from the Capitol, gives an impassioned speech letting the districts know that she is alive, and that the Capitol must fall. Then she collapses and is taken back to District 13.

The propos are a hit, and while Katniss rests in the hospital, kept company by Finnick, another interview of Peeta plays. Even though it had only been five days, Peeta has deteriorated significantly. In the interview, Peeta urges Katniss to stop the war. Finnick tells Katniss not to tell anyone that they've seen it, and to her shock, no one informs her about it, not even Gale, which causes them to fight the next day. The propo team has Gale and Katniss go back to District 12 to talk about the bombing and their lives there. Back in the Victor's Village, Katniss kisses Gale, but he tells her she only notices him when he's in pain and stalks off. When they return to 13, Peeta is on TV again, urging the districts to stop fighting. Suddenly, Beetee breaks through the airwaves in the Capitol and puts Katniss and the propos up on TV. This rattles Peeta, who is in an ever worse condition, and he manages to warn the people of District 13 that they'll be "dead by morning". This results in him getting beaten. President Coin decides to heed his warning and evacuates the population into the bomb bunkers. This gives them 10 minutes of extra evacuation time, which saves Prim and Gale's lives as they went back for Buttercup. The Capitol bombs them for three days, but no one dies and the damage is minimal.

Katniss realizes that Snow is using Peeta to break her down. Coin and Plutarch want her and Finnick above ground immediately to film a propo letting the country know that they are safe and alive. When she gets up there though, the ground is littered with Snow's artificial roses, and both her and Finnick have a breakdown and end up back in the hospital. When they wake up, a team has been sent to rescue Peeta, Johanna, and Annie. Gale has also gone on the mission. Katniss is desperate to do something to help, so Haymitch instructs her and Finnick to go and get footage above ground and tell a story or something so Beetee can use it to distract the Capitol. Katniss tells the story of how she met Peeta for the first time, but Finnick begins a long tale of how he was forced into prostitution at 16 by President Snow, and all of the horrible, nasty secrets he knows about the wealthy Capitol citizens. Lastly, he talks about the secrets he knows of President Snow's, revealing that he uses the roses to cover up the scent of blood that comes from sores in his mouth he got from drinking poison. He poisoned all of his political enemies in order to stay in power, and drank from the same glass to avoid suspicion, but the antidotes weren't always perfect.

They all return from the mission alive. Johanna is tortured, and Annie is overjoyed to see Finnick. Katniss runs to see Peeta, but he immediately tries to choke her to death, bruising her throat badly. They later inform her that Peeta's memories of her have been altered using tracker jacker venom. That he thinks she's a mutt made by the Capitol and that he has to kill her. They try to eventually use Delly, a friend of Peeta's from 12, to get him to calm down and open up, but Peeta reacts negatively when he hears that his family is dead and he blames Katniss for all of it. Katniss can't handle being in 13 anymore, and they send her to District 2. She spends awhile moving around 2, hunting with Gale, and listening in on meetings as they try to figure out how to get into and take control of the Capitol's mine, the Nut, which is all buried inside of a mountain. Gale finally proposes the plan that instead of capturing it, they bury the people inside except for one entrance, and then capture whoever escapes. Katniss is appalled by the idea but President Coin approves it anyways. They station Katniss in the square to announce the defeat of the Nut and apprehend any survivors that manage to escape. Just when they think no one is coming, and Katniss is about to give her speech, armed and wounded survivors come pouring out of the train station. Katniss runs towards one wounded man but he aims a gun at her. She talks him down, but is then shot by someone else in the field. She wakes up in a hospital back in 13, missing a spleen and with some bruised ribs from the bullet impacting her suit.

Finnick and Annie get married. Katniss wants to be sent to the Capitol to fight but they refuse to let her until she does three weeks of training. Her and Johanna both do this, rooming and training together, but only Katniss passes the final challenge and is able to go to the Capitol with a sharp shooting squad, including Gale and Finnick, Boggs commanding them. Before they leave though, Coin informs them that they will be the "Star Squad" and only be doing the minimum required to shoot propos, not seeing any actual combat. Katniss is ok with this because she plans to sneak off and kill Snow and then herself. When one of the twin Leeg soldiers is accidentally killed during a propo, Coin sends Peeta to be her replacement. He is immediately put under heavy guard, and Boggs and Katniss speculate that Coin sent him there to kill Katniss. The next day, they go to film a propo but it goes wrong, with the Capitol directly setting off traps in order to kill them. Boggs' legs are blown off, and Peeta tries to kill Katniss, resulting in Mitchell's death. They are chased into a building to escape a toxic, oily black wave that threatens to smother them. Boggs transfers clearance of the Holo, the map showing where all of the Capitol's pods are, to Katniss. After he dies, Jackson, Boggs' second in command, demands she give her control. Katniss refuses, saying she's on a special mission from President Coin to assassinate President Snow. Jackson doesn't believe this, but Cressida backs her up, and they continue on, eventually ending up in the underground of the Capitol, being guided by Pollux. They quickly realize they are being hunted by mutts that are tracking Katniss specifically. While trying to escape, Messalla is melted by an orange ray of light, and Jackson and Leeg stay behind to try and slow down the mutts. Finnick, Homes, and Castor are killed by the mutts, and Katniss blows up the Holo to kill the rest of them and prevent them from following. With only five of them left, Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Cressida, and Pollux, they make their way to an underwear shop owned by a woman named Tigris, a friend of Plutarch's. Katniss is disturbed by the woman's appearance, surgically modified to look like a tiger. Tigris hides them in her basement, and they eat, regroup, and plan their next steps.

As the rebels begin encroaching closer on the center of the Capitol, more refugees begin filing in, and the Peacekeepers begin to assign people to other's houses. When it's announced that President Snow is going to be allowing refugees into his mansion, they make a plan. Cressida and Pollux leave, Gale and Katniss leave, and then Peeta leaves alone to be there to cause a diversion if necessary. On their way there, rebels attack, and the Capitol begins setting off pods and shooting into the crowd, disregarding their own citizens' safety. Gale is captured and tells Katniss to shoot him, but she hesitates and he is dragged away. Just as she makes it to the mansion, she notices children all grouped in front of the mansion in a pen. A Capitol hoverplane drops parachutes, and the children reach up to grab them thinking they are gifts, but they're bombs. Half of them detonate, and then rebel medics from 13 rush in to help. Katniss sees Prim and yells her name, but the rest of the bombs go off. Prim is killed and Katniss is caught on fire. She wakes up in a hospital again, suffering major burn wounds and having to receive skin grafts. Coin has taken over as President, and the rebels have won. Katniss is sent to temporarily live in the mansion, with Haymitch to look after her since her mother is busy working and grieving. She has lost her ability to talk, and becomes addicted to the morphling they give her, until one day, she goes to the greenhouse. Guards try to stop her, but Commander Paylor tells them to let her in. She goes to find a white rose to pin to Snow's lapel before she executes him, when she finds him sitting right there. He tells her that Coin bombed the children and the rebel doctors, and she realizes that it was one of Gale's traps that he designed. She is disgusted with him, and after a cold goodbye, they don't see each other again. The day she is supposed to execute Snow, her prep team comes to dress her, and Effie Trinket, still alive, comes to escort her. First though, their is a meeting with Coin of all the remaining victors. She proposes there be a final Hunger Games held with Capitol children. Peeta, Annie, and Beetee vote no, but Enobaria, Haymitch, Katniss, and Johanna vote yes.

Katniss aims her bow at President Snow, ready to take him out, but she shoots and kills Coin instead. She tries to take her nightlock pill as the crowd converges on her and Snow, but Peeta stops her. The soldiers take her and lock her in her old room in the training center. Over the course of weeks, she attempts to starve herself to death, but before that can happen, Haymitch comes to get her and says they're going back to District 12. Plutarch tells her on the plane ride that Snow was either killed by the mob or choked to death on his own blood. Paylor was made President, and Plutarch is now in charge of the airwaves. They had a trial for Katniss and determined that she was just mentally disturbed and traumatized, so she is given leave to go back to 12 as long as she talks to her psychologist on the phone. When she arrives home, Greasy Sae comes over with her granddaughter every day to make her eat two meals. But Katniss doesn't move from in front of the fire. After awaking one morning to the sound of shovel, she runs outside and sees Peeta planting primrose bushes in her front yard. This finally prompts her to pull herself together. She goes into town, where some people are beginning to cart away the dead and try to rebuild. She learns that Madge and her whole family are dead. She goes into the woods, but feels sick and goes back home. When she comes back, Buttercup has returned, all the way from District 13. Him and Katniss grow closer as Katniss finally allows herself to mourn Prim's death. Annie gives birth to her and Finnick's baby, and Katniss and Peeta get closer again by making a memory book of all the people they have lost.

Years later, Peeta and Katniss have children, and, while still struggling with nightmares, are happy together in 12.

[385bookreviews]

1.45.2 Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

SPOILERS

Pages: 391

Time Read: 5 hours and 54 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: YA Dystopian

TWs for the book: Death, violence, blood, murder, graphic injury, grief, child death, gore, alcoholism, police brutality, torture, war, animal death, classism, panic attacks, mental illness, su*c*dal thoughts, drug addiction, medical content, body horror, physical abuse, gun violence, child abuse, confinement, fire, emotional abuse, medical trauma, vomit, fake pregnancy, death of a parent, slavery, genocide, gaslighting, kidnapping, self harm, eating disorder, bullying, mass shooting, disability, ableism, PTSD, allusions to p*d*ph*l*a

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: Set 6 months after the events of The Hunger Games. District 12, District 11, the Capitol, and the 75th Hunger Games arena.

First Line: I clasp the flask between my hands even though the warmth from the tea has long since leached into the frozen air.

Katniss visits the woods the first day of the Victory Tour her and Peeta must take all around Panem. Gale isn't with her, as he is now an adult that is working in the mines, and his only free day is Sunday. She stops by and gives Gale's mother food, and visits their old house, abandoned since they moved into the Victor's Village. She stops by Haymitch's house, where he is passed out drunk on the table. She dumps water on him to wake him, and when she encounters Peeta, they're cold to each other. Upon going back home, she finds a Capitol official in her house that leads her to the study, where President Snow is waiting to speak with her. He explains that last year's Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, is dead for allowing her and Peeta to live, and that her actions were seen as rebellious. He threatens her, saying she must convince the nation that she isn't a rebel, just a silly girl in love, or her family, and Gale and his family will pay the price. Snow tells Katniss he knows about Gale kissing her awhile back.

Her prep team arrives shortly later, and they dress her, and she films a small interview with Peeta where they continue to pretend to be in love. They leave on a train, heading first to District 11. On the Victory Tour, they are to visit all the districts, and then meet in the Capitol, and then end the tour in their home district. On the train, she warns Haymitch of what Snow told her. She stresses about it throughout the trip, and ends up snapping at Effie and leaving the train. Peeta comes to comfort her, and they end up deciding to be friends, both apologizing for how they've been acting. Peeta shows Katniss his paintings, which are graphic images from their Games.

They arrive in District 11, and give a speech to the district and to Rue and Thresh's families. Peeta promises one month of their winnings to the families every year, and Katniss gives a speech about Rue and Thresh. An old man in the crowd does the mockingjay whistle and raises his three fingers to her, and the rest of the crowd does the same. This prompts the Peacekeepers to drag the old man out of the crowd and shoot him in the head, along with several others. Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss go in to the attic of the Justice Building where Katniss tells Peeta everything about President Snow's threat. Peeta is enraged that her and Haymitch kept this from him.

They continue on with their tour, but notice that some of the crowds in the districts push back against the Peacekeepers. Worried about what else they can do, and realizing this is never going to really end, Peeta and Katniss decide to get engaged on live television. When President Snow comes to congratulate them, he shakes his head at Katniss, signaling that they failed in their mission. This at least gives Katniss a sure answer. At the party later that night, Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Gamemaker, asks for a dance with Katniss. He shows her his watch, which has a secret mockingjay symbol on it. At the end of the tour, back in District 12, Katniss goes to see her friend Madge, the mayor's daughter. When she stops by the mayor's office to say hi, the TV is on, showing rebellion in District 8. She is shaken, and decides that they have to leave.

The next day she goes into the woods, all the way to the lake and the abandoned shack her and her father used to spend time at. Gale follows her there, and she explains about the president's threat and that they need to get their families and leave. Gale is elated and tells her he loves her, but she doesn't reciprocate, and he withdraws, becoming even more irate when she says she's bringing Peeta and Haymitch. When she finally lets slip that there's an uprising in District 8, he says that they need to stay and fight. She begs him to run, but he just leaves without her. She goes back to the Victor's Village to get Peeta, and they begin walking to town. He agrees to leave with her, but he doesn't think she'll actually do it. Then they hear someone being whipped in the square. They now have a new Head Peacekeeper, Romulus Thread, and when Gale went to his house looking to sell a turkey he shot to Cray, the former Head Peacekeeper, he was apprehended and whipped. Darius, a Peacekeeper they were all friendly with, tried to intervene but was knocked out. Gale is unconscious, having been whipped over 40 times. Katniss runs in front of his next hit and gets whipped across the face. Haymitch, Peeta, and Purina, another Peacekeeper, step in and stop the whipping and any punishment from coming to Katniss. They carry Gale to see Katniss' mother, where she treats his wounds and Katniss'. While Gale is unconscious, Katniss kisses him, causing him to wake up. She tells him that she isn't going to leave now.

A blizzard hits and the mines shut down for two weeks, causing the district to go into starvation. They try to help who they can with her mother's healing skills and by giving food away. The Hob has been burnt down by the new Peacekeepers. Katniss avoids the woods for awhile, even though the electric fence hasn't been turned on, but she gets restless and goes out by herself. She takes a bag of food so her mother and Prim think that she is handing out food. She goes back to the lake, and encounters a woman and a girl dressed as Peacekeepers. The woman, Twill, holds out a cracker with a mockingjay on it. They sit down together and explain that they're runaways from District 8 where an uprising is in full swing. Twill was a teacher and Bonnie was her student. They also worked in the textile factories together. They had made a plan of escape to coincide with the start of the uprising, which was successful at first, but the Capitol bombed the buildings that had been taken over, including the factory, killing Twill's husband. They ran, and they were on their way to District 13 when they had to stop because Bonnie twisted her foot. They say the people of District 13 survived underground, and the Capitol leaves them alone because they had nuclear weapons, not graphite mines like Katniss had learned in school. She thinks this is ridiculous, but gives them all of her food and shows them how to hunt. She parts ways with them and heads home, but the fence has been electrified. She climbs a tree and uses a branch to go over the fence, but the 25 foot fall causes her to break her foot and injure her tailbone. She barely makes it home, stopping on the way for some candy and bandages to make it look like she was running errands. When she enters, two Peacekeepers are waiting for her, and have been for hours. They ask where she's been and she gets into a fake banter with Prim, Peeta, Haymitch, and her mom about where she's been for the day. The Peacekeepers are irate, clearly having expected her to get trapped in the woods, and they leave, but not without telling her the fence will be on 24/7 now, and they instruct her to inform Gale. After they leave, her mother puts her on bedrest for her broken foot. During her rest, she watches TV, and they show news footage of a supposedly smoldering and radioactive District 13. But in every clip, there's a mockinjay's wing in the corner, and Katniss discovers that they've been reusing the same footage over and over and aren't actually going to District 13.

Katniss does her photoshoot for her wedding, trying on six different dresses. When they gather around the TV that night for mandatory viewing, she discovers that the Capitol people have been voting on which dress she'll wear. After that broadcast, however, President Snow appears to read the card stating what the twist to the Games will be this year since it's a Quarter Quell. For the 25th Hunger Games, the districts had to vote which children had to go. For the 50th Hunger Games, Haymitch's Game, double the amount of tributes had to go. The President reads off the card, stating that as a reminder that even the strongest in the districts can't overcome the Capitol, the tributes in the 75th Hunger Games will be chosen from the Victors. Katniss being the only female victor in District 12 guaranteed her a spot in the Games. She flees the house in panic and tries to run into the woods, only to be stopped by the fence. Awhile later she ends up in an empty victor's house. After she pulls herself together, she goes to see Haymitch to get him to promise her that he'll help Peeta win. They get drunk together, and Katniss stumbles home. She's hungover the next day, and when she goes to Haymitch's house, Peeta informs the both of them that they will be completely sober from now on, and that they're going to train for the Games like the Careers do.

The Reaping comes around, and Haymitch is chosen, but Peeta volunteers to take his place. Thread doesn't allow them to say goodbye to their families, and they are put on a train to the Capitol. On the way there, Peeta and Katniss watch the 50th Hunger Games and see how Haymitch won, and inspect their competition. When they arrive, Cinna dresses Katniss for the opening ceremony, where her and Peeta going to wear flames again. Finnick Odair, the District 4 tribute, lightly taunts and flirts with Katniss. After the ceremony, Haymitch introduces them to the District 11 tributes, Seeder and Chaff. Chaff kisses her straight on the mouth, but Seeder hugs her and tells her that Rue and Thresh's families are safe. When they get in the elevator, District 7's Johanna Mason strips naked in the elevator. Katniss is irate by the time they get to their room, feeling like she's being mocked, which Peeta informs her that she kind of is. When they arrive in their rooms, she discovers not only the redheaded Avox girl she had last Games, the girl she had seen get captured in the woods outside of District 12, but she also has a new Avox: Darius.

Haymitch tells them they need to make allies ahead of time, so in training her and Peeta split up and size up their options. Katniss only ends up connecting with the old woman from District 4, Mags, and Beetee and Wiress, two absentminded nerds from District 3. She gains the respect of all the tributes finally after they see her shoot. When it comes time for their private sessions, neither her nor Peeta know what to do. She goes after Peeta, and sees a rug covering the floor and smells cleaner. She decides she doesn't really care anymore, and upon seeing Plutarch, she ties a noose around a training dummy and hangs it, painting "Seneca Crane" on the front of it. Later on, Peeta tells her that he painted a picture of Rue on the floor, covered in flowers, and that's why they tried so hard to cover it up. They both receive training scores of 12 to make the other tributes wary of them.

The next day, Katniss and Peeta spend the day on the roof having a picnic and relaxing. That night, Cinna comes to get Katniss ready for the interviews. President Snow insisted that Katniss wear her wedding dress onstage. Cinna is angry with this, but he made alterations, and tells her she needs to spin. All of the tributes are angry during their interviews, speculating, crying, and calling for a change to the Games. When it's Katniss' turn, she can barely even say anything over the audience. When she spins, her dress goes up in smoke and turns her into a mockingjay, complete with wings. During Peeta's interview, he drops a false bombshell: that Katniss is supposedly pregnant. The audience goes wild and they immediately try to shut down the show as the audience calls for the Games to be cancelled. Before they shut out the lights, Peeta and Katniss get all of the tributes to hold hands together. Back in their rooms, they say their goodbyes to Effie and Haymitch.

Cinna and Portia get them up the next day, and they fly to the arena. Cinna helps Katniss get dressed, and she says goodbye and gets in the tube to take her up into the arena. Her plate doesn't move though, and Peacekeepers rush in and beat Cinna bloody and drag him out. Katniss is then put in the arena, where they're all standing on their platforms in a circular lake of salt water. The gong rings and Katniss swims for the Cornucopia. She gets their first and grabs her bow and arrows when Finnick appears, she almost shoots him but he's wearing Haymitch's gold bracelet and says he's her ally. They go and get Peeta, who can't swim. They also get Mags and then run into the jungle.

They struggle to find a fresh water source, and during their search, Peeta hits a force field and his heart stops. Finnick revives him, and they eventually stop and rest. A sponsor sends them a spile to tap into the trees and get fresh water, and they go to sleep. During Katniss' watch, a poisonous fog rolls in, and they run. It causes their skin to blister and their nerves and muscles to not work. Finnick carries Peeta and Katniss carries Mags but eventually her legs give out. Finnick can't carry Peeta and Mags, so Mags walks off into the fog and instantly dies. The three of them manage to make it down to the water, which helps heal their blisters. When they go back into the jungle to get water from a tree, they are attacked by a horde of monkeys. One is about to jump out and kill Peeta, but the girl from District 6 jumps in front of Peeta and saves him, which results in her own death. Down on the beach, after getting some rest, they spot Johanna, Beetee, and Wiress stumbling out of the jungle covered in blood. Finnick immediately runs to Johanna, and she explains how they got caught in a blood rain, and the man from District 7 hit the force field and died. Wiress is in a catatonic state, wandering around repeating "tick tock" over and over. Johanna gets angry and shoves her over, and when Katniss tells her to leave her alone, Johanna slaps Katniss and goes into a rage about how she only got Beetee and Wiress for her. They help patch up Beetee, and Katniss cleans Wiress off. Later, when everyone is sleeping, lightning strikes a tree twelve times. Between that and Wiress repeating "tick tock" over and over, she figures out that the arena functions like a clock, with some new horror in each new wedge every hour. They leave and go to the Cornucopia to get more weapons. They send Wiress to wash off a coil of wire that Beetee had been carrying around, and try to plan their next moves. Wiress is killed by Gloss, the District 1 male tribute. Katniss shoots him and Johanna kills Cashmere, the District 1 female tribute. Brutus from District 2 throws a spear at Peeta, but Finnick blocks it and takes a knife to the leg from Enobaria, also District 2. The island with the cornucopia suddenly starts to spin, and the District 2 tributes escape. Katniss has to swim out to get the wire from Wiress' body before the hovercraft comes for her, and Finnick swims out to get Beetee, now disoriented and not knowing which wedge they should go in, they make their best guess and head back to the main beach. Finnick and Katniss go into the jungle to get water, and Katniss hears what sounds like Prim screaming. She runs into the woods only to find a jabberjay and shoot it. Finnick runs up and hears Annie, his girlfriend, and runs off. Katniss finds that jabberjay and shoots it as well. Katniss tries to reassure Finnick that it's just a trick, but he tells her that jabberjays copy, meaning they must be torturing Prim and Annie. Another jabberjay begins to sound like Gale, and they run back towards the beach, but are trapped by an invisible wall. After an hour, they are free to go back to Peeta, Beetee, and Johanna. They reassure Finnick and Katniss that they're in the final 8, and that's when the Capitol does interviews, so they probably just distorted audio from the interviews.

Beetee makes a plan. At 10, a wave rushes down from the segment and soaks the entire beach. His theory is if he takes his wire and wraps it around the lightning tree, then at midnight when the lightning strikes, if the wire is run down to water, it'll fry the Careers, who will hopefully be out on the beach once they're gone. They agree to do this and put their plan in motion. At 11, they go and wrap wire around the tree. Finnick and Peeta stay to guard Beetee, while Katniss and Johanna run the wire down to the water. On their way, the wire is cut, and Johanna knocks Katniss in the head and cuts out the tracker in her arm. She then runs away, leading Brutus and Enobaria after her. They see Katniss wounded and bloody and leave her for dead. Katniss makes her way back up to the tree. Beetee is laying injured and unconscious on the ground, and has a second bit of wire wrapped around a knife near the force field. Katniss decides to blow the arena up and kill them all, and wraps the wire around her arrow. The dome around the arena explodes when the lightning strikes the tree and she looses the arrow. A hovercraft comes in and grabs her body. She wakes up in a hospital bed across from Beetee, who is hooked up to a ton of machines. She rips out her IV but is then knocked out again. She wakes up again restrained and then knocks herself out again. The third time she wakes up she grabs a syringe and goes down the hall. In a meeting room, Plutarch, Finnick, and Haymitch are conversing. Katniss bursts in, and they disarm her and explain that there's been a rebel plot all along, and everyone was in on the plan except for Districts 1, 2, 5, 9 , 10, Peeta, and Katniss. Katniss is the symbol of the rebellion and Beetee had been trying to break the arena and get them out before Brutus and Enobaria attacked. They then explain that Annie, Peeta, Johanna, and Enobaria have been taken captive by the Capitol. Katniss attacks Haymitch, and she's sedated again. Finnick tries to apologize to her but she won't hear it. The last time she comes to she's with Gale, who is injured in the arm and burned in the face. He tells her that Prim and her mother are safe, but the Capitol firebombed District 12 into nothing.

[385bookreviews]

1.45.1 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

SPOILERS

Pages: 374

Time Read: 5 hours and 58 minutes

Overall Rating: 4★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 4☆ Characters: 5★

Genre: YA Dystopian

TWs for the book: Death of a parent, child death, murder, violence, gore, animal death, blood, injury, fire, burns, grief, classism, alcoholism, physical and emotional child abuse, discussions of war, torture, medical content, amputation, confinement, su*c*de attempt, vomit, police brutality, mental illness, su*c*dal thoughts, panic attacks, slavery, discussions of cannibalism, body shaming, starvation, hallucination, body horror

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: A future version of North America known as Panem; District 12, the Capitol, and the 74th Hunger Games arena.

First Line: When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

In the future version of North America, Panem, Katniss wakes up on the morning of the Reaping. Every year, the Capitol requires a boy and girl tribute from each of the twelve districts to be randomly selected to fight in the Hunger Games. This keeps the districts obedient and in line to prevent another uprising, like the one that resulted in District 13 being destroyed. Living in the poor Seam of District 12, Katniss and her friend Gale have taught themselves to go beyond the fences and hunt and forage for food. While on their hunt that morning, Gale suggests to Katniss that they should run away from the districts and the Capitol, as he is angry about the Reaping, and worried that one of their names will be drawn. In order to get more rations for the year, Katniss and Gale each have their names in the running more than once. Katniss is appalled by Gale thinking they should run away, as they both have families to support. He lets it go.

Katniss makes her way home to get ready for the Reaping. It's her 12 year old sister Prim's first Reaping, and she tries to reassure her that since her name is only entered once, she has the least possibility of being chosen. They dress up in their nicest clothes and go to the town square. Prim's name is drawn by the Capitol woman meant to escort the District 12 tributes every year, Effie Trinket. Katniss immediately volunteers to take her sister's place, a shocking and unheard of thing to do in District 12. The people remain silent when Effie tries to get them to applaud, lifting three fingers in salute to her for her sacrifice. The only other living District 12 tribute, Haymitch, is drunk out of his mind and takes a nose dive off the stage, and Effie moves things along by selecting the boy tribute, Peeta. After her father died in a mining accident and her mother slipped into depression, Katniss and her family were slowly starving to death. She found herself behind Peeta's family's bakery. After attempting to dig through their trash bins and being shooed away by Peeta's mother, Peeta burned some bread intentionally, took the beating from his mother, and tossed it to Katniss. This gave her the motivation to begin hunting and keep going, which kept them from starving or going to an orphanage due to their mother's neglect. Katniss is uncomfortable with Peeta being her fellow tribute as she feels like she owes him.

They are taken back into the building and people come to say goodbye to Katniss. First Prim and her mother come, and she promises Prim she will try her best to win and forcefully tells her mother to not let Prim starve. Shockingly, her next visitor is Peeta's father. He's a quiet man and doesn't say much, but gives her cookies, sits with her, and promises Katniss that Prim won't go hungry. Madge, the mayor's daughter who she sells strawberries to, comes in. She gives Katniss her gold mockingjay pin to be her token in the arena. Gale is her last visitor and they embrace, saying that they should have run away when they had the chance. After that, Peeta and Katniss are put on a train with Effie and Haymitch and begin their journey to the Capitol. They are given tons of lavish foods that they've never had before, and their rooms are full of clothes. On the journey there, Peeta and Katniss struggle to try and get Haymitch to mentor them, as is his job, but he is surly and drunk. They finally agree to do as he says, as long as he stays sober enough to instruct them.

When they arrive at the Capitol, Katniss is given a makeover by her prep team, all three tittering and oblivious Capitol citizens, and then she meets her stylist Cinna. He is level-headed and calm, and a lot unlike Effie and the prep team, so Katniss likes him almost immediately. Cinna and Portia, Peeta's stylist, collaborated to make sure that they made an impression with their outfits for the opening parade. Their costumes are stunning, made even better by the fake fire used to illuminate them like burning coal. This gains them a lot of approval from the crowd, and the other tributes are immediately jealous. Over the next three days, Katniss and Peeta train with the other tributes, being sure not to reveal their actual skills: archery and strength. When it's time to go and show their skills to the Gamemakers to receive a scoring out of 12, Katniss is the last tribute. The Gamemakers are bored, and when she misses her first shot with the bow and arrow, they rapidly lose what little interest they had left. Enraged, Katniss fires an arrow into an apple in the pig's mouth the Gamemakers had gathered around. Surprisingly, this causes her to receive a high score of 11.

During the televised interviews, Peeta confesses his crush on Katniss. Between this and him asking to train separately after their scores, Katniss is angry and attacks him. She apologizes, but later, when they talk on the roof, they argue again. The next morning, she is seen into the arena by Cinna, who gives her back her mockingjay pin. When the gong goes off, she is going to run to the Cornucopia against Haymitch's advice, but Peeta distracts her so she misses her chance. She wrestles someone for a backpack and escapes with it and a knife thrown at her by a Career.

Katniss spends the rest of the day getting as far away as possible and trying (yet failing) to find water. At night, she ties herself up in a tree to sleep, but someone nearby starts a fire. The Careers come to kill the person by the fire, two boys and three girls from Districts 1, 2, and 4. Shockingly, Peeta is also with them, supposedly leading them to Katniss. When Katniss finally finds water the next day, the Gamemakers throw a surprise wall of fire at her, chasing her away from her new water source and closer to other tributes. She gets burned on her leg trying to escape, but also manages to find another water source. After some rest, the Careers manage to find her and chase her up into a tree. They try to go after her but can't climb as high as her, so they sleep at the bottom of the tree to wait her out. Katniss spots Rue, one of the District 11 tributes, in a tree nearby. Rue points out a tracker jacker nest above Katniss' head. She contemplates what to do, either ignore it or cut it down on the Careers and Peeta. Thankfully, she gets a gift from a sponsor in the form of burn cream that helps her leg. She warns Rue she's going to cut down the tracker jackers, and then makes her way up. She is stung several times but succeeds. The Careers run for the lake but Glimmer doesn't make it. This allows Katniss to steal her bow and arrows. The venom begins to take over, and she's not sure if she hallucinates Peeta telling her to run. She runs, and then passes out from her hallucinations and the venom.

Once she comes around and treats her wounds, Katniss encounters Rue. They form an alliance, and make a plan to destroy the Careers' food supply. Rue will set fires to distract them from their stash, and Katniss will destroy it. They part ways and Katniss finds that they have stashed all of the food and supplies from the Cornucopia in a big mound. Only one boy from District 3 guards it, so Katniss wonders what has been done to protect it. She sees Foxface, another tribute, use a complicated foot path to reach the supplies and steal some. Katniss realizes that the mound is surrounded by landmines, and shoots an arrow to break open an apple bag and set off the mines. The explosion causes her to lose hearing in one ear. She runs to find Rue but she's not at their meeting place or responding to the Mockingjay whistles. Katniss eventually hunts her down, right as the boy from District 1 stabs her. She kills the boy, and sings Rue to sleep as she dies. In a moment of tenderness and sadness, Katniss surrounds Rue's body in flowers. That night, the Gamemakers announce that two tributes from the same district can both win the games.

Once day comes, she immediately tracks down Peeta, wounded and dying, painted in camouflage by the creek. She gets him cleaned up as best she can, but his wound is infected. They find a cave to shelter in, and Katniss decides to play into the star crossed lovers act for sponsors, which works, and they get some soup. Peeta quickly begins to deteriorate due to his infection. The Gamemakers announce a feast at the Cornucopia, as the remaining tributes, Cato, Clove, Foxface, Thresh, Katniss, and Peeta, all desperately need something to keep surviving. Peeta and Katniss argue about her going. Haymitch sends her some sleeping medicine to knock Peeta out, and she goes to the Cornucopia. Foxface grabs her bag and runs. Katniss goes for it, but is attacked by Clove. She taunts her and tries to kill her, but after she makes a comment about Rue, Thresh comes out of no where and kills her. He asks Katniss about Rue, and Katniss begs him to make it quick, but he lets her go and steals Cato and Clove's backpack. Katniss makes it back to Peeta, and the bag contained medicine to keep him alive. They are trapped in the cave for several days while it rains heavily, and they enjoy food from Haymitch in the meantime. When the weather clears up, they go out to hunt, but split up because Peeta is too loud. Katniss runs back to find Peeta when he doesn't respond to her whistle. She finds him and is angry he left, but he says he was just collecting berries. They notice some food missing, and as Katniss inspects the berries, they hear a cannon and see Foxface's body being lifted away. They quickly make a fire to cook their food before Cato comes and then make their way to the lake. After waiting awhile, Cato comes running by in a full suit of armor, being chased by mutts that look like the dead tributes. The three of them end up on top of the Cornucopia. Cato takes Peeta hostage, who is bleeding out from a mutt bite to his leg. Katniss shoots Cato in the hand and he falls to the mutts, who drag him into the Cornucopia. They stay on top of the Cornucopia all night as the mutts rip up Cato, but he doesn't die because of his body armor. Katniss finally shoots him to put him out of his misery and to save Peeta. The mutts leave and they go down to the lake to accept their victory, but the Gamemakers announce that the rule change has been rescinded and only one of them can win. Peeta rips his tourniquet off and tries to die, but Katniss suggests they both die by eating the poison berries that killed Foxface. Before they can do it they are both announced to be the winners. On the hovercraft that takes them, the doctors fight to save Peeta's life. Katniss is knocked out and wakes up in her room in the Capitol awhile later. Haymitch tells her that she is now a target to President Snow and the Capitol because she embarrassed them. Her and Peeta reunite on television where they rewatch the games, and Katniss learns that Peeta has had his leg amputated. They are able to go home, but on the train ride back, Katniss reveals she only was playing to be in love with him for sponsorships. Peeta is heartbroken.

[385bookreviews]

2.113 It Was Just Another Day in America by Ryan David Ginsberg

SPOILERS

Pages: 162

Time Read: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Overall Rating: 2.5★ Storyline: 4★ Dialogue: 2★ Characters: 3★

Genre: Short Stories and Poems

TWs for the book: A Million Times Over Again: Death of a grandparent Amber's Son: Child death, war, violence, military A Baby is Born: Pregnancy, birth, medical content, abandonment, debt, classism, ableism Tommy Longhorn, Planet Explorer: Death, blood, child death, mass shooting, death of a parent The Termination Bureau: Graphic abortion, baby death, gun violence, mentions of CSA and incest, pregnancy, abandonment, police brutality, ableism Dinner and a Show: Cannibilism, elitism, classism, war, death, bombs It Was Just Another Day in America: School shooting, child death, police and military, guns, blood, bullying A Portrait of the Artist in 2022: N/A Poems: Su*c*de, existentialism, depression, anxiety, Tr*mp, politics, school/mass shootings

POV: Various

Time Period/Location: America in different alternate dystopian timelines

First Line: For ten years I have walked circles around this village, looking in on villagers who have never once looked out at me.

The book opens with a poem entitled Mr. Gatekeeper, a metaphor for the author being allowed to share his stories and poems with others.

This is followed by two different introduction notes where the author introduces himself before the short stories segment of his book.

A Million Times Over Again is about girl named Hannah recounting how as a child she used to ask everyone where they thought we came from. Everyone had varying answers, until she asked her Nana. While she knits, Nana recounts the tale of how the Universe and Souls came to be, how Souls had Soul-mates, and then how they were torn apart by an evil force that invaded the Universe. She goes on to tell how the Souls would take over humans in order to search for their Soul-mates, over and over again for forever. At the end, Nana tells her that they are each others Soul-mates, and years later, when she dies, Hannah knows that she will find her again.

Amber's Son is set in an America where children of any age can go to war. The characters in this story have no names, and are only referred to as the son or daughter of their mother. Amber's son signs up for the military at 12 years old, fed lies about glory and fun and whiskey and patriotism. His mother has no choice but to sign off on it, and six days later he is sent to a far off desert to fight in a squad of other children, the youngest being only 8, and the oldest only 17. They invade a village of other young children and Amber's son kills eight of them before being shot and killed himself. This story changes your view from soldiers being sent off to war, to someone's son or daughter being sent to kill someone else's son or daughter in a meaningless conflict demanded by an uncaring government.

A Baby is Born paints a picture of the ultimate capitalist hellscape where corporations literally own you. Maybelline is at the hospital alone, without her husband as he can't take time off of work to be there for the birth of their baby. She is consistently harassed by "Recruiters" who try to get her to sign away her and her baby's lives to various corporations in order to fund her birth. She had to sign herself to three additional companies in order to cover just the cost of seeing a doctor, which is $25,000. Before she is allowed to see the doctor, while she is in active labor, she has to sit through hours of pitches from Recruiters and even the doctor before she is seen or treated. She has no choice but to have her baby born in one of these birthing centers, or her baby will not be considered an American citizen. Additionally, her and the baby have to be signed away to enough corporations to cover the cost of the birth itself, which is $2 million. Amber has already lost two babies by not having enough money, because if you can’t pay, your baby is taken and sold. After signing up her baby to 48 corporations, she is finally allowed to give birth, but she isn't allowed to hold her baby until examinations are done to determine that the child will even be a functioning member of society. When they finally give her the child back, they inform her that their name will be chosen by the company that purchased the right to do so.

Tommy Longhorn, Planet Explorer tells the story of an alien who travels the universes and lives among whatever newly discovered species has been found to determine whether or not they can join the Confederation of the Cosmos. He comes to Earth, leaving his wife and four children behind, and lives disguised among the humans for a decade. The day he is supposed to leave, he goes to the mall to get souvenirs and Christmas presents for his wife and children, but is gunned down by a mass shooter.

The Termination Bureau takes the crown for the most uncomfortable and disturbing story in this collection. In the state of Florida in a dystopian America, people are allowed to either sell their babies to the state before they're born for whichever reason they wish. If the babies have intelligence potential, they are sent to special academies. If they have strength potential, they are sent to become laborers. If they have loyalty potential, they are sold to corporations. Babies that don't have any of those things are put on podiums in an all white room, and shot in the head by a police officer. A 13 year old girl, impregnated by her father, comes in to request to sell her unborn child to the state. She is denied, as she doesn't have her father's permission to sell it. The Moral Advisor reads her the law which states that children are a man's property, and women are only incubators who have no right to sell a man's property, regardless or r*pe or incest. She has to give birth to the baby, keep it, and raise it for the next 18 years, or she must spend her life in prison. The girl leaves, and proceeds to go into the alley around back and perform a coat-hanger abortion on herself. The Moral Advisor calls the police, and they brutally handcuff her and throw her into the back of a police car.

Dinner and a Show is set in another alternate reality, with nine of the richest, most elite men in the world, having dinner in Malibu where they praise the virtues of capitalism while every country in the world is at war with each other. Tom Edison, the first ever trillionaire, eats the dismembered arm of one of his factory workers who died of heat stroke. Jean Dirt, the most famous and charismatic actor, eats roasted eyeballs. George Adams, an influential and dangerous investor, eats some of the most expensive food you could think of. Yukio Sing, the spoiled nepo baby inheritor of the Kingdom of Diamonds, eats lion meat and human bone broth mixed with blood. Norm Wolff, the number one news anchor in the country who does nothing but lie for money, eats nothing but fried foods covered in sugar. Ashley Morrison, former CEO of the biggest oil company, eats the meat and eggs of endangered animals. Tomas Marquez, a real estate investor, eats food with ingredients taken from all over the world. Scott Anderson, the former President of the United States that started the Great War to End All Wars, eats food made to look like an American flag. Finally, our narrator, prolific author Theodore Doerr III, eats a human brain. They finally go out on a balcony that overviews a battlefield while they mindlessly discuss the ever changing political affiliations of the countries fighting in the war. Two armies go out on the battlefield to meet each other, one side American and the other side either Tanzanian or Japanese, the men no longer know who they're even fighting. A massive bomb is dropped on the battlefield and when the smoke clears, both armies are completely dead. The men cheer regardless.

It Was Just Another Day in America shows little Jasper going off to school in his bulletproof vest. He is bullied by the other kids relentlessly, and has only one friend, Bryan. The pair are sat away from the rest of the class as the teacher has no other way to stop the bullying. The children have their things and themselves scanned and searched before they can enter the school, and when they go out to play, they are surrounded by police, military, helicopters, and guard towers, all holding guns. In the middle of class, an alarm goes off, and the children run to get into their individual bunkers, the teacher wielding a gun and not allowed to go into her own bunker until all the students are in theirs. Several students forget their passwords, but the teacher isn't allowed to know the codes because some other teacher used them to slaughter her entire class. Jasper gets into his bunker. When he is let out two hours later, the bodies are gone but the blood is still there. His teacher and several of his classmates were killed, including Bryan. Class continues for the day with a substitute teacher.

A Portrait of the Artist in 2022 tells a simple and short story of an Unknown Writer who goes to Hollywood Boulevard to try and become famous for his book. At stall 43,222 he does dramatic readings of his story. Everyone passes him by and no one takes copies of his book. He packs up his things, and prepares to do it all again the next day.

Ginsberg's Poems explore themes in his own life, such as existentialism, depression, anxiety, su*c*de, and his relationship with his wife; as well as political topics he covered in his short stories.

Stories: I really enjoyed Ginsberg's stories, even though some of them were deeply unsettling. The metaphors and dystopias he uses to convey his political points and thoughts on the current state of our country are a bit on the nose, but they definitely put things into perspective. It Was Just Another Day in America, The Termination Bureau, A Baby is Born, and Dinner and a Show seem extreme, but it also makes you wonder, if things continue as they are, will it get to that eventually? I really would like to see some of these short stories expanded upon more, as they gave off a Ray Bradbury vibe.

Poems: I did not care for Ginsberg's poems nearly as much as I enjoyed his stories. I enjoyed I Keep Slipping, Our Youth, Sacrilegious, and Mr. America, but the rest felt a little bit like unstable ramblings, especially with the author openly contemplating su*c*de in several of them. He refers to his wife with varying degrees of unhealthy reverence and sees her as too good for him. His political poems are a simpler rehashing of the concepts he wrote about in his stories. This ultimately dropped the book down to three stars for me.

Summary: This was a quick and easy read that I definitely don't regret, but I did have a little bit of higher hopes for. While I can understand the concept as an author to be seen and recognized for your work, the constant rehashing of feeling miserable with life and his writing going no where (not just in his poems but also in A Portrait of the Artist in 2022) felt repetitive, hopeless, and almost whiny. I don't feel as though I was the target audience here, as I'm sure a cishet man might relate better to the concepts and emotions he was trying to convey. I did greatly enjoy the stories however, and if he fleshed one of those out into a novel, I would definitely read it. This book also had a few typos. While most books seem to nowadays, between that, overall structure, and the content of his poetry, I feel as though an editor would have greatly benefit him.

[385bookreviews]

2.279 Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White

SPOILERS

Pages: 368

Time Read: 4 hours and 43 minutes

Overall Rating: 5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 5★

Genre: YA Thriller

TWs for the book: Violence, gun violence, gore, injury IN DETAIL, murder, blood, transphobia, outing, deadnaming, F slur, police brutality, death, fire/fire injury, animal death, animal cruelty, body horror, classism, hate crimes, medical content, addiction, drug withdrawal, child death, grief, vomit, car accident, death of a parent, bullying, homophobia, torture, physical abuse, cursing, toxic relationship, toxic friendships, alcohol, mental illness, ableism, panic attacks, dysphoria, child abuse, emotional abuse, gaslighting and manipulation, s*xual harassment, chronic illness, misogyny, body shaming, kidnapping, p*d*philia

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: Twist Creek County, West Virginia in 2017.

First Line: When the sheriff of Twist Creek County--and all those other sons of bitches, the Baldwin-Felts agents and bloodthirsty strikebreakers--finally caught my great-great-grandfather and dragged his ass up from the mine to make a spectacle of his execution, they killed him by hammering a railroad spike through his mouth.

Transgender socialist Miles Abernathy lives in Twist Creek County, West Virginia. His great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, led a strike against the coal mine companies and tortured the sheriff's son for leverage. When he was caught, the sheriff executed him by driving a railroad spike through his mouth. This started a blood feud between the Davies family and the Abernathy family. Having just completed his junior year of high school, Miles sneaks out to go to the graduating party in the woods. But he hates social events, and he isn't going to celebrate. He meets up with his childhood friend Cooper O'Brien. Miles stole pictures that his dad took the night of the accident that killed Mrs. O'Brien that incriminate Sheriff Davies as being the one that ran them off the road. Cooper takes them and agrees to show his dad to maybe finally bring the Sheriff to justice. While they are talking, Noah Davies, the sheriff's son, and his two friends Eddie and Paul come to interrogate them about what they're doing. They lie, and Miles starts to walk home through the woods. Noah, Eddie, and Paul catch up with him though, and take a video of them beating and torturing Miles almost to death. Cooper finds Miles and brings him to the hospital. When he wakes up in the hospital, he sees the ghost of a coal miner shaking him awake. He has extensive injuries and experienced massive internal bleeding that caused him to need surgery.

Before he had departed for the party, Miles had sent an email to both of his parents coming out as trans. He brings it up to his mom, but she doesn't take it very well and doesn't want to discuss it. Sheriff Davies comes in while Miles' mom is out of the room, and threatens Miles into staying quiet about Noah and his friends beating him up. Miles tells him that with his head injury, he doesn't remember what happened. Miles eventually goes home and begins his recovery, periodically still seeing the mute ghost of the coal miner. Cooper checks up on him and their friendship begins to return, Miles even coming out to him as trans. Miles does get stir crazy and refuses to let the attack haunt him, so he goes to pick up his check from the restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. His boss tells him that he has the whole summer off and gives him extra money, saying she has temporarily hired someone to take his place, but just for the summer. Miles walks out the back door, and contemplates going back in to return the extra money, when Eddie walks out the door and reveals himself to be Miles' replacement for the summer. They get in an altercation, Miles breaking Eddie's nose and trying to threaten him to delete the video of his attack. Eddie is afraid at first, but realizes he has the upper hand with his connection to Noah and Sheriff Davies. This angers Miles further, and he tries to reach for Eddie to hit him, but Eddie backs away, slips on the gravel, and hits his head, which kills him instantly. Miles is mortified, but knows what Sheriff Davies will do to him and his family if the accident is discovered, so he drags Eddie's bodies behind the dumpsters and calls Cooper. Cooper comes immediately and helps Miles clean up the scene and they take the body. They dump Eddie's body down the old mineshaft where no one will ever go looking because of the structural instability. They then go back to Cooper's house where Miles takes a shower and Cooper helps him shave his head so his hair is more even after the head wound stitches. Cooper and Miles share a somewhat tender moment, and when Cooper leans in to kiss him, he reciprocates, logically deducing he must have a crush on Cooper because that's what he's supposed to do. After they kiss, Cooper says, "We've already killed one of them. What's a few more?" Miles is disgusted and angered by this notion and they fight before Miles leaves and goes home.

Soon after, Miles realizes that he has become reliant upon the opioids he was prescribed in the hospital, just like Mr. O'Brien is and like his father used to be. He quits cold turkey and spends time going through withdrawals. During which he finally is able to go out and see the ghost without him disappearing. After looking through old pictures he realizes that the ghost is Saint Abernathy, and he can't speak because of the railroad spike down his throat. Saint reveals to Miles that he was also trans, and leads him and his dog Lady to the burned down movie theatre where he was executed, and hands Miles a railroad spike. Miles then takes this as a sign to fight for his family and get his revenge, and texts Cooper that he's willing to move forward with the murders. He goes home, but his dad is awake. His dad begins to make an effort to use his new name and pronouns, and Miles is forced to confess his opioid withdrawal. The next morning, his mother is enraged that Miles didn't say anything about the drugs, and demands he has to start going to therapy. Miles refuses, and they argue until Sheriff Davies shows up to inquire about Eddie. They tell him they know nothing, and then Sheriff Davies asks where Miles is going to go to therapy once he sees the brochures. Miles chooses one at random, and once the sheriff leaves, his mom tells him that he is going.

The next day, his mom drops him off at a church for group therapy. He leaves halfway through out of anxiety and goes into the alley next door. A person comes out of the door to a restaurant, and Miles doesn't recognize them, but the person, Dallas, does. Dallas is their old friend from before the accident. When Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien, Miles' father, and Dallas were run off the road by Sheriff Davies, Dallas sustained a lot of burns and injuries, and Dallas' parents blamed Miles' father and family. They moved away and had no contact, but Dallas is back, living with their brother and his wife Amber, who is autistic. Dallas' brother and Amber have their own restaurant/bar that is entirely socialist and run by the workers, right under Sheriff Davies nose. Miles is glad to see his friend again, and also talk to another trans person, but is scared to be seen in the bar. Dallas says that on the Fourth of July, the biggest holiday in town, they would be throwing a "Fuck the Fourth" party to counteract it and call out Sheriff Davies. Miles rejects the invitation, but him and Dallas swap phone numbers, and he gives them Cooper's number.

Miles and Cooper meet up to plan the murders, deciding to use Miles' father's gun to shoot Paul on the Fourth of July when his parents are out of town. While they are talking in Cooper's convenience store, Paul and Noah turn up to harass them, further settling their decision. Miles spends the night with Cooper and they get drunk and make out. Miles then decides to also make a difference in another way, and goes back to the bar to speak with Amber. Amber tells him they are going to be handing out pamphlets with evidence of Sheriff Davies' and the police departments' corruption. Miles gives them copies of the pictures he gave to Cooper.

The night before the Fourth of July party that the Davies plan and throw every year, Cooper and Miles took the gun and drove up to Paul's house. The plan is for Cooper to shoot him, and then they would clean up and dump his body in the mineshaft like they did with Eddie. They arrive, and find Paul in his father's processing plant in the garage, skinning a dear. He says he knew that they had killed Eddie the whole time but that Noah didn't believe him, and he tells them to get it over with. Cooper chickens out and lowers the gun. Miles and Paul talk, and Paul talks about how he really doesn't have it any better than the Abernathy's. Sheriff Davies bought out his parents' land and makes them pay rent to him, and takes most of their wages, and Noah had threatened to kill Paul because Paul said he wanted to leave town. Miles feels for Paul, and agrees to spare his life and just make it look like they killed him if Paul leaves town that night. Paul agrees, looking relieved, and asks to grab some stuff, when Cooper regains his nerve and shoots Paul in the jaw, removing the entire lower half of his face. Miles is appalled, and Cooper insists that they leave Paul to bleed out on the floor. They run, but on the drive back Miles makes Cooper pull over so he can throw up. They fight about Cooper shooting Paul like that, and Miles trying to let Paul leave. Cooper becomes more and more deranged, shaking Miles and deadnaming him. Miles tells him to leave him there as he was going to have Dallas pick him up. Cooper leaves and Dallas and Amber race to come pick him up, not knowing what's wrong. Miles goes nonverbal and begins having a meltdown. When he gets to their house, he wants to shower but dreads the prospect of the sensory experience. Amber gives him some things to help and tells him he might be autistic like her. He spends the night in Dallas' bed with them, but Cooper keeps blowing up his phone, demanding to speak with him and leave Dallas' house so he can come get him, worried that Miles will snitch.

In the morning, Amber and Dallas take Miles home, and he returns the gun to the safe. Later in the day his family comes to the house to prepare to go to the Fourth of July party together. Cooper comes in, saying he is Miles' boyfriend, and quietly threatens Miles to keep his mouth shut. They walk to the party, where Dallas and Amber are handing out pamphlets with evidence of Sheriff Davies' crimes and advertising the Fuck the Fourth gathering. Cooper sees the pictures on the pamphlet and is enraged, and Miles' dog Lady has to come between them. He leaves, and Noah and Sheriff Davies get up on stage and announce Paul's death. Then they announce that they'll be giving out a citizen award to Miles, since he bravely recovered from a hate crime and for being a pillar to the transgender community. This outs Miles to the entire town and also to his grandparents, aunt, and uncle. They all quickly leave the party after telling Dallas to go home now. Once they arrive back home, their aunt and uncle are enraged and leave. Miles' grandparents, however, accept him and are enraged on his behalf. They discuss what they should do, and they decide that it's time to fight back, and go to the Fuck the Fourth gathering. They do the next day, and while his mother and father discuss what to do with Amber and her husband, Dallas and Miles enjoy the punk band performing, talk about trans issues and about Miles potentially being autistic and aromantic, and marvel at the fact that so many of the towns people showed up. A girl who's father was imprisoned by Sheriff Davies and a mother who's son was killed by him share their stories, and Miles decides to be brave and stand up on stage, showing off his still disfigured face and head and tells everyone finally that Noah Davies and his friends did this to him and that the sheriff threatened him and his family in order to cover it up. At that exact moment, Sheriff Davies walks in and starts demanding that people leave. Amber refuses and demands he leave, and Miles' mother and father start ushering him and Dallas towards the back door. Finally, Amber throws water in his face, and he pulls out his gun and shoots her. The crowd turns into a riot, and Miles' mother shoves him and Dallas into the kitchen and locks the door. They contemplate what happened to Amber and how to get back in, but then Noah enters, covered in blood, and lights a Molotov cocktail, setting the place ablaze. Miles and Dallas run outside, where people have finally started to come out, including his mother and father, Amber's husband, and Amber, who was shot in the shoulder. They drive back to their house separately. When Dallas, Miles, and his father arrive back at their house, they find Cooper's body, cracked open and gutted on their porch. The rest of them arrive, they call Miles' grandparents, and Mr. O'Brien to see the body of his son. Miles' mom takes care of Amber's shoulder, and Miles fesses up to him and Cooper killing Eddie and Paul. No one is really surprised, as the Davies and Abernathy's had been killing each other for years. They decide that enough is enough, and when Noah texts Miles to end this permanently by meeting him alone, they decide for them to meet in the abandoned mineshaft. They plan for Miles to trap Noah, and then use him as a negotiation tool to convince Sheriff Davies to leave town.

Miles goes down into the mineshaft with the gun. Noah meets him there and taunts him, saying that they'll leave his family alone forever if he agrees to go with him and his dad. He also tells Miles about how he tortured Cooper, gutted him like a deer while he was still alive, and Cooper confessed everything. Miles lets off a warning shot, and Noah attacks him. They fight, and Noah gets the gun, but Miles pulls a knife out and kills him with a stab to the neck. He leaves the mineshaft and tries desperately to call his family, but is then shot in the head by Sheriff Davies, taking out his eye. The Sheriff kidnaps him, and takes him to the abandoned movie theatre to hammer a railroad spike into his mouth, just like his ancestor did to Saint. Saint manifests in front of Sheriff Davies to distract him, just as Miles' family shows up, and Lady attacks the sheriff, ripping chunks out of him. By the time they recall Lady, the sheriff is dying, so Miles' grandpa shoots him in the head. The rest of the town witnesses it, but they all grab shovels and tarps to help them bury the body and hide the evidence.

Time skips forwards a bit to the town holding a meeting to decide what to do to ensure the corruption of the town ends. Miles is missing an eye now, and him and Dallas are in a queer platonic relationship. A state trooper shows up, but everyone at the meeting clams up and refuses to give any answers about Sheriff Davies.

Miles Abernathy (Sadie Abernathy): I love Andrew Joseph White's protagonists because they always feel so real. I, of course, connected with Miles due to his autism, but also due to his humanness in general. He's no where near perfect, making mistakes and even plotting murder, but he's also just a kid, doing his best in a near impossible situation. I also appreciate him showing different presentations of autism with his characters, between Nick in Hell Followed With Us, Silas and the gardener in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Miles and Amber in Compound Fracture, you get different perspectives of people that live with the same thing, and for me as an autistic person, I am able to see different aspects of myself represented in each character. This also applies with Benji from Hell Followed With Us, Silas and Daphne from The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Miles and Dallas from Compound Fracture in how they all view their trans-ness differently and have different journeys with it.

Cooper O'Brien: I really wasn't expecting at first for Cooper's character to become so twisted, but you watched him spiral into a sort of madness in real time with Miles. He became wildly unpredictable, and anticipating his actions was a source of anxiety while reading (in a good, thriller kind of way). You almost became just as scared of Cooper as you did of Noah and the sheriff by the end.

Storyline: I finished this book in one sitting, staying up WAY past my bedtime because I just needed to know what happened. The plot kept you on your toes the entire time, even in the calm moments, because you had no clue when some kind of chaos or calamity was about to descend. The plot twists were genuinely brutal, especially with the vivid descriptions of the gore these teenagers were inflicting upon each other. The sheriff was written to be especially enraging and evil, a well done villain. You feel the characters' rage alongside them as the story progresses.

Representation: Miles is autistic, aromantic, and transgender (FtM), and ends up in a queer platonic relationship with Dallas at the end. He is also left disfigured in the face and head after the attack, and later on completely blinded in one eye when he is shot by the sheriff. Dallas is a burn survivor, and is disfigured because of it. They also are plus sized, have ADHD, and are queer and nonbinary. It is undetermined if Cooper is queer, or if he just sees Miles as a girl despite him coming out. Amber has autism. Miles' boss is described as visibly queer, but nothing is specified or confirmed. Miles' great-great-grandfather Saint Abernathy is trans and gay. Miles describes there being several queer people at his school, including a he/they lesbian, a queer girl, and a gay boy. One of the musicians in the punk band is a trans woman. Miles, his father, and Mr. O'Brien all struggle with opioid addiction.

Summary: Once again, Andrew Joseph White has written a masterpiece. His books have the incredible ability to suck you right into the story, making you feel like you're there and experiencing these events with the characters, and, for fellow trans and autistic people, at times it can even feel like you're the protagonist yourself. No characters are overlooked, and it feels like everyone in the story grows and develops, not just the protagonist.

Quotes: "...parents seem obsessed with performing their grief about a child's transition."-Miles Abernathy (p.66) "We've already killed one of them. What's a few more?"-Cooper O'Brien (p.102) "It's like everyone knows there's something off about me, and they don't like it, and they don't quite know what to do about it."-Miles Abernathy (p.149) "I wish Cooper had gotten to know the version of me that's going to exist one day."-Miles Abernathy (p.333)

[385bookreviews]

1.36.3 Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

SPOILERS

Pages: 477

Time Read: 11 hours and 16 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 4★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4★

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

TWs for the book: Violence, murder, death, addiction, incest, body horror, mental illness, war, su*c*de, drug use, possession, psychosis, colonization, self harm, sexism, drug abuse, torture, kidnapping, grief, religion/religious bigotry, adult/minor relationship

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: Nine years after the events of Dune Messiah; On Arrakis and Salusa Secundus.

First Line: A spot of light appeared on the deep red rug which covered the raw rock of the cave floor.

Nine years after Paul Muad'Dib walked off into the desert, Stilgar guards Leto II and Ghanima, Paul's young twins. He contemplates how things in the Imperium got to this point, and if he should kill Leto and Ghanima to put an end to House Atreides and the pre-born. He ultimately decides against it.

Leto and Ghanima prepare to meet their grandmother, Lady Jessica for the first time. Alia, the current Regent of the Imperium, says she will meet her and Arrakeen and bring her back to Sietch Tabr to meet the twins. Leto and Ghanima discuss amongst themselves that Alia has become an Abomination, possessed by one of her past lives. Alia flies to Arrakeen and muses over why her mother has come to see her, suspecting ulterior motives. Jessica returns, and in a grand entrance to the people of the city, has her men, Gurney Halleck, and Stilgar capture people in the crowd to interrogate them. Alia is enraged she acted without her permission, but Jessica ignores her and talks to two of Alia's priests. One of them, a man named Javid, gives her pause. She notes that he hates the Atreides, and that Alia is involved with him, despite being married to Duncan Idaho. Jessica desires to go to Sietch Tabr immediately to meet her grandchildren, but is delayed by the pomp and ceremony of Alia's priests.

On Salusa Secundus, Irulan's sister, Wensicia of House Corrino, plots to have two Laza tigers kill the Atreides twins by gifting them specific robes the tigers will track. Her Bashar, Tyekanik, is opposed to the idea, but she commands him to obey, and to convert to the religion of Muad'Dib in order to persuade her son Farad'n to willingly become Emperor when her schemes fall into place.

Leto struggles with prescient dreams about an abandoned sietch called Jacurutu, and him and Ghanima both intensely fear becoming Abomination like Alia.

A mysterious blind figure known as the Preacher begins to appear in the city, preaching heresy against Alia and the Golden Elixir. Everyone begins to speculate that this man is actually Paul Muad'Dib, and that he didn't die when he wandered into the desert nine years before.

Alia recalls her possession. She cut off her ancestors' memories and pushed them down and away, not communicating with them or viewing them like the twins did. This left her susceptible to all of them overpowering her. To prevent this from happening, she allowed the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen to have partial possession of her. He commanded her to use the Bene Gesserit ways to stay eternally young, something highly forbidden, and he also commanded her to sleep with Javid.

Leto and Ghanima allow themselves temporary possession by the memories of Paul and Chani, and they seek advice from them. They conclude that they must follow Paul's Golden Path, the one he saw in his visions and ran off into the desert to escape.

The Preacher visits Farad'n on Arrakis to interpret his dreams. He refuses to tell Farad'n his interpretation, but reveals that Tyekanik bargained with the Preacher, who wanted to hear Farad'n's dreams in exchange for him commanding Duncan Idaho to come to their side.

Alia plots to abduct Lady Jessica and make it seem as though House Corrino was responsible, and Leto warns Jessica of this, and also tells her to cooperate with the abduction. Leto also warns Stilgar not to trust Alia, and that he sees three paths in his visions: that he will die outside of Sietch Tabr, that he will marry Ghanima, and that he will kill Jessica. Stilgar is highly disturbed by this conversation and tries to ignore it. Alia tells Duncan to kidnap Jessica, and he sees for the first time that she is possessed. He agrees anyways, and leaves.

Alia requests for Jessica to sit in the morning council to hear the supplicants. Alia says for Jessica to take the first petitioner, who is a musician who is in Arrakeen on a pilgrimage. He was jumped and had his money stolen and he appeals to be given money to return home. Jessica asks where he intends to go, and he says he intends to go to House Corrino. Jessica knows this is somehow a trap from Alia, and asks him to play music so she can decide what to do with him. He improvises a song and Alia becomes offended when he compares her to a death-spirit. Jessica allows him to go to House Corrino. Then a Fremen Naib, a former member of Paul's Fedaykin, appeals to them about how the terraforming of Dune is killing the sandworms and the spice trade. A priest runs forward insisting he be removed for wanting to appear under false pretenses. Alia silently commands the priest and he tries to shoot and kill Jessica under the guise of trying to kill the Fedaykin. Jessica and the man, Ghadhean, duck out of the way, and Ghadhean delivers a deadly blow to the priest. Jessica commands two servants to save the priests life so he can be questioned, but another member of Alia's court kills the priest before that can happen. Jessica accuses Alia of attempting to kill her, and calls her out for being possessed by the Baron. She then escapes with the help of Ghadhean and some other Fedaykin in the room. They hide her in an abandoned sietch, and Duncan Idaho comes to take her to safety, but actually abducts her and takes her to Salusa Secundus and House Corrino, defying both Alia and Lady Jessica in favor of the orders of the Preacher.

Leto and Ghanima know that House Corrino has sent animals to hunt and kill them. They sneak out into the desert at night and plot to make it seem as though Leto was killed so he might go find Jacurutu and lead humanity down the Golden Path. The Laza tigers find them, and they hide in a crevice in the rocks. They use the poisoned tips of their crysknives to kill the tigers by swiping their paws with them, but Ghanima is injured by their claws. Leto leaves on a sandworm and heads south, while Ghanima hypnotizes herself into believing that Leto is truly dead, and she won't believe anything else until he sees her again and says the words "Golden Path" in one of the ancient languages they both speak. She makes her way back to Sietch Tabr and sees a Fremen man and woman talking in the secret exit. The man has a control panel for the Laza tigers. Ghanima kills him with a poisoned needle, and takes the woman hostage.

Duncan and Jessica arrive on Salusa Secundus. Farad'n is displeased by the scheming of his mother, which Jessica and Duncan take advantage of. They make a deal that Jessica will teach Farad'n in the way of the Bene Gesserit, and she will also announce that she is there of her own free will so Alia cannot make it seem as though she were kidnapped. Farad'n banishes Wensicia, and then they begin to plot a marriage between Farad'n and Ghanima. Duncan tries to kill himself for some reason, and then disavows himself from the service of the Atreides.

Leto arrives at Jacurutu, but is caught by a Fremen named Namri, father of Javid, and Gurney Halleck. Gurney Halleck is under orders by Lady Jessica to make Leto undergo the spice trance, and to kill him if he shows signs of becoming Abomination.

Alia has Ghanima in her possession and tells her that she is going to marry Farad'n. Ghanima adamantly refuses, saying she will kill him for the death of Leto. Alia and Irulan try desperately to convince her, but she continues to refuse, until Alia agrees to let Ghanima kill Farad'n when they are betrothed. Irulan is appalled and tries to talk both of them out of it, but it is the only way in which Ghanima agrees.

Namri's niece Sabiha is assigned to guard Leto during his trances. Leto hypnotizes her and she falls asleep, allowing him to escape the sietch and hide out under the sand in the midst of a storm. Jacurutu was the old abandoned sietch of the Cast Out, a group of Fremen that stole others' water, but the Cast Out were still alive and weren't living there, so he travels further south.

Duncan returns to Alia, who is disappointed in him, but commands him to go back to Sietch Tabr to help guard Ghanima, who has returned there with Stilgar and Irulan. Duncan goes, but dodges the escort of one of Alia's guards, as he deduces that Alia was meaning for him to die on the trip there.

Leto encounters the Cast Out harvesting spice, and demands he be taken to their sietch, Shuloch, which is nothing more than a ramshackle village. There he discovers Sabiha, who was sent there as punishment by Namri for letting Leto escape. He goes out at night and covers his skin with sandtrouts, the first form of the sandworms. They engulf him and becoming a living stillsuit that make him much more powerful and more fast. He escapes Shuloch and makes a mission of destroying the qanats of the sietches to try and set back the terraforming by generations. Back in Jacurutu, Namri reveals to Gurney that him and his son Javid have been working for House Corrino. Gurney kills him and flees Jacurutu.

Months later, Leto, who has gained the power to control the sandworms and become nonhuman due to his bond with the sandtrouts, confronts the Preacher and his child guide. He kills the guide, and forces the Preacher to reveal his true identity as Paul Muad'Dib. Paul tries to talk Leto out of following the Golden Path, but Leto refuses.

Duncan tries to convince Stilgar to put Alia to a Trial of Possession. Stilgar insists upon him and his sietch remaining neutral. Javid walks in and Duncan kills him, forcing Stilgar to kill Duncan. He then remembers some of Leto's words to him about not trusting Alia and protecting Ghanima, and he takes his sietch and flees into the desert. Alia enlists one of Stilgar's former sietch members to hunt him down.

Leto and Paul find Gurney Halleck hiding out at a different sietch and bring him back to Shuloch with them. Gurney is stunned to see Leto's transformations and Paul alive. Stilgar tries to meet with the man assigned to hunt him down to work out a treaty between him and Alia, but Alia's other soldiers kidnap Ghanima and Stilgar kills the other Fremen.

Alia plans for Jessica and Farad'n's arrival for Ghanima's betrothal. She gazes out of her window, and sees the Preacher approaching. He gathers the crowd and she sends her priests down to grab him and bring him to her, and plans to have him enter at the same time as Ghanima, because she has figured out that he is Paul. Farad'n and Jessica arrive and come to watch the Preacher, but a mob breaks out in the street below. The priests try to grab Paul, but he is stabbed to death. Alia is enraged, and reveals to Jessica and Farad'n that that was Paul. The doors burst open and Leto comes in dragging Ghanima behind him. He says the words and Ghanima breaks from her hypnosis and asks him if their plan worked. Alia demands to know about the plan, and her and Leto fight, him throwing her around like a doll with his new super strength. He gives her two options: Trial of Possession, or she can throw herself out the window. She becomes fully possessed by all of the lives within her, mainly by the Baron, but she is able to fight them off long enough to throw herself out of the window.

Leto is crowned Emperor, and he makes Farad'n his Scribe. The Naibs swear fealty to him and worship him as the embodiment of Shai-Hulud. He speaks with Farad'n privately with Ghanima, asking him for his Sardaukar forces. Farad'n doesn't want to give them up, but Leto says that he will. He also says Farad'n will not be marrying Ghanima, but that he will marry her, and that Farad'n will secretly father the Atreides line going forward as Leto is no longer able to reproduce. Farad'n tries to argue, but Leto insists this will happen, and that he will rule for 4000 years and create a Golden Age, but all of his subjects will be weak and subservient. He renames Farad'n as Harq al-Ada, the historian that has been writing most of the passages throughout the book.

Leto II Atreides (Desert Demon/Ari/Batigh): Leto was definitely an unsettling part of the book. He says a lot of odd things before he starts taking spice, but afterwards, his chapters kind of drag on and on with a lot of his musings and movements through the world. Like with Paul, you think that he is trying to do the good and right thing, but after he takes the spice, he is sucked onto this Golden Path, and, because he is young and pre-born, he doesn't have the power to resist like Paul did.

Ghanima Atreides: She is my favorite character in the book and I really enjoyed all of her scenes.

Duncan Idaho (Hayt): Once again I am confused about a lot of Duncan's motive and actions in the ending of the book, if anyone has any clarification about this feel free to message me!

Stilgar: I really like how we got more of Stilgar's perspective in this book, seeing him question his loyalty and make certain connections. The twins, particularly Leto, really manipulated him, and it was interesting to see how in the first chapter he questioned killing the twins and in the last chapter he questioned if he should have done it when he had the chance.

Alia Atreides (St. Alia of the Knife/Coan-Teen/Abomination/Womb of Heaven): Alia's descent into madness was really interesting to watch. I feel like we never got to see Alia's true personality, which makes sense because she never had one. She tried to create her own sense of self to the point of her own detriment.

Storyline: I really enjoyed this book the most out of the first three. The second half of the book was quite a bit slower because a lot of it was Leto high on spice in the desert, but I liked the short chapters and the switching of the perspectives. It does get a little confusing with the weeks and months that pass with only vague mention, but it wasn't too much of an issue.

Quotes: -"Government and religion united, and breaking a law became sin. A smell of blasphemy arose like smoke around any questioning of governmental edicts. The guilt of rebellion invoked hellfire and self-righteous judgements. Yet it was men who created these governmental edicts."-Stilgar (p.6)

-"The joy of living, its beauty is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you."-Leto II (p.83)

-"Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself--a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred."-The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib (p.117)

-"The past may show the right way to behave if you live in the past, Stil, but circumstances change."-Leto II (p.133)

-"What other function did the priesthood serve than to deny individual will?"-Stilgar (p.139)

-"It's beautiful, but it's not art. Humans create art by their own violence, by their own volition."-Duncan (p.143)

-"To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror; to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror."-Jessica (p.154)

-"Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders."-The Spacing Guild Manual (p.171)

-"Our civilization could well die of indifference within it before succumbing to external attack."-Jessica (p.172)

-"If you put away those who report accurately, you'll keep only those who know what you want to hear... I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in the stink of your own reflections."-Jessica (p.181)

-"Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interest of the ruling class--whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy."-Bene Gesserit Training Manual (p.221)

-"But one learns from books and reels only certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things."-Farad'n/Harq al-Ada (p.245)

-"Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation?"-The Preacher/Paul Muad'Dib (p.262)

-"To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty."-Leto II (p.314)

-"But the evil was known after the event!"-The Preacher/Paul Muad'Dib "Which is the way of many great evils."-Leto II (p.406)

-"The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. 'I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be."-Leto II (p.449)

[385bookreviews]

1.36.2 Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

SPOILERS

Pages: 282

Time Read: 5 hours and 52 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4★

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

TWs for the book: Death, war, violence, pregnancy, drug use, murder, injury, infertility, death of a parent, addiction, drug abuse, grief, colonization, genocide, adult/minor relationship, su*c*de, ableism, body horror, fire, incest, child death, psychosis, abortion, miscarriage, racism, slavery, cursing, cultural appropriation, classism, confinement, execution, religious fanaticism, religious bigotry

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: 12 years after the events of Dune; On Arrakis/Dune

First Line: What led you to take your particular approach to a history of Muad'Dib?

The book begins 12 years after the events of Dune with a historian named Bronso of Ix being interrogated by a member of the Qizarate, Paul Atreides' religious order. Bronso is to be executed for committing blasphemy, while he argues that Paul committed religious sham in order to bring the Empire under his control.

Princess Irulan, Paul's wife, conspires on Wallach IX with Edric, a mutated Steersman of the Spacing Guild, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, and a Tleilaxu Face Dancer called Scytale. They plot to remove Paul as Emperor. The Bene Tleilax play a grand part in their plan, as they took the body of Duncan Idaho and made him into a ghola, a remade being that has the body of the deceased person but none of the memories. Irulan reveals that Chani hasn't been able to get pregnant because she has been putting contraceptives in her food.

When Irulan returns back from Wallach IX, she demands Paul give her a child. Paul refuses, but Chani tries to make a case for it.

Scytale shapeshifts into Duncan Idaho to go and see a former Fedaykin warrior who is part of the conspiracy against Paul. Him and his son have kidnapped the daughter of another Fedaykin at Scytale's request. Scytale kills them both and takes the girl.

Paul welcomes Edric into his household, and he brings with him the ghola of Duncan Idaho, who has been turned into a Mentat/Zensunni philosopher with metal eyes called Hayt by the Tleilaxu. Paul and Alia, now 15 years old and a priestess to the people, are shocked by his arrival. Edric insists Paul take Hayt as a gift. Hayt discloses to Paul that Edric intends him to destroy Paul, but he doesn't know how. While he shows mannerisms of Duncan Idaho, he refuses to hold any of his memories or be the man that they once knew. Paul permits him to stay. The Reverend Mother was found aboard the ship that carried Edric, Hayt, and Scytale (disguised as a servant). Paul had banished her from Arrakis so she is placed under immediate arrest. Irulan visits her in her cell, and she reveals that Chani has changed her diet so she can't be drugged with contraceptive anymore, and that Paul has repeatedly denied Irulan's requests to have a child. The Reverend Mother says that Paul and Alia must have a child then to preserve the Atreides bloodline, and that if Chani becomes pregnant Irulan must find a way to abort the baby or kill Chani. Irulan protests and almost refuses, but the Reverend Mother gives her no choice.

The body of the girl that Scytale took from the Fedaykin is found in the desert. Alia and Hayt investigate, but find no clues as to who she is. They head home, and Alia tries to figure out if any of Duncan Idaho remains in Hayt. When they land back in Arrakeen, Hayt kisses her.

Paul is haunted by his visions as he searches for a way to end the Jihad. The only path he sees is for him to disengage, but he can't figure out how to. He meets with the Reverend Mother and makes her an offer: they can have his genes, and he will allow Irulan to be artificially inseminated by him (which is an atrocity to the Bene Gesserit), in exchange for Chani and his children's safety, as she is pregnant. The Reverend Mother insists she must discuss this with the Bene Gesserit before she accepts.

Scytale shapeshifts once again and becomes Lichna, daughter of Otheym, the Feydakin's daughter he killed and left out in the desert. Paul immediately knows that "Lichna" is a Face Dancer, but he feels he must act out exactly what has happened in his visions, as it is fate. Scytale (as Lichna) tells Paul he must go to Otheym's house, as he has a list of names who are involved in a Fremen conspiracy against him. She insists that Chani go with him, but he refuses. He has her confined and put under guard, and then goes to Alia's temple to be met by his guide. A Fremen leads him to Otheym's house, and he is greeted at the door by a dwarf, which goes against his vision. Otheym is immensely sick, and him and his wife are now poor due to the cost of medics. Otheym explains that the dwarf, Bijaz, is a Tleilaxu creation that has imbedded in his memory the names and locations of the scheme against Paul. They urge him to take the clearly prescient dwarf, and Paul leaves, knowing what is about to happen. An atomic hits Otheym's house, and burns out Paul's eyes along with all of his soldier's and guard's eyes. Paul, however, uses his prescience to "see", and he is further deified by his followers.

Korba, a member of Paul's Qizarate, is brought before the other Fremen Naibs and Alia, and is accused of treachery against Paul. He denies it, but Paul appears and reveals that the conspirators stole the atomic weapon from him, which was illegal for him to possess. He is sent back to his cell, and Alia was able to determine which of the Naibs were on Korba's side, further weeding out conspirators.

Hayt goes to interrogate Bijaz, and Bijaz traps him using vocal cues. He reveals that him and Hayt were made by the Tleilaxu together, and puts a command in him that when Paul tells Hayt the words, "She is gone," Hayt is to attempt to kill him. He also reveals that this is intended to see if Duncan Idaho's memories return to him, which if they do, then it will be the first successful attempt to return former memories to a ghola, and they can then use this to try and bribe Paul by offering to bring Chani back to life if he gave up everything and lived in exile. Bijaz then forces Hayt to forget the conversation.

Alia overdoses on spice in an attempt to look into Paul's future but is unsuccessful and is saved by Hayt.

Chani, Paul, Bijaz, Hayt, Stilgar, Alia, Irulan, "Lichna", the Reverend Mother, Edric, and the rest of the court go to Sietch Tabr for Chani's birth. Paul knows what is about to happen, but he stands outside. Hayt discovers that Bijaz has put a command phrase in him and he goes to tell Paul. While they talk, a Fremen comes to tell Paul that Chani is dead but his twin children are alive. He is shocked by the fact that there are twins, even though Chani told him about them, as he only saw his daughter in his future visions. He tells Hayt, "She is gone," and Hayt begins to fight the urge to kill Paul. He tells him to run, but Paul refuses, knowing he will resist. Hayt then remembers everything and becomes Duncan Idaho once more. They go to see the babies and Chani's body, but Paul's prescience begins to fail and he starts to go truly blind. Alia, distraught, brings in "Lichna", who has now revealed herself to be Scytale. Scytale holds a knife to the babies as a threat to Paul, saying the Tleilaxu will restore Chani and he will let the babies live, but only if he gives up his throne and CHOAM holdings and lives in exile. Paul then is able to use the eyes of his infant son, who is fully conscious, to see Scytale, and he kills him with a throw of his knife. Paul tells them to take Chani's body away, and names his son Leto II (not to be confused with his eldest son that died in Dune who was also named Leto II). He names his daughter Ghanima, which Stilgar's wife Harah insists is a bad omen. He then goes to his room, where Bijaz confronts him and Duncan and makes Scytale's offer again. Paul tells Duncan to kill Bijaz before he succumbs, and he does. After this, Paul is fully blind and unable to use his abilities anymore. As is Fremen custom, he banishes himself to the desert. Stilgar executes Edric and the Reverend Mother, and Irulan renounces the Bene Gesserit and vows to raise Paul's children. Alia mourns the loss of Chani and her brother, and begs Duncan to love her, which he says he does.

Paul Muad'Dib Atreides (Mahdi, Lisan al-Gaib, Emperor of the Imperium, Usul, Kwisatz Haderach): I loved Dune Messiah because it used all of the foreshadowing of Paul's fate from Dune. Paul's story is not heroic, but tragic, and while his internal battle could be a struggle to understand at times, it still all came together in a beautiful, heart-wrenching ending.

Chani (Sayyadina, Sihaya): While her death was awful, I loved what Frank Herbert did with Chani in this book and with her relationship with Paul. While everyone says that Chani in Dune is madly in love and blindly follows Paul, I think this book definitely gave her more of her own personality. She is practical and headstrong, and, especially when she is described from Paul's perspective, you can see how much he truly loves and respects her and her opinion.

Duncan Idaho (Hayt): Duncan/Hayt was such a strange part of the book for me, especially as everyone including himself was confused on his identity. He spouted a lot of mysterious vague dialogue throughout, and his relationship with Alia definitely raises some eyebrows.

Alia Atreides (St. Alia of the Knife, Abomination, virgin-harlot): Alia was also an odd character for me, as she is supposed to be an adult in a child's body and yet she acted like a child a lot of the time. I feel like the way she was described and the way she actually was were very conflicting, although I am sure that is part of the whole point.

Storyline: This book was largely dialogue, which could be tedious but I definitely did still enjoy it. While I wish we had gotten to see Paul's Jihad, getting a feel for how it went and how their worlds are now 12 years after the fact is almost like a puzzle. I definitely wish some things had been left out, like Paul and Stilgar walking in on Alia naked, the plotting of incest by Irulan and the Reverend Mother, and Duncan and Alia's adult/minor relationship.

Representation: Scytale is asked if he is a man or a woman, and he says that all Face Dancers are "Jadacha hermaphrodites", meaning that they can be whatever sex they wish to be. The term hermaphrodite is definitely outdated, but I was surprised that there was a gender fluid character who used he, she, and they pronouns throughout a book written in the 1960s.

Summary: I think that this book was essential in driving home Frank Herbert's intention with the original story of Paul Atreides. Dune and Dune Messiah were both broad critiques of capitalism, imperialism, climate change, genocide, colonialism, and, most obviously, religion as a means to control the masses.

Quotes: -"Have you considered what it meant for Alia to be born into this universe, fully cognitive, possessed of all her mother's memories and knowledge? No rape could be more terrifying."-Bronso of Ix (p.3)

-"You think Muad'Dib is yours because he mated with Chani, because he adopted Fremen customs. But he was an Atreides first and he was trained by a Bene Gesserit adept. He possessed disciplines totally unknown to you. You thought he brought you new organization a new mission. He promised to transform your desert planet into a water-rich paradise. And while he dazzled you with such visions, he took your virginity."-Bronso of Ix (p.4)

-"Muad'Dib's Qizarate missionaries carried their religious war across space in a Jihad whose major impetus endured only twelve standard years, but in that time, religious colonialism brought all but a fraction of the human universe under one rule."-Bronso of Ix (p.8)

-"A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation."-Scytale (p.22)

-"The Fremen are civil, educated, and ignorant... They're not mad. They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous."-Scytale (p.25)

-"Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of a weapon is religion when it becomes the government?"-Edric (p.110)

-"...to endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe."-Hayt/Duncan Idaho (p.130)

-"I think what a joy it is to be alive, and I wonder if I'll ever leap inward to the root of this flesh and know myself as I once was. The root is there. Whether any act of mine can find it, that remains tangled in the future. But all things a man can do are mine. Any act of mine may do it."-Hayt/Duncan Idaho (p.133)

-"If you need something to worship, then worship life--all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!"-Paul Atreides (p.255)

[385bookreviews]

1.36.1 Dune by Frank Herbert

SPOILERS

Pages: 617

Time Read: 14 hours and 42 minutes

Overall Rating: 4★ Storyline: 3★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

TWs for the book: Violence, death, death of a parent, war, murder, colonization, fatphobia, drug use, p*dophilia, child death, grief, misogyny, sexism, addiction, slavery, blood, genocide, classism, pregnancy, torture, homophobia, drug abuse, xenophobia, cultural appropriation, racism, religious bigotry, injury, arranged marriage, r*pe, injury, kidnapping, gore, s*xual assault, su*c*de, body horror, child abuse, alcohol, gun violence, psychosis, animal cruelty/death, confinement

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: The planets Caladan, Arrakis, and Giedi Prime; 20,000 years into humanity's future.

First Line: In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

Paul Atreides is the son of Leto Atreides, the Duke of the planet Caladan, and Lady Jessica, Leto's concubine and a woman of the secretive Bene Gesserit. Leto is appointed Duke of Arrakis, the desert planet that produces spice. Spice is the most valuable product in the universe, allowing members of the Spacing Guild to see into the future in order to navigate through space, as computers and such technology are banned. The infamous Harkonnens formerly controlled the planet, but the Emperor stripped them of the privilege and gave it to Leto in order to pit the two houses against each other further and prompt Baron Vladimir Harkonnen into destroying House Atreides. The book begins when the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam of the Bene Gesserit visits Jessica and Paul amidst the moving chaos. She tells Paul to put his hand in a box where he is to feel immense pain, and she holds a poison dart at his neck to keep him from retracting it. This was a test, as she says, to see if Paul was truly human. She scolds Jessica for producing a male, saying she was supposed to bear a female to keep the breeding plan in place. By birthing a male, Jessica tried to create the Kwisatz Haderach, the male savior of the universe that the Bene Gesserit have been trying to produce for centuries through their breeding program. Paul tells the Reverend Mother of his prophetic dreams, and the Reverend Mother cautions Jessica about the future.

They travel to Arrakis and have a somewhat rough transition. Paul is almost killed by an assassin, Lady Jessica finds a mysterious warning from another Bene Gesserit, and Leto struggles to undo the damage of the Harkonnens on the populace, harvest spice with damaged equipment and the threat of sandworms, and gain the trust of the Fremen, the mysterious natives who live out in the open desert. Information is planted, and Hawat, the Atreides Mentat assassin, begins to suspect Lady Jessica of treason, just as the Harkonnens have planned. The real traitor is Doctor Yueh, but he is never suspected as he is supposed to have Imperial conditioning making him unable to kill another person. Leto sends Duncan Idaho, one of his top soldiers, to make a connection with the Fremen, and progress is being made, until Doctor Yueh drugs him and allows the Harkonnens to invade. He hates the Baron for killing and torturing his wife, however, and gives Leto a poison gas tooth so he can kill the Baron. Yueh is ultimately killed by the Baron, Leto kills the Harkonnen Mentat but the Baron escapes, Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck, and Hawat flee, and Paul and Jessica are captured, tied up, and dumped in the desert. On the way out, the Harkonnen soldiers attempt to r*pe Jessica, but Paul and Jessica use the Voice on them, a form of mind control, and manage to escape. Upon exposure to the spice out in the desert, Paul's Bene Gesserit and Mentat training come together and he can see the past, present, and future. He foresees himself becoming a religious icon to the Fremen called the Lisan al-Gaib and leading a holy war (jihad) across the galaxy. The Bene Gesserit planted legends and religious myths among the Fremen to protect any member of the Bene Gesserit who gets stranded among them. He decides to do his best to make sure the jihad doesn't happen. Duncan Idaho finds them the next day, along with some Fremen and Liet Kynes, a planetologist beholden to the Emperor and part of the scheme to destroy House Atreides. He, however, sees Arrakis as his home world and is deeply connected to the Fremen, and believes Paul to be the Lisan al-Gaib. He helps them escape when the Harkonnen catch up. Duncan Idaho is killed, and Kynes is captured. Jessica and Paul fly into a sandstorm and are presumed dead. Hawat is also captured by the Harkonnens. The Baron uses poison to manipulate Hawat into joining his side, and he kills Liet Kynes by dropping him into the desert. Gurney Halleck joins up with spice smugglers. Paul and Jessica go into the deep desert to find the Fremen, running from sandworms and fighting sand slides and dehydration. They are finally found by the leader of a sietch named Stilgar, who met with Leto and had befriended Duncan. They try to take Paul and kill Jessica but she bests Stilgar in combat. They agree to take them both in, and Paul then meets Chani, the Fremen girl he had been having dreams about and the daughter of Liet Kynes.

They travel to another cave the Fremen use, and Jessica and Paul begin to try to prove to the Fremen that Paul is the Lisan al-Gaib. Jamis, one of the warriors Paul had previously fought off, challenges Paul to a duel to the death. Paul kills him, and learns he must now take care of Jamis' wife and children. When they arrive at the sietch, Jessica agrees to become the new Reverend Mother. The Reverend Mothers hold the consciousness of all who came before them, but they can only access the women. Jessica, who is pregnant with a daughter, drinks the Waters of Life, a poison that opens her mind. The baby however, Alia, is also made conscious in the womb, and is later born fully conscious as well. Chani and Paul get together.

There is a time jump, and the Baron's nephew Beast Rabban, has been ruling Arrakis with an iron fist, part of the Baron's plan to then quell the dissention when his other nephew Feyd-Rautha arrives and is a better ruler. Feyd is sneaky and violent, and attempts to have the Baron killed, partly due to Hawat's scheming. Lady Fenring, a member of the Bene Gesserit who's husband is close with the Emperor, sleeps with Feyd in order to become pregnant with his child and continue the Harkonnen line. The Emperor begins to grow discontent with the Harkonnens.

On Arrakis, Paul becomes an official Fremen by riding a sandworm. His sister Alia has been born, and Chani has given birth to her and Paul's son, Leto II. Stilgar says that Paul must kill him and replace him as leader. Paul refuses, and reconnects with Gurney Halleck. He further proves himself to be the Lisan al-Gaib, especially after he drank the Water of Life and survived, something that is meant to kill any man who drinks it. He also claims his title as Duke of Arrakis. The Emperor, displeased with how the Baron has not managed to quell the Fremen rebellion, comes to Arrakis himself, and Leto II is killed and Alia is captured. Paul and the Fremen plot to wage war against the Harkonnens, the Emperor, and the rest of the great houses if need be. Alia and the Baron are brought before the Emperor, where Alia reveals that she is the Baron's granddaughter, as Jessica is his daughter. She then (at four years old) assassinates the Baron and escapes. The Emperor and his people are forced to retreat as their base is attacked. Paul reclaims the city of Arrakeen, and calls a meeting with the Emperor. Feyd-Rautha attempts to kill Paul in a duel by cheating, but Paul kills him. Then Paul offers to the Emperor that he will marry his oldest daughter Irulan and become Emperor himself. The Emperor is left with no choice but to concede.

Paul Muad'Dib Atreides (Lisan al-Gaib, Mahdi, Duke of Arrakis, Usul, Kwisatz Haderach): While Paul is the main character, he is not the hero of the story. He starts off fairly innocent, merely a 15 year old confused by his abilities but studiously honing them under Jessica and Hawat's training. When he gains access to the spice and sees the jihad, he swears he will do everything to avoid it. But ultimately he doesn't. He uses the legend of the Lisan al-Gaib in order to gain support and acceptance by the Fremen, at first under his mother's direction. But throughout the story, his desire to know the future and avenge his father takes over and he succumbs. He expresses regret and loneliness at the end as he realizes all of his friends are now his followers, but ultimately, he made all of the choices to get there. Paul would like to think this fate was simply unavoidable, but there were times where it wasn't. He could have chosen not to drink the Water of Life or try and take the throne from the Emperor.

Stilgar: I think Stilgar is a particularly interesting character because he is the exact representation of why what Paul is doing is not good. He is a strong, determined leader, but by the end becomes a fanatic worshipper of Paul, and, as Paul even notices, he become less of a person when he does so, losing his agency and cultural identity by blindly following this boy due to a fake prophecy created by the very people he fights against.

Duke Leto Atreides: Leto definitely tries his best to make the best of a bad situation by trying to ally himself with the native Fremen and protect his family from the Harkonnens as best he can. While Paul is said to be more like his grandfather, he definitely is what Leto might have turned into (without the religious fanaticism) if he had survived and continued to rule over Arrakis.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen: Full disclosure, I did see the movies first, so I was hoping to get a more similar Baron to Stellan Skarsgård's portrayal. The book version was definitely not nearly as imposing or terrifying. Especially once we get to see his POV, he is just a slimy, greedy old creep. On the up side, this makes him very easy to hate.

Storyline: While a bit tedious in certain parts, I really enjoyed this book. I'm a sucker for good world building and immense detail to flesh out a story to make it feel real and Frank Herbert definitely succeeds in this. That said, the dialogue could be a bit strange at time, as well as Gurney's random songs, and the switching of POVs mid paragraph. Despite that, it was a unique and powerful story. There is a lot of social commentary here, addressing white saviorism, colonialism, imperialism, religious fanaticism, and a critique specifically of America taking oil from the Middle East. I especially loved all of the foreshadowing that went into this. While people say that the movies were meant to be looked into and nothing was spelled out for you, you definitely had to be paying even closer attention in the book, lest you miss out on the themes and parallels.

Quotes: -"Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."-Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (p.14) -"But let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them."-Duke Leto Atreides (p.111) -"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh."-Paul Atreides (p.131) -"That honorable banner could come to mean many evil things."-Duke Leto Atreides (p.134) -"There is no escape--we pay for the violence of our ancestors."-Paul Atreides (p.186) -"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."-Paul Atreides (p.291) -"Arrakis is a one-crop planet... It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It's the masses and the leavings that occupy our attention. There are far more valuable than has ever been suspected."-Pardot Kynes (hallucination) (p.349) -"We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population."-Pardot Kynes (hallucination) (p.350) -"No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero."-Pardot Kynes (hallucination) (p.351) -"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."-Paul Atreides (p.471) -"When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual."-Princess Irulan (p.516) -"I swear this to you by the love I hold for you, a love I will still hold even after I leave you dead on this floor."-Paul Atreides (p.546) -"One of the most terrible moments in a boy's life... Is when he discovers his father and mother are human beings who share a love that he can never quite taste."-Paul Atreides (p.546) -"...they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening."-Paul Atreides (p.570) -"...Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from the Fremen naib to a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, a receptacle for awe and obedience. It was a lessening of the man, and Paul felt the ghost-wind of the jihad on it." (p.592) -"I have seen a friend become a worshipper."-Paul Atreides (p.592)

[385bookreviews]

2.252 The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

SPOILERS

Disclaimer: This review is my personal opinion. I did not like this book, but it is not my intention to hate on anyone who did like this book. I encourage you to read things on your own and have your own feelings about them.

Pages: 410

Time Read: 8 hours and 25 minutes

Overall Rating: 1.5★ Storyline: 1.5★ Dialogue: 2★ Characters: 1★

Genre: Adult Gothic Fantasy

TWs for the book: Violence, gore, blood, body horror, self harm, mutilation, religious bigotry, antisemitism, death, animal death, injury, murder, xenophobia, animal cruelty, torture, physical abuse, war, racism, death of a parent, bullying, hate crimes, colonization, child abuse, genocide, grief, emotional abuse, s*xual content, kidnapping, fire, confinement, vomit, classism, abandonment, racial slurs, misogyny, child death, sexism, trafficking, body shaming, toxic relationship, cultural appropriation, toxic friendship

POV: First person

Time Period/Location: The fictional country of Régország; including the village Keszi, the forest of Ezer Szem, the Black Lake, the Little Plain, Kaleva, Lake Taivas, and the capital city of Kirláy Szek.

First Line: The trees have to be tied down by sunset.

Évike has spent her entire life in the pagan village of Keszi, hidden away by the forest of Ezer Szem. Girls in this village are gifted with powers, the ability to forge metal by singing, the ability to make fire, the ability to heal, or, the rarest, the ability to have visions of the future. They wear wolf pelts as cloaks, giving them the title of wolf-girls. Every few years, the Woodsman, loyal servants of King János Bárány of Régország, come and take a wolf-girl to the capital, Kirláy Szek, where they are never heard from again. When Évike was 10, her mother was taken. She was born with no powers, and her father was Yehuli, a race of people that serve as tax collectors for the king. She has spent her entire life with one friend, Boróka, and was raised by the táltos (seer and village leader), Virág. The story begins with her helping the village prepare for the Woodsmans' arrival, and is taunted and teased by a seer girl Katalin and her friends. When they go to see Virág that evening, she has a vision, seeing that the Woodsman are coming to take Katalin. Because she is the only other seer in the village, and she is to replace Virág when she dies, she dyes Évike's hair and makes her pretend to be Katalin. The Woodsman take her and drag her off into the woods. On the way there, one of the Woodsman, Peti, tries to kill her in a religious fervor. The leader of the four Woodsman, one-eyed Gáspár, chops off Peti's arm as punishment. He later dies from infection and blood loss. They make it out of the forest and camp near the Black Lake, where the other two Woodsman are eaten by shapeshifting monsters disguised as black chickens. Gáspár and Évike fight them off, and he reveals that he is the legitimate son and heir of János Bárány. He says that his bastard brother Nándor wants to mess up the line of succession and overthrow their father. He follows the Patrifaith, like most of Régország, but is fervently religious and wants to exile the Yehuli and kill all of the pagans. Régország is also at war with Merzan, a country to the south, and where Gáspár's mother came from. King János wanted a seer so he could use her power to win the war. Gáspár wants to give his father a seer before Saint István's Day to stop Nándor from taking over, but in the fight Évike's hair dye came off and she was revealed for what she was. They make a bargain, that if Évike helps him find the turul, a magic bird that can see past, present, and future, he will let her return to her village.

They begin their journey north to Kaleva, where they believe the turul is. They stop in a village which claims to be plagued by a monster killing people. Gáspár agrees to help them hunt the monster, much to Évike's annoyance. They spend a couple days there and eventually find the remnants of the missing people in the tent of the village leader. Gáspár kills him, and they go on their way again. Gáspár and Évike grow closer the farther they travel north, and eventually reach Lake Taivas and the forest they believe hides the turul. In the Patrifaith, the Woodsman cut off limbs and body parts or cut themselves in order to wield magic. Gáspár's missing eye marks him as a Woodsman, and he cuts himself to light fires. Évike begins to wonder if she could do something similar. The wolf-girls get their magic from Isten, the pagan father god, but she wonders if she perhaps should have been praying to Ördög, the god of the Under-World, this whole time. She cuts off one of her pinky fingers and then sticks her whole hand into the fire and it goes out. They are chased from the forest onto the frozen lake by walking trees, and Évike falls through the ice. Gáspár jumps in to save her, and they both become unconscious on the ice. They wake up in a tree house with a pagan woman named Tuula, and her pet bear Bierdna. They later meet her partner, Szabín, who is a former Patrician. She tells the story of how Nándor grew up with her and he fell through the ice on a lake and froze to death. The Érsek, the archbishop, prayed over him and he came back to life, so he was given sainthood.

Gáspár and Évike try to continue their hunt for the turul, but Tuula and Szabín warn them not to. They realize they don't have enough time, and begin the journey back. Gáspár tries to convince Évike to go back to Keszi, but she refuses, saying she wants to find her father. They encounter several monsters on the way to Kirláy Szek, including a monster disguised as a naked young girl. When the monster dies, an spell makes Gáspár and Évike drawn to each other and they make out in the woods, but when the spell breaks, Gáspár rejects Évike, which hurts her feelings. They arrive in Kirláy Szek on Saint István's Day and Évike tries to find her father Zsigmond. Someone on Yehuli street finally tells her that he is being punished by Nándor for working on a holy day. It is against the Yehuli's religion to touch pig, so they find Nándor making Zsigmond kneel on a dead pig. Évike tries to defend him but is taken to the dungeon. She is then presented before the king, who wears a crown of fingernails all coming from the dead wolf-girls the Woodsman have taken. He is able to wield all of their powers. He tries to get her to demonstrate any of the four abilities but she isn't able to, so he tries to execute her. She brings up her hand to touch his sword and it disintegrates. She makes a deal with the king that she will use her magic to protect him if he promises to leave Keszi and the pagans alone and free her father Zsigmond. He agrees, and she spends a week playing bodyguard for the king while reconnecting with her father and learning how to write and about her Yehuli heritage.

Then Katalin is brought into the capital by Woodsman, and Nándor tries to kill Évike. She escapes, and her, Gáspár, and Katalin flee north to Kavala, using Katalin's seeing ability to find the turul once and for all. When they arrive back at Lake Taivas, they are confronted by Tuula, Szabín, and Bierdna. They all fight, and Évike jumps into the frozen lake once again. She finds herself transported to the top of the turul's tree, and she uses her magic to kill it. When she reaches the bottom, the Woodsman have caught up to them and capture them all. They are taken back to the capital, and the king eats the eyes of the turul, but the power is too strong and he starts to go mad. Nándor kills him then and there, and captures Évike, Gáspár, and Katalin. He kills the Érsek, and says that Katalin and Évike will be executed the next day, and Gáspár will crown him as king. Afterwards he will stab out Gáspár's other eye and exile him. The next day comes, and right before the coronation, Katalin has a vision and says that the pagans have come to attack the city. The Woodsman fight the pagans but lose, and Évike and Gáspár kill Nándor.

Évike goes back to Keszi and agrees to be the ambassador between Keszi and Kirláy Szek.

Évike: This book was nearly impossible to get through due to Évike being the most unbearable main character I've ever had the displeasure of reading about. She is unbelievably horny for Gáspár the entire book with pretty much no basis. She goes from hating him to wanting to have sex with him in no time, and there is really no chemistry or connection between them at all. Évike is a brat, reading as no more than a moody teenager, while in actuality being 25 years old. She is hateful for no reason a lot of the times, and while she definitely has reasons to be angry, she's mostly just a bully. The entire plot revolves around her saving her abusers to prove that they weren't right about her, and then she goes back to them in the end. Pointed out by a reviewer called Nasi on GoodReads, she does not at all act like someone who has been bullied and abused for more than half her life. She doesn't try to avoid situations in which she could be hurt, or have much of any empathy for Gáspár. She finally feels at home and welcomed like she never has before with her father and the Yehuli, and yet she still goes back to Keszi to be with her abusers and that makes literally zero sense to me. Everyone she meets reminds her of either Katalin or Virág to the point of annoyance.

Gáspár Bárány: He had so much potential that was completely wasted throughout this book. He honestly should have been the main character and had everything coming through his POV. He had to go through a lot of complex emotions: betraying his faith, fighting his brother, trying to protect his father even though he hurt him, falling in love with Évike despite the fact that she was completely unlikable, becoming the ruler of a nation overnight. He goes through a lot of growth throughout the book that we don't get to see at all.

Virág and Katalin: Virág whipped Évike almost daily and was cruel to her, and Katalin regularly burned her and called her racial slurs, and yet, with no apology for said behavior, and some half ass excuses from both of them, they get a redemption arc where Évike completely justifies their behavior in her mind and goes back to them, and they start being nicer to her just because she saved them all. Katalin's reason for tormenting her was she was jealous that Virág was nice to her sometimes (even though Virág was nice to Katalin ALL the time and never beat her). Virág's reason for saving Évike from being thrown into the woods after her mother was taken by the Woodsman and tolerating her for 15 years was that she had a vision and knew that Évike would save her life in the battle.

Storyline: The storyline was boring and unpredictable (but not in a good way). The first 50% of the book is Évike and Gáspár wandering around and being bitchy with each other, and while this would have been the perfect opportunity to have the romance build up, it doesn't. If anything it proves how little of a connection is between them besides the fact that Évike is horny and finds him hot. The next half of the book had me wondering the entire time how the book was going to end because I didn't see a way for a good, plausible ending (there wasn't). The real magic of the book was the magic of convenience. Nándor brutally kills the Érsek with magic previously unseen before by the reader, and yet Évike and Gáspár take him out fairly easily in comparison to how powerful this character has been made out to be. We also never get an explanation as to why Nándor IS so powerful. Évike spends half the book wondering about it, and yet the only explanation we get is that it must have been the time he died in the ice. But how did he come back to life? Why did he come back to life? Why did that give him greater powers? What magic was he really using? Ava Reid set up a pretty cool magic system and then gave us nothing with it. We only see Évike's magic a handful of times before she loses it by killing the turul. The Yehuli are shown to have a really cool magic using words that is also barely demonstrated. Tuula's magic, seeming to be a control over animals that the pagans in Kavala, the Juuvi, possess, is underused as well. The happily ever after ending we get where suddenly the Merzani, the Yehuli, the pagans, and the Patricians are suddenly cool with each other despite years and years of hate, violence, and genocide is completely implausible.

Representation: The language and culture were supposed to be based on Hungarian culture, but after reading the comments of a Hungarian reviewer named Brigi on GoodReads, among others, I've learned that the "Hungarian representation" is more like loose cultural and linguistic appropriation at best. The Yehuli were based off the Jewish people. Gáspár is mixed as he is half Merzani and he faces racism from his own people due to this fact. He also is missing an eye. Évike is missing a pinky finger, and the rest of the Woodsman also have missing pieces of their face/body, but all of that is self inflicted. Tuula and Szabín are gay, and it is hinted that Katalin and Boróka might have feelings for each other.

Summary: This book did have the potential. The magic system was unique and intriguing. There was a lot of good commentary on religion and culture. Gáspár could have been a really intriguing character. The gothic horror folklore vibe definitely was there and could have been there better. But all of it was wasted on a horrible attempt at enemies to lovers and nicely wrapped up ending where everyone is happy, the end. Ava Reid definitely knows how to write, and a lot of her prose is beautiful, but it felt like she tried to use her prose to make up for the fact that her story was simply not good. There was an abundance of metaphors and similes, so dense in parts that I had trouble differentiating the descriptive language from what was actually happening. Some of the word usage didn't even make sense. I love the unique names, however, from what I've heard, the pronunciation and spellings weren't even done correctly, and going back and forth from the story to the pronunciation guide constantly was exhausting. There was an overabundance of repeated words, phrases, and information that made everything seem incredibly shallow, and the fact that this was happening in first person narration reflected on Évike and made her even more unlikable and stupid. Also with it being first person, a lot of the flowerly language didn't make sense for who Évike is, especially when you learn 60% of the way into the book that she is illiterate. I really don't know if I'll be picking up anymore books by Ava Reid, and I sadly do not understand the hype here as this was definitely one of the worst books I've read.

Quotes: "I can't even light a match myself, of course, but if the price of Woodsman power is being honor-bound to some morose, pitiless god who demands purity and perfection, I'm not sure it's worth the cost."-Évike (p. 65) "All that talk of quiet obedience is for their benefit, not yours. They don't have to go to the effort of striking you down if you're already on your knees."-Évike (p. 97)

[385bookreviews]

2.195 Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

SPOILERS

Pages: 280

Time Read: 3 hours

Overall Rating: 2.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 2.5★ Characters: 3★

Genre: Middle Grade/YA Fiction

TWs for the book: Death of a parent, death of a grandparent, stillbirth, hysterectomy, medical trauma, grief, car accident, abandonment, death of a grandparent, racial slur, brief discussion of the psych ward, paranoia, blood, ableism, pregnancy; very mild discussion of hanging, murder, kidnapping, and torture

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: The time period is not clear but it takes place mostly in Bybanks, Kentucky; Euclid, Ohio; and then a road trip from Euclid to Lewiston, Idaho

First Line: Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true.

Salamanca, a 13 year old girl and our main character, lived on a farm with her mother and father in Bybanks, Kentucky. After the stillbirth of her sister and a subsequent hysterectomy due to bleeding, Sal's mother leaves to take a bus trip to Lewiston, Idaho to visit her cousin, see the sights, and to ultimately find herself. Sal and her father learn not long later that her mother was involved in a crash and died. Shortly after, Sal's father rented out their farm and moved them to Euclid, Ohio to be closer to her father's friend Mrs. Margaret Cadaver. While there, Sal befriends an anxious girl named Phoebe Winterbottom.

Sal didn't get to see her mother's grave whenever she died, so her Gram and Gramps, her father's parents, take her on a week long road trip to retrace Sugar's last steps and to arrive at her grave in Lewiston on her birthday. While on the drive, she entertains her grandparents with stories about Phoebe and her family. She notices that Phoebe has a lot of wild notions about things and naturally assumes the worst of people. Sal spends a lot of time at her house and notices that Phoebe, her older sister Prudence, and father Mr. Winterbottom, tend to take Mrs. Winterbottom for granted and ignore all of the effort she puts in to her cooking. Sal also learns where Phoebe gets all of her wild ideas from, as her mother is also exceedingly anxious and worried about robbers and "lunatics". One day, while Phoebe and Sal are home alone at Phoebe's house, a nervous young man knocks on the door and asks to see Mrs. Winterbottom. Phoebe says she isn't there. After he leaves, Phoebe starts imagining the young man as some kind of lunatic looking to harm them. The paranoia increases when mysterious blank envelopes begin appearing at their front door step, all with mysterious sayings such as, "Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins" and "In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?".

Phoebe and Sal befriend Mary Lou and her cousin Ben, who lives with her. Ben flirts with Sal, much to her confusion. Phoebe shares with Sal her wild conspiracies about Mrs. Cadaver, and they only grow whenever they see their English teacher Mr. Burbanks at her house helping her to replant a bush. Phoebe tells Sal that Mrs. Cadaver used to be married, but she probably chopped up her husband and buried him under that bush, and Mr. Burbanks helped. Not long later, Mrs. Winterbottom leaves a note that she will be gone for awhile. Sal then has to watch Phoebe go through exactly what she did when her mother left. Phoebe assumes that her mother has been kidnapped, tortured, or murdered by "the lunatic" (the young man that knocked on the door) or Mrs. Cadaver. She puts tape around mysterious spots in the house and collects random hairs as evidence. Her father and sister and Sal all try to explain that her mother wrote notes and left them frozen meals for dinner so surely she wasn't kidnapped, but Phoebe isn't convinced. She goes to the police station, but they laugh at her and don't take her seriously. Her and Sal then break into Mrs. Cadaver's house, and Phoebe tries again to take evidence to the police, but is once again shut down. While there, Sal manages to see that "the lunatic" is the police sergeants' son. At school, Mr. Burbanks causes some drama amongst the students after reading their summer journals aloud to the class. He reads in Phoebe's that she suspects Mrs. Cadaver to be a murderer, so he stops by her house to speak to her and Sal and explain that Mrs. Cadaver is his twin sister, and that her husband died in a drunk driving accident that also blinded their mother, Mrs. Partridge. Sal continues to see herself in Phoebe as the mystery continues, and through some minor sleuthing, they find out where Mike, "the lunatic", lives. They travel by bus to his college, running into Ben on the way to the hospital. They are about to go up to Mike's room, but change their minds, only to see Phoebe's mother sitting with closely with him and giving him a peck on the cheek. Phoebe is angry, and Sal gets scared and runs, assuming Phoebe will follow but she doesn't. She goes to the hospital to find Ben and discovers he is visiting his mother in the psychiatric ward. They kiss for the first time. Phoebe is immensely angry at her mother, and refuses to tell her father what she saw. When they arrive back at her house though, her father informs her that her mother will be coming home and bringing someone to meet them. They prepare, and Mrs. Winterbottom comes home with Mike, and explains that he is her son that she had put up for adoption before she married Mr. Winterbottom. Mr. Winterbottom is distraught she kept this from him but is determined to be civil and make it work. Phoebe is still angry and leaves with Sal, and they find that the mysterious letters have been being left by Mrs. Partridge. Sal finally decides to speak to Mrs. Cadaver about how her and her father met, something Sal had been avoiding. She discovers that Mrs. Cadaver was on the bus sitting next to her mother for the whole trip when it crashed, and she was the only survivor. Her father had met her in Idaho when he was making burial arrangements, and moved him and Sal closer to her so he could have some connection to the last person who saw his wife alive.

During this whole story, Sal is in the car traveling with her Gram and Gramps to Idaho. They stop and see a lot of national monuments and sights. At one point though, while swimming in the river, her Gram is bit by a water moccasin. A boy who had been telling them to leave because it was private property helps to suck the venom out, and they take her to the hospital. She is weak afterwards, and has a cough. By the time they arrive in Idaho at midnight on Sal's mom's birthday, Gram is unconscious and they rush her to the hospital. They say she had a stroke. Gramps gives Sal the keys so she can drive herself to see her mother's grave. The four hour drive is on a dangerous and windy road, and Sal stops for a few breaks. At one of the stops along the side, a passing driver who is also stopped tells her that the bus her mother died in is down in the woods. She goes down and tries to get in it, but can't find a way in. When she comes back up, the police sheriff is there, wondering what she is doing. She explains everything that happened, and they take her and Gramps' car down to where her mother is buried. She is finally able to say goodbye properly and fully accept that her mother isn't coming back. The sheriff then drives her back to the hospital, where she finds a note saying that her Gram has died and that Gramps is back at the motel. They head back to Euclid. In the end, Sal and her father move back to their farm in Bybanks, and Gramps moves in with them. Gram is buried in the field and Mrs. Cadaver, Mrs. Partridge, Ben, and Phoebe all plan to visit them.

Storyline: This middle grade book has been sitting on my shelf since elementary school without me having picked it up. I finally did, and was pleasantly surprised by the beautiful, heart-wrenching narrative. Obviously the dialogue and characters are what you would expect of a middle grade book, but this story about grief and loss and the processing of those feelings was really well done.

Representation: Salamanca and her mother Sugar are described as being "American Indian". They also meet another "American Indian" man along their trip. I put that in quotes because there are multiple passages in the book criticizing the use of the term Native American. There is also the use of the a slur for Native Americans. Sharon Creech, the author, is not Native American herself, and has admitted to romanticizing Indigenous culture. The quote and article below was written by Dr. Debbie Reese, as I am not knowledgable enough or in the position to speak on this subject myself: "[Sharon Creech is] an outsider to Native culture, trying to write a story as if she's an insider. But her story is based on outsider's writings, and outsider's understandings, and it doesn't work... the Indian content doesn't really matter. It is simply a device, or, a decoration on a story about a young girl coming to terms with life and death." https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2010/02/thoughts-on-sharon-creechs-walk-two.html

[385bookreviews]

2.62 A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L Peck

SPOILERS

Pages: 102

Time Read: 1 hour and 45 minutes

Overall Rating: 3.5★ Storyline: 4.5★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 3.5★

Genre: Theological Existential Horror

TWs for the book: Death, violence, su*c*de, murder, torture, injury, body horror, self harm, physical abuse, grief, gore, discussions of SA, blood, religious bigotry/themes, cancer, confinement, kidnapping, alcohol, nondescriptive s*xual content, slavery

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: In the fictional Hell of the Zoroastrian religion.

First Line: Although I have loved many, there has been only one genuine love in my near-eternally stretched life--Rachel who fell to the bottom of the library without me.

The story begins with the ramblings of Soren, the main character of the book. He speculates on his billion year old life living in a near infinite library, while he searches for the book that tells the complete story of his life. He is able to tell of only a few books that have coherent writing, and implies that the book we are reading is one of them. He goes on to tell the story of how he got there. He was a 45 year old Mormon man with a wife and kids who died of a brain tumor and arrived in the office of a demon with two other men and two women. The demon says that this is Hell, and when a Christian man tries to argue that he was saved and believed in the one true religion, the demon informs them that the one true religion was actually Zoroastrianism, and that they will not be tortured physically or remain in Hell forever. He then sends them to their individual punishments. Soren arrives in a seemingly endless hall in a library. The top and bottom floors are so high up they are invisible, and when looking down the hall to the right or left, he can't see the end either. He discovers a room with beds and a bathroom, and a kiosk that will dispense whatever food or drink is desired. The instructions are simple: find the book that contains your life story, with no errors, grammatical or otherwise, and place it into the kiosk slot, and you will be taken to heaven. There is a clock on the wall noting the time and how many days its been.

Soren quickly makes friends and they shuffle through the books, realizing quickly that most of them are entirely gibberish, with hardly even a complete word being found in a single book. Soren struggles to come to terms with his Mormon faith being disproved, and has his first cup of coffee. When the others start drinking alcohol though, he runs away, and tries to get to the end of one of the hallways. He runs for around three weeks before turning and going back. He also realizes that all of the characters and symbols of the books are in English, and that there are only white people from America who died between the mid 1900s and 2043. He ends up getting with a woman named Betty for two years before moving on.

100 years later, he is with a girl named Sandra. They are part of a "university" dedicated to finding the books. Every year they have a ceremony where they read the best text found so far, which that year is simply one sentence in a book that reads, "The bat housed again four leaves of it." They also pray to the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda. After the ceremony, Soren speaks with Rachel, the one who read the text, and they have a deep conversation speculating about their situation. She then tells him of the expedition that she went on in year 58 to discover the ends of the library. A group went up, down, right, and left. She was a part of the left group, and they found nothing but more books, and they stopped seeing any other people after a year. After five years, they turned around and went back. The up group traveled for 23 years before turning back, and one member of their group stayed behind to continue climbing upward. Soren dumped Sandra for Rachel, and they are together for a 1000 years.

In their 1145th year in Hell, an extremist named Dire Dan claimed to have a vision from Ahura Mazda saying that he needed to punish people. He formed a cult that ran around the library, killing, torturing, and r*ping people, as he thought it would bring them out of the library sooner. The peace falls apart, and Rachel and Soren run away. They are caught by the cult members, called the Direites, but before they can grab Rachel she throws herself over the railing into the infinite pit in the center of the library. Soren tries to run as well, but is captured and knocked unconscious. For 36 days, he is held captive and killed six seconds after waking every day. He finally manages to roll away from the blow one morning, and they take him to a meeting. They say he can either be a tortured slave or he can take up torturing himself. Soren sees Dire Dan and shoves him over the railing, jumping with him. They both fall for days, Soren eventually losing sight of Dire Dan and dying of thirst. He wakes up and eventually learns to control his falling and swerve onto a floor, breaking his arms, legs, and neck in the process. A man comes by and offers to kill him, which Soren accepts. He wakes up the next day alone, and stays there for awhile before the man comes back. He has found a book with several complete senses, although they don't make much sense. Soren then continues upwards, and finds a man who had been crying. He doesn't engage with Soren at all, so he continues upwards and finds a group of people also crying. They tell him to continue up 17 levels and he'll find Took, and get the answer. Soren finds Took, and he explains that he did the math to calculate how many books are in the library: 95^1,312,000. When Soren asks if that's a lot, Took explains that there are only 10^78 electrons in the universe.

Soren wanders, distraught and empty for days. He falls for weeks and years as well. One day, while wandering on one of the floors, he sees someone fall past him. He jumps and grabs her, tying them together so they fall together. When she wakes up, she tells him her name is Wand, and they are intimate with each other. They figure out a way to swing Wand onto a floor, and then three days later, after repeated deaths, Soren manages to stop falling. He runs up the stairs, but never finds her. The book ends with Soren billions of years old, still searching for his book, utterly numb and broken.

Storyline: This was a very unique take on the afterlife and religion overall. It was a nice, quick, entertaining read. I went into this expecting more of a point to be made about humanity or religion, or for their to be some divine clarity or revelation at the end, but that's not what this book was. It was definitely more of a horror for me. The existential dread of it all was what really made it compelling. I wish there had been more elaboration on some things, but I do think the point of it was to not have that kind of clarification, so that might just bug me personally.

Quotes: "Strange, how a moment of existence can cut so deeply into our being that while ages pass unnoticed, a brief love can structure and define the very topology of our consciousness ever after."-Soren (p.1) "No. Sorry. The true religion is Zoroastrianism, I'm afraid. Bit of bad luck there. Christianity certainly borrowed a great deal from the one true religion, but not enough, unfortunately. Not nearly enough."-Xandern (p.7) "What kind of God would leave you burning forever?"-Xandern (p.8)

[385bookreviews]

1.72.8 Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J Maas

SPOILERS

Pages: 980

Time Read: 16 hours and 44 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 4★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: YA Fantasy

TWs for the book: Torture, war, death, violence, blood, injury, grief, confinement, murder, gore, fire, death of a parent, s*xual content, kidnapping, physical abuse, emotional abuse, pregnancy, su*c*de/su*c*dal thoughts/attempts, gaslighting, animal death, body horror, panic attacks, slavery, cursing, vomit, medical content, mental illness, abandonment, genocide, self harm, SA, colonization, classism, ableism

POV: Third Person

Time Period/Location: 2 months after the events of Empire of Storms/Tower of Dawn in Terrasen, Adarlan, and Wendlyn.

First Line: The snows had come early.

Aedion and Lysandra have gone north to Terrasen with their allies. Lysandra is still pretending to be Aelin and Aedion is still refusing to speak with her.

Rowan has been searching for Aelin for months with Gavriel, Elide, and Lorcan. They go through Wendlyn, occasionally interrogating some of Maeve's higher officials. Aelin is being held prisoner in an iron coffin by Maeve and is being tortured by her and Cairn to force her to take the blood oath and tell Maeve the location of the Wyrdkeys. Fenrys is forced to remain in wolf form and watch Aelin suffer.

Dorian, Manon, and the Thirteen are on the hunt for the third Wyrdkey, but give up when it proves fruitless to start hunting down the Crochan witches. Dorian summons Gavin's ghost, and makes plans to leave the group in order to infiltrate Morath. Right when the witches and Dorian are about to leave camp, they are attacked by a shapeshifting stygian spider who wants Manon dead for stealing her spidersilk. The spider, who names herself Cyrene, is the same one that took Falkan's youth, and she also took some of his magic as well. Dorian captures her with his magic, and she tells them that if she leaves them alive she will guide them to the location of the Crochans. Dorian agrees despite Manon's hesitation because he wants to learn how to shapeshift.

Aelin is brought to Maeve's throne room, having been being kept in Doranelle this whole time. She makes Aelin kneel on glass with Mab's crown on her head and tries to force her to submit. She then tells Connall to tell Fenrys how he feels. Connall is angry with Fenrys and speaks harshly to him, and then kills himself with a dagger to the heart on Maeve's command.

Chaol and the khaganate's forces sail for Terrasen, but Sartaq reveals that there is a Valg army marching for Anielle, Chaol's home. They decide to send their forces to prepare Anielle for siege and to try and defeat the army.

Rowan, Elide, Lorcan, and Gavriel decide to head east to try and find Aelin, but they feel a surge of her power from the north and head for Doranelle.

Dorian, Manon, and the Thirteen follow Cyrene to the Crochan camp. They meet Glennis, Manon's great-grandmother on her father's side. They are not very welcomed except by Glennis, which makes Manon's task of recruiting them for the war all the more difficult. They are attacked by Yellowlegs witches that Manon lured there, and the Crochans and Thirteen fight against them. Fighting against the other Ironteeth gains them some acceptance, but not much, as some of the Crochans rightly suspect that Manon lured them there. Glennis tells Manon the Crochans only go to war when their queen calls them to war, and she must be accepted first. Dorian tries to learn shapeshifting from Cyrene, and he discovers that the spiders are Valg. He then kills her.

Darrow commands Aedion and Lysandra (as Aelin) to take their forces north to Orynth, but Aedion refuses and has Nox Owen, Darrow's messenger and also the thief Aelin was friends with in Throne of Glass, drug the lords so they can sneak south to defend the border.

Aelin spins illusions and dreams for Aelin to try and trick her into swearing the blood oath and telling her about they keys. She tells Aelin her story of being a Valg queen without saying outright that she is Valg. Aelin refuses to tell her and the illusion breaks. Maeve tells Aelin she will be gone for a few days to retrieve a Wyrdstone collar so she can finally control break her. Cairn moves her to a different location. Rowan and Elide actually spread the rumor of the collars to get Maeve away from Doranelle. After seeing Maeve's army camped outside of the city, Elide decides to go into the city itself asking after Cairn to see if she can find his location. She goes up to a group of soldiers talking with a beautiful Fae lady and begins to ask them about Cairn. They advise her against seeking him out, and reveal to her that Maeve has left Doranelle. The beautiful Fae finds Elide afterwards and says her name is Essar and she is Lorcan's ex girlfriend. She says she knows by her clothes that she is with Rowan and Lorcan and figures out that they are hunting for Aelin. She tells Elide that Cairn is in the eastern camp, and her and her sister give Elide information so that way they can get in. Cairn plans to burn Aelin as his torture method for the day. Aelin begins taunting him, and he unlocks her from the table and holds her over a fire. She fights back, and Cairn is close to killing her, so Fenrys breaks the blood oath and attacks Cairn. Aelin runs through the camp in the direction of Gavriel and Lorcan. They signal to Rowan, who is killing his way through the soldiers, that they found her, but Aelin begs Rowan and Gavriel to go and save Fenrys from Cairn. They find Fenrys and Cairn both unconscious, and Rowan chains Cairn to the table and peels off his skin before killing him. They meet up in the forest with Lorcan, Elide, and Aelin. Aelin has a panic attack when the iron chains, mask, and gauntlets won't come off, but they manage to get them off with Wyrdmarks. She then goes to Fenrys, who is dying from breaking the blood oath with Maeve, and she offers him the blood oath, which saves his life. They all notice that Aelin is now completely without scars, as she was tortured so much in so many places the healers essentially had to give her completely new skin. The Little Folk appear and guide them into a cave for the night, stocked with bedrolls and some food. Aelin lays down next to Fenrys and goes to sleep.

Manon, Dorian, the Thirteen, and the Crochans fly to Eyllwe to help other Crochans that were fighting against Valg. They were too late to help because they were delayed by Manon's arrival and the attack. Manon and the Thirteen hand dig their graves, and they earn some respect from the Crochans for this. Manon then catches Dorian speaking with Kaltain's ghost as he makes his plans for breaking into Morath. They fight over him not telling her.

Aedion and his armies fight are slowly driven back from the border by Morath's forces. They plan to retreat north to Perranth, and his soldiers begin to lose moral from "Aelin" not using her fire magic to help them. Aedion and Lysandra have a vicious argument, and he kicks her out of his tent into the snow, naked.

Aelin wakes up in the cave with her companions. She goes up to Rowan and they go to the underground lake to talk. She goes into the freezing water to let the edge off of her pent up magic and they talk. She doesn't believe that anything is real until the Little Folk told her it was. A boat appears, pulled by creatures under the water, and the Little Folk instruct them to get on the boat and it will take them to the coast because it isn't safe above ground. They also give Aelin Mab's crown. The boat pulls them for several days but they stop at an underground burial sight in order to loot gold to pay for their ship back to the west. Aelin finds wedding rings for her and Rowan. They get back on the boat and make it to the coast, immediately sailing west. Aelin makes Lorcan swear the blood oath to ensure his loyalty.

Dorian shapeshifts into a Valg to sneak into the Ferian Gap for Manon. He finds that the Matrons aren't there, only Petrah Blueblood and her witches. Manon flies in and asks the Petrah and the Ironteeth to rebel against Erawan and the Matrons. She reveals that her grandmother wants to be queen of the Ironteeth, and then she leaves.

Anielle holds against the Morath soldiers' siege. Yrene is revealed to be pregnant. The rest of khaganate's army arrives to fight the Valg.

In Perranth, Aedion is fighting a losing battle. Lysandra feels guilty, and steps onto the battlefield as Aelin. An ilken swipes her with its claws and she goes down. Aedion runs to save her. Just then, a witch tower appears, and a young witch gives her life in a Yielding, a powerful blast of magic that incinerates everything around it, including the witch. She jumps into the tower and 4000 of Aedion's men are wiped out, causing them to retreat.

Nesryn, Sartaq, Yrene, Chaol, and Hasar are still at Anielle and are planning what to do to defeat the rest of the Valg army. Aelin, Rowan, Lorcan, Gavriel, Fenrys, and Elide appear, and Aelin, Chaol, and Yrene have a joyful reunion. Falkan arrives and has been turned young again due to Dorian killing Cyrene, and he also recognizes Aelin as the assassin that he spoke with in Xandria in The Assassin's Blade. They exchange information, and Chaol confirms that Maeve is Valg. Lorcan and Elide fight, and she shames him for having been in love with Maeve, and she says she doesn't care if he dies.

Lysandra awakes three days after the battle to discover that they have been fleeing from Morath. She also shifted back into her human form while she was pretending to be Aelin so they all know that Aelin isn't with them. Aedion tries to apologize for all of the hurtful things he said but Lysandra refuses to accept the apology and tells him to leave. Darrow strips Aedion of his title as general and makes him give back the Sword of Orynth.

At the Crochan camp, the three Matrons arrive to fight Manon. The Yellowlegs Matron is wearing the Crochan crown of stars. Manon singlehandedly takes them on and kills the Yellowlegs Matron and takes the crown. Manon lets the Blueblood Matron go, and then tells Asterin that the Blackbeak Matron is her's to kill. Manon's grandmother decides to run instead. Glennis then crowns Manon as the Queen of Witches.

In Anielle, the battle rages, and Nesryn and Sartaq catch a group of soldiers trying to break the dam. They stop them, but the dam is irreparably damaged and going to break. They win the battle, but are about to lose the whole army to the dam. On the battlefield, Lorcan lays dying. Elide notices he's missing and steals Chaol's horse to go and search for him. She finds him and they try to run back to the walls but are too late. The dam breaks, but Aelin appears in front of the wave, and releases three months worth of built up fire power to evaporate the water.

Manon offers to marry Dorian if it will keep him from going to Morath. He neither accepts or refuses, but he leaves the next morning with the two Wyrdkeys anyways.

Rolfe and the Mycenians arrive and barely manage to save the remaining of Aedion's army and take them to Orynth. Terrasen calls for aid.

Manon receives Terrasen's call for aid and says she will help. The Crochans agree to follow her.

Elide and Lorcan make up. Aelin tells Rowan she sent a letter to Essar and Rowan's cousins' father to try and convince them to oust Maeve as queen because she is Valg and disband her army. The khaganate's armies march for Terrasen.

Dorian sneaks into Morath as a mouse, and he sees Maeve talking to Erawan. She reveals to Erawan that she is his long lost sister-in-law and that she was ousted as Queen of Doranelle. She proposes to Erawan that her kharankui can be the hosts for his remaining six Valg princesses. He agrees, and Maeve goes to her room, with Dorian following. She traps him the second they are alone, and proposes that they work together, as she wants the Wyrdkeys to send Erawan home and keep him or his brothers from ever coming back. Dorian agrees and says he will marry her.

Maeve attempts to seduce Erawan so she can get into his tower. He refuses, wanting to stay loyal to his brother Orcus, her husband. Since that failed, she plans to show Erawan an illusion of his brothers so that way Dorian can sneak into Erawan's tower. He finds a girl with a collar around her throat and the Wyrdkey in her arm, like Kaltain. She begs Dorian to kill her after he removes it, and he refuses, but Maeve appears and kills her for him. Maeve then tries to take control of Dorian's mind, but Dorian was prepared and takes control of her mind instead. He collapses Morath with his magic and leaves, taking all three Wyrdkeys with him and ripping away Maeve's ability to make portals.

100,000 soldiers march on Orynth, and everyone is preparing for their deaths when Manon, the Thirteen, and the Crochans appear to fight for them. Iskra attacks Manon and her wyvern almost kills Abraxos, but she is killed by Petrah who has rebelled against the two remaining Matrons and Erawan, along with her witches. A witch tower is about to bring down the walls of Orynth, but the Thirteen sacrifice themselves by doing the Yielding in order to bring down the witch tower. Their deaths break the curse on the Witch Kingdom.

Dorian finds Aelin and the army as they march north. They argue about who is to forge the Lock and when, and Aelin decides to put it to a vote. The vote goes that Aelin is to forge the Lock the next day, before they go to Terrasen. Aelin and Rowan argue, and Rowan suggests that her and Dorian forge the Lock together. So Dorian, Chaol, Rowan, and Aelin go in the middle of the night to Endovier to forge the Lock. Aelin puts the Wyrdkeys in her arm to become a living gate and they begin, but it starts to rip away both of their magic and take all of their life forces. But Dorian's father appears and offers to take Dorian's place, as his life force can also contribute as he is nameless because Erawan used a spell to wipe his name from the world. Aelin pushes Dorian out, and the Lock takes all of her magic. The gods appear with a captive Elena. Aelin tries to bargain with the gods, saying that she won't require them to take Erawan if they let Elena go. Deanna kills Elena on the spot just for Aelin asking, and refuses to take Erawan anyways. The gods return to their world, but Mala stops and says she remembers, and gives Aelin part of her power so forging the Lock won't take her life completely. She also tells Aelin to follow the marks, and she realizes that Rowan inked Wyrdmarks into her new tattoo as a map to find her way back to Erilea. Aelin then rips a hole into a hell realm in the gods' world and shuts the portal and fully forges the Lock. She begins to fall through worlds, but too fast, and she is worried she is going to miss Erilea, but she then falls into Prythian, and sees Rhysand and Feyre. Rhysand uses his magic to slow her down so she can land back in her body in her world. She is alive, but is left with barely an ember of power. Dorian's magic is also weakened, but he has more than Aelin. Aelin is also fully Fae now, unable to shift back into her human body. Hasar and Sartaq are upset with Aelin for forging the Lock and not sending Erawan back, but they continue to trek northwards anyways. A snow storm hits them, but the Lord of the North and the Little Folk appear and guide them through Oakwald so they can save Orynth. Their forces attack, and Gavriel makes it to Orynth. The western gate breaks and Gavriel reunites with Aedion one last time before going out and fighting the Valg soldiers, dying so Aedion has a chance to close the gate.

More of Erawan's forces arrive from Perranth, along with the 6 kharankui/Valg princesses and Erawan and Maeve themselves. Aelin decides to face Maeve and Erawan alone. She pits them against each other. Yrene signals to Erawan from Orynth, and an ilken takes him to face her, as the healers can kill the Valg. Rowan, Fenrys, and Lorcan come to back Aelin up against Maeve, and she uses her illusions to keep them down. Aelin breaks them from the illusion and uses Wyrdmarks to summon the lost Fae of Terrasen and the Wolf Tribes to fight, Fenrys stabs Maeve with Goldryn, and Aelin puts Athril's ring on her finger. All of this manages to kill her.

Yrene, Dorian, Elide, and Lysandra trap Erawan and Yrene manages to kill him, but not before Dorian makes him tell him his fathers' name. The King of Adarlan's name was Dorian, and he only remembered it again when he held Dorian for the first time, and so gave him that name. Yrene then turns Erawan to ash. The armies all fall unconscious and die without either Erawan or Maeve to control them.

Falkan and Lysandra meet each other for the first time. Rowan, Lorcan, Aelin, Aedion, and Fenrys mourn for Gavriel. Lorcan and Elide plan to be married, and Aelin is welcomed home as a queen by Darrow. Manon takes the witches back home, curse now broken. Rowan's cousin Sellene is made Queen of Doranelle. Aelin is coronated and Aedion finally gets to take the blood oath.

Not long after, the whole of the field of Theralis blooms with Kingsflame flowers.

Storyline: I honestly really loved this book. There were a couple of slow bits but I loved how everything came together. It was a little disappointing to not get a huge blow up battle between Aelin and Erawan/Maeve, but she defeated Maeve by outwitting her, which was Aelin's true power all along. Also Yrene and Aelin meeting in The Assassin's Blade and Aelin's act of kindness leading to Yrene and Aelin killing two of the most powerful Valg and saving the world together was really cool. Dorian really carried this book though, he was such a nuanced character and honestly a total badass. SJM doesn't do a great job of keeping her timelines straight though because Chaol says that he killed Cain less than a year since the battle at Orynth and there is absolutely no way that that much happened in that short amount of time, especially with all the traveling they do. When I first read this book I was really disappointed that Aelin lost her powers as I hate that trope a lot usually, but she still got to keep some of the fire that she loved, and she talks multiple times about how her power being that depthless and uncontrollable was a huge nuisance and struggle to her. So I think in order for her to have the fully happy ending SJM set up for her, it was necessary.

Quotes: "And if she never returned to who she had been before this, he would not love her any less."-Rowan (p.304)

[385bookreviews]

1.72.7 Tower of Dawn by Sarah J Maas

SPOILERS

Pages: 660

Time Read: 11 hours and 58 minutes

Overall Rating: 3.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 3.5★

Genre: YA Fantasy

TWs for the book: Death, violence, grief, injury, disability/chronic illness, blood, war, murder, medical content, s*xual content, ableism, vomit, death of a parent, gore, medical trauma, animal death, torture, pregnancy, drug use, emotional abuse, su*c*de, body horror, cursing, mental illness, alcohol, physical abuse, child death, fire, abandonment, classism, su*c*dal thoughts, toxic friendship, child abuse, infidelity, stalking, colonization, body shaming

POV: Third Person

Time Period/Location: Taking place during the events of Empire of Storms. On the fictional southern continent, in the city of Antica.

First Line: Chaol Westfall, former Captain of the Royal Guard and now Hand to the newly crowned King of Adarlan, had discovered that he hated one sound above all others.

Chaol and Nesryn arrive on the southern continent in Antica, the god-city, known for its 36 gods and ruled over by the Great Khagan. They go straight to the palace to meet with the Khagan and ask for his aid in the war and a healer to fix Chaol's paralysis. They meet the stern man, and his five heirs, Arguhn, Sartaq, Hasar, Kashin, and Duva. They beg the Khagan for aid but he is insulted that by the gold they try to bring him and that they were unaware of his youngest daughter, Tumelun's, death. He says that they are welcome to stay so Chaol may be healed, but must consider any plans of war while also taking time to grieve. Chaol and Nesryn also learn of Rifthold being sacked and are devastated. Shortly after their meeting with the khagan, Kashin, who has control of the horse warriors of the continent, arrives to speak with Chaol. He tells him he doesn't believe Tumelun committed su*c*de like everyone thinks, and that there might be a threat that has come from the north. Chaol explains briefly about the Valg and promises Kashin to keep a look out for anything amiss.

Yrene, the healer girl that Celaena saved in The Assassin's Blade, has been working to become a healer at the Torre Cesme for two years, and is now a fully fledged healer. Hafiza, the Healer on High, instructs Yrene to heal Chaol. She refuses at first, not wanting to help anyone from Adarlan after Adarlanian soldiers burned her mother alive for practicing magic. Hafiza says this will be her final test before she is to return to Erilea. She tentatively agrees to assess him. The next day she goes to the palace, and it is tense between her and Chaol, and Yrene is very rude, but she agrees to heal him anyways. Nesryn visits her aunt and uncle that live in the city, and they tell her that her father, sister, and nieces and nephews managed to make it out of Rifthold before it fell, but they don't know where they are now. Chaol tries to speak to Arguhn, but he refuses him.

Yrene begins her healing on Chaol, but finds that there is still a remanent of the Valg's dark power wrapped around his spine, and that she can fight against it with her healing gifts, but it will be very painful for Chaol and take a lot of time. Yrene goes to the Torre's library to try and find out more information on the Valg. She finds a scroll with Wyrdmarks, and a book called The Song of Beginning, but it is written in Eyllwe and she can't decipher it. She suddenly feels as though she is being hunted in the library and begins to rush out. On her way out, she trips on the body of a healer, who is now an empty shell sucked of all life. She runs from the library and the Torre is put on high alert. When she tells Chaol of this, he tells her it was a Valg. Sartaq and Nesryn begin to bond, as Sartaq also suspects that the threat growing in the north may be worth fighting against. He takes her on a ride on his ruk named Kadara, a giant, sentient bird that makes up the southern empire's aerial legion.

Yrene has a special saddle made for Chaol so he can ride a horse again. He offers to help her teach a special defense class for the young healers at the Torre. While there, she uses the opportunity to teach her students about Chaol's spinal injury, and they move him off his horse, almost dropping him. He is immensely humiliated and him and Yrene fight. Despite this, they manage to make progress in his healing. Chaol is forced to relive all of the painful, traumatic moments of his past, but Yrene manages to grant him some movement in his toes. Hasar, who is friends with Yrene, summons her to ask her to get information about Aelin's whereabouts from Chaol. At a party a day or so later, Yrene and Chaol pretend to flirt so they can talk privately. Yrene reveals what Hasar has asked of her, and Chaol has genuinely no idea where Aelin is, so he tells her Skull's Bay, as he thinks that that is the last place she will go after her fight with Rolfe as Celaena. Yrene hides the scrolls and books with Wyrdmarks or mentions of the Valg in Chaol's room. Chaol gains movement in his ankles and feet.

Nesryn leaves with Sartaq to go south to the rukhin, the aeries and homes of the warriors who ride the ruk. Sartaq knows that his hearth-mother knows of the Valg and they decide to gather information there. Nesryn leaves Chaol a note saying she holds him to no promises and will not be adhering to any promises of her own. Chaol is angered by this and him and Yrene fight, causing her to leave him before even healing him for the day. She then hears that Nesryn left and deduces that to be the reason for Chaol's attitude. She heads back to the palace to argue with him again, but realizes she is being followed by the Valg. She sprints into Chaol's room and locks the door, but the Valg begins banging on it, trying to get it open. She runs into Chaol's room and blocks off the doors, and they stand united. The Valg knows Yrene's name and says it through the door, banging and pounding, but it eventually goes silent. Kadja, Chaol's servant, sees the damage and runs to get Kashin, who comes to see what happened. Kashin, who is in love with Yrene, offers to walk her back to the Torre, but Yrene refuses and spends the night with Chaol.

Nesryn and Sartaq arrive in the Tavan Mountains. They are greeted by Sartaq's hearth-sister, Borte. She says that the hearth-mother, Houlun, is out on a mission and will be back in a day or two. When she eventually does return, she speaks with Sartaq, Nesryn, and Falkan, a northern merchant who has been traveling the continent for two years. He reveals that he is only 27, even though he appears to be in his 50s, because he sold his youth to the stygian spiders for spidersilk so he could be rich (this is the same merchant Aelin encountered in Xandria in The Assassin's Blade). He is hunting the spiders, in the south known as kharankui, to see if they can be killed and he can get his youth back. Houlun reveals that the kharankui are on the rise, and stealing hatchling ruks from their nests. She says that during the first demon war on the continent, when the three kings battled against Maeve and Brannon, a Wyrdgate opened there and let in the kharankui. Most of the Valg went to Erilea, and some Fae came to teach the ruks to understand language and fight back against the spiders. She tells them that the Fae set up watchtowers around where the spiders now reside, and that most of them are broken down but still have active booby traps. She tells Nesryn and Sartaq to investigate the watchtowers to see if anything useful can be found in them. Sartaq and Nesryn investigate the first watchtower, making sure to throw rocks to set off the traps. They find some Fae weaponry but not much else before a kharankui descends on them. They fight and run, and are then aided in killing it by a gray wolf. Kadara makes the final kill, saving the wolf, who shapeshifts and reveals himself to be Falkan. Borte, Sartaq, Nesryn, and Falkan go to investigate the other three watchtowers but find nothing. Borte's betrothed, Yaren, comes to tell them that hatchlings have been stolen from his aerie as well.

Chaol and Yrene search for more books and scrolls on the Valg and the Wyrdmarks. The librarian tells them to go to Aksara Oasis, but it is owned by the royals. Chaol gains movement up to his knees. Chaol and Yrene then learn from Hasar about Aelin and Dorian's display of power in Skull's Bay. The khagan grows more wary of Aelin. Chaol attempts to have a private meeting with the khagan but it does not go well and he is removed. Yrene comes to heal him but he is raging with anger at the khagan's dismissal. They fight, and Chaol says something hurtful and makes Yrene cry. She turns to leave. Instantly regretting his decision and panicking about her leaving, Chaol stands and walks. When he finally reaches her, they kiss. Yrene convinces Hasar to throw her a birthday party at the Aksara Oasis so her and Chaol can investigate the necropolis in the jungle around it.

Nesryn, Falkan, and Sartaq ride on Kadara to Dagul, the land of the kharankui, to find the hatchlings. They spot one and fly down to save it, but when Kadara tries to fly back up she is caught in a spider web. They all fall, and Sartaq is injured. Nesryn tries to save the hatchling but a spider kills it and eats it before she can. Kadara is also injured but manages to fly off, and Nesryn and Sartaq run. Sartaq gets stuck while they try to squeeze through the rocks. He tells Nesryn to run, and that he loves her, before he is snatched by the spiders. Nesryn and Falkan hatch a plan to save him, and she allows herself to be captured.

Yrene and Chaol go to Aksara with Kashin, Renia, Hasar, Arguhn, and other viziers. While the royals are swimming, Chaol and Yrene slip into the jungle and find the necropolis. They realize it is a Fae burial site, not a human one. Chaol theorizes that healers are descendants of the Fae that are buried there, and that their powers might be able to kill the Valg.

Nesryn awakes wrapped in web, Sartaq near her. Falkan, in the form of a mouse, begins chewing through her bonds. A kharankui comes in though, and Nesryn begs for their story before they kill her. The spider obliges, and tells her that they are the handmaids to a Valg Queen who came here to escape her husband, Orcus, the most powerful Valg King. The spider reveals that Valg Queen is Maeve, and that the kharankui stand guard of the Wyrdgate that is there to pave the way should Maeve decide to go home, or use the gate to conquer more worlds. Falkan shifts into a spider and lures the one speaking to Nesryn out of the save. Her and Sartaq then run, but are once again confronted by the spiders when they can't find Kadara. Falkan tells Nesryn that he has a shapeshifter niece who was thrown out on the streets of Rifthold, and that he has been searching for her for years. He says his fortune is hers and then he lunges into battle against the other spiders. They are fortunately rescued by Borte, who went against her grandmother's wishes and brought her betrothed and some of his warriors to save them.

When they return from Aksara, Yrene and Chaol find his room completely sacked, and all of the books and scrolls stolen, save for one scroll, the one with the Wyrdmarks. Yrene takes the scroll to leave with Hafiza, who has a locked iron cabinet containing a ton of books with Wyrdmarks. She says she will consider letting Yrene take them to Aelin to be translated. Yrene arrives back at the palace to find Chaol in immense pain. She decides to test out his theory and says that she is ending this now. Chaol faces all of his worst memories again, and feels as though he is drowning in them, but slowly, slowly works through them, and realizes that not everything was his fault, and that he is a changed man now who still has a promise to Dorian and Aelin to uphold. When he comes out of the memories, he is fully healed and can walk again.

Nesryn and Sartaq ask the rukhin to fly north with him to fight, as Sartaq plans to do so whether or not the Khagan agrees to it. Nesryn receives Chaol's warning to come home, and asks Falkan to come with them, revealing that she thinks his niece is Lysandra.

Yrene and Chaol go to see Hafiza but find her missing. They go hunting for her in the tunnels beneath the library, and find her bound and captured by the Valg: who is possessing a pregnant Princess Duva. They fight her while also trying not to hurt her or the baby. She reveals that she was possessed because Duke Perrington sent her a box of wedding presents, and Duva claimed the silver ring as her wedding ring. She didn't know that it was actually made of Wyrdstone covered in silver, and the second she was married she was possessed. The Valg in Duva killed Tumelun for questioning her change in behavior, and killed the healer in the library to try and scare Yrene out of healing Chaol. Duva demands Yrene put on the ring. Yrene refuses and Duva lashes out with her power. Chaol jumps in front of her and takes the blow to his back, destroying his spine and organs. Nesryn and Sartaq appear, and Hafiza manages to make Duva unconscious. Yrene tries to heal Chaol, but even with all of the healers of the Torre coming down to try and save him, he is dying anyways. Silba, the healer goddess, speaks through Hafiza, offering a deal and asks Yrene to pay the price. She agrees. When Chaol awakes, he asks Yrene what she did. Hafiza explains Yrene bound her life to Chaol's and that her magic is constantly flowing through him like a brace so he will be able to walk. But when Yrene's magic is drained, so too will the brace, and he will either have to walk with a cane or be in a wheelchair. Also, if one of them is killed, the other one will also die. They then take Duva before the royal family, who is utterly distraught. Yrene purges the Valg from Duva, killing it, but not before it reveals itself to be a Valg Princess, not a Prince. Duva and the baby are fine, and the khagan offers to do anything for Yrene and Chaol for saving her life. She asks him to help save her people, and he agrees. Sartaq, Hasar, and Kashin agree to go to war with them. Sartaq tells Nesryn that he has been chosen as Heir to the throne, and that he loves Nesryn and wants her to be with him. She agrees.

Chaol and Yrene sail north with 1000 ships and 300 healers. They reveal they were married before they left Antica. Yrene shows Chaol the note Celaena/Aelin left for her with the money, and Chaol recognizes her handwriting and begins to cry, promising he will tell her exactly who it was she met that night.

Chaol Westfall (Lord Westfall/Hand of the King of Adarlan): I was never a huge fan of Chaol's character, but I'm glad that he got the character development and redemption arc that he so desperately needed. I like how he didn't instantly get over his trauma, and had to face it and do it on his own (with support from Yrene). There was no magical fix for it, and he had progress and regressions just like anyone else would. I also like that he was not completely fully healed of his paralysis, and it became something that he will still have to deal with. Him being completely healed would have been too easy of a fix, and it puts a lot more nuance into his character, especially since he had to grieve the loss of his body, but then when that full, perfect healing was taken away, he was still grateful for what he did have and no longer viewed the mobility aids as "prisons".

Nesryn Faliq (Captain of the Guard/Wind-Seeker/Neith's Arrow): I really like how Nesryn was so patient with Chaol (even when he was being an ass and didn't deserve it). She realized that he was struggling with his emotions, trauma, and feelings, and she decided to be patient and understanding with him, while simultaneously not being willing to let herself be his second choice.

Storyline: While definitely an integral part of the storyline, and good closure for Chaol, he has never been one of my favorite characters so getting through an entire book just about him after reading Empire of Storms is a little bit difficult (I couldn't brave the tandem read). The storyline is definitely a bit slow at parts, but getting to see SJM expand her worldbuilding on a new continent was interesting, despite the amount of information thrown at you all at once.

Representation: There was thankfully a lot more representation in this book than in any of the other books in the series. Yrene, the royal family, and just about everyone else on the southern continent is POC. Hasar and Renia are lovers, and it is mentioned that Arguhn was being touchy with a male and female servant. Chaol uses a wheelchair and cane, and it is made clear at the end that this will be a chronic illness for him. While paralyzed in the beginning, due to Yrene's magic he is able to be an ambulatory wheelchair user. Shen, one of the guards, has a prosthetic arm.

[385bookreviews]

1.72.6 Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas

SPOILERS

Pages: 689

Time Read: 11 hours and 22 minutes

Overall Rating: 5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 5★

Genre: YA Fantasy

TWs for the book: Violence, blood, war, s*xual content, torture, death, murder, injury, gore, fire, grief, physical abuse, confinement, vomit, kidnapping, body horror, slavery, death of a parent, emotional abuse, abandonment, child death, cursing, misogyny/sexism, colonization, genocide, toxic relationship, ableism, animal cruelty, animal death, s*xual assault/r*pe (not on page), discussions of pregnancy, gaslighting, classism, panic attacks, su*c*dal thoughts, su*c*de attempt

POV: Third Person

Time Period/Location: Terrasen, Adarlan, Skull's Bay, and Eyllwe on the fictional continent of Erilea

First Line: Elide Lochan's breath scorched her throat with every gasping inhale as she limped up the steep forest hill.

Aelin, Aedion, Rowan, Lysandra, Fleetfoot, and Evangeline have finally arrived in Terrasen after a week or two of travel from Adarlan. She arranges a meeting with Lord Darrow, Lord Murtaugh, and Murtaugh's grandson, Ren. They are supposed to meet them in the woods, but the lords demand they come to an inn. When they arrive, Ren and Murtaugh, responsible for Chaol's kidnapping in Crown of Midnight, are shocked to learn that Aelin is Celaena. Lord Darrow is harsh and judgemental, and gives her a decree signed by all of the lords of Terrasen saying she is only a princess and that she is not to be queen unless they see fit. She is discouraged, but as they are leaving the inn, they receive news that the witches are flying to sack Rifthold. She sends Rowan to fly back to rescue Dorian, gives Evangeline and Fleetfoot to Lord Murtaugh to look after, and her, Aedion, and Lysandra make their way to Ilium, a port city in Terrasen that used to be ruled by fierce pirates called the Mycenians.

Meanwhile, Elide travels through the woods on her own to try and get to Terrasen, forging for berries and drinking from streams. She realizes she is being followed. Lorcan senses the Wyrdkey she carries and follows her around, thinking she is Valg. He realizes she is not when she is suddenly hunted down by ilken, terrifying eight foot beasts that were bred by Erawan. Lorcan kills three and Elide evades another, and they manage to make it away. They make a deal to travel together, Lorcan offering protection for Elide's knowledge of Morath. Pretending to be married they join up with a traveling circus to get past the Adarlanian soldiers guarding the river.

At Morath, Erawan reveals his true form, no longer masquerading as Duke Perrington. He orders Manon and the Thirteen, along with Yellowlegs witches led by Iskra, to sack Rifthold. Manon tries to get there before the Yellowlegs, but arrives right as Dorian is about to be attacked by a member of Iskra's coven. Manon kills her, and tells Dorian to flee. Rowan arrives and kills four more witches and tries to kill Manon until Dorian stops him. Rowan and Dorian escape and head for Skull's Bay, and Iskra accuses Manon of being a witch killer. She lies and says that the sentinel attacked her first, but Iskra doesn't believe her and runs back to Morath. When Manon arrives, she is put on trial. The Matrons ultimately decide that while Manon will live, Asterin must be brutally put to death. At the execution, Manon asks for the right to kill her, but she instead swings her sword at her grandmother. The Thirteen flee, and the Matron reveals that Manon is the last Crochan Queen, her father being a Crochan Prince and her mother being an Ironteeth witch, and that her she killed both of them upon discovering the truth. Manon takes a near fatal wound to the stomach, and then drops off the cliff and is caught by Abraxos. She manages to kill the witches that chase her, and then passes out and wakes up in Oakwald Forest. She is attacked by a shapeshifter turned monster by Erawan, calling itself a Bloodhound, and she escapes again and tells Abraxos to take her somewhere safe.

Aelin, Aedion, and Lysandra arrive in Ilium to find it occupied by Adarlanian soldiers, the temple there being used as their barracks. She makes a dramatic appearance, giving some of the soldiers the chance to flee, and then the three of them kill the rest. They go to the temple and Aelin meets with King Brannon's ghost. He tells her to go to the Stone Marshes of Eyllwe to find a Lock that can bind the Wyrdkeys back to the Wyrdgate. The trio are then attacked by Erawan, possessing the body of the Chief Overseer of Endovier that tortured Aelin. She manages to kill him, but not after being taunted by Erawan. They then sail for Skull's Bay.

Dorian and Rowan arrive in Skull's Bay two weeks before the rest of their companions. Upon arriving, they go to meet with Rolfe, who insists upon staying neutral, but also find Gavriel and Fenrys in his company. They say that they were sent by Maeve to hunt and kill Lorcan. Rowan bargains that he will tell them where Lorcan is so long as they help them until then. They hesitate but Rowan tells Gavriel that he has a son, and so they agree. Rowan begins to train Dorian in magic. After two weeks, they go again to meet with Rolfe, and find Aelin, once again acting as Celaena, in his office. She then reveals that she is Aelin, and tries to bargain with Rolfe to get him on her side. He is angry and refuses. After some scheming, Aelin comes up with a plan and sends out a ripple of power that the Valg in the Dead Islands detect. They come with ships and sea-wyverns to attack Skull's Bay. Aelin offers her and her courts' help in exchange for Rolfe's allegiance and him gathering the remaining Mycenians to fight for her. She also says she will make him a lord of Terrasen and give his people back Ilium. He reluctantly agrees. Lysandra turns into a sea dragon and fulfills the Mycenian prophecy that once a sea dragon returns again, so shall the Mycenians. Aelin and Rowan combine their powers to wipe out the Valg ships, but Aelin wears the Wyrdkey, and is possessed by Deanna. Deanna gives them a riddle and tries to destroy Skull's Bay with her silver fire, but Rowan jumps in front of Aelin and she redirects her blow to the ships. She still ends up taking out most of Rolfe's ship, some of his men, and the entire Valg fleet save three boats. Lysandra takes out the two sea-wyverns, but is attacked by three more fully grown ones. She barely is able to kill them, with the help of Dorian and Aedion, and also sinks the remaining three ships. Aedion promises a wounded Lysandra that he is going to marry her one day. After the battle, Aelin then summons Elena, who tells her again that she needs to find the Lock.

Lorcan and Elide continue traveling together, but are attacked again by the ilken. At the next town over, their traveling companions sell them out to the Adarlanian guards, and they are forced to take a boat and flee. Lorcan discovers that Aelin has tricked him and he didn't actually have Wyrdkey this whole time, and he tells Elide that he will be bringing her to Aelin after all, and reveals that Aelin and Celaena are the same person. After a long ways of travel, they stop in another town, and Lorcan leaves Elide alone to buy clothes. Elide is attacked by ilken and her uncle Vernon, and they attempt to take her back to Morath. Thinking that Manon is dead and Lorcan has abandoned her, she attempts to kill herself, but Lorcan knocks her knife out of her hand and attacks. She and Lorcan kill the ilken, but her uncle Vernon escapes. Elide finally reveals what she is carrying with her, and Lorcan explains about the Wyrdkeys. They continue to head south to Eyllwe.

Aelin and her court travel on boats to the Stone Marshes to find the Lock. On the way, they see the coast of Eyllwe burning, and the townspeople blame Aelin for it. Abraxos finds their boat and they fetch an unconscious Manon out of the ocean and begin healing her wound. Once she is conscious, Dorian and Manon grow closer, and Aelin attacks Manon for leaving Elide alone in Oakwald Forest. Aelin makes a connection between something Fenrys said and Baba Yellowlegs' prophecy, and throws up. Rowan wants to know what's wrong but she only talks to Lysandra about it. Dorian advocates for Manon's freedom on the ship, and when they go to release her, they are attacked by a Bloodhound pretending to be Fenrys. She tells Manon that Asterin and her Thirteen are dead, and then Dorian kills her. The ship is attacked by ilken, and they fight them off, Manon assisting. They worry as Erawan now knows their location. They eventually make it to the Stone Marshes. Manon sends Abraxos to lie low and the court makes its way into the marshes. After three days of travel, they find the temple containing a chest that supposedly holds the Lock. Just then they begin to feel a magical warning signal from Lorcan, who, along with Elide, has noticed an army of 500 flying ilken heading straight towards them. They set up a trap, but Aelin obliterates them with her flame, and the others pick off the rest. When Lorcan comes into sight, Fenrys and Gavriel immediately attack him. Elide jumps in front of Lorcan, causing Fenrys to accidentally wound her arm. Gavriel heals her, and then Rowan declares that Lorcan and Elide are under their royal protection, which delays the blood oath command for them to kill him. Elide has a tearful reunion with Aedion, Aelin, and Manon, and she offers Aelin the second Wyrdkey. They then go back to the temple to open the chest, and find not a Lock but a witch mirror. They carry it back through the Marshes to the beach, and encounter a hooded woman with soldiers at her back. Everyone goes on alert, and Lorcan sends out a pulse of power to signal Maeve to come so that way Elide will be saved if there is trouble. Aelin goes down to talk with the stranger, who reveals herself to be Ansel of Briarcliff, Queen of the Western Wastes, Aelin's old friend turned enemy from when she trained with the Silent Assassins of the Red Desert. Ansel owed Aelin a life debt, and she gathered her forces and conquered Melisande, taking it away from Erawan's control, all for Aelin. They ready to leave for Terrasen, but are cornered by Maeve's armada.

They give them a day to decide whether to surrender or fight. That night, Rowan flies to all of the ships in Maeve's armada bearing the Whitethorn crest and begs them to switch sides. A few hours before the dawn of the day of the battle, Dorian solves Deanna's riddle and the mystery of the witch mirror. Aelin and Manon join hands and step into the mirror. Aedion is enraged at Dorian for suggesting such a thing, and Rowan is left to command the fleet against Maeve.

Inside the mirror, Manon and Aelin are shown what really happened when Elena and Gavin fought Erawan all those years ago. Elena stole the Eye of Elena, the true Lock, from her father Brannon and used it to seal Erawan in a tomb. The gods then appear before her, angry at her for using the Lock. Brannon had made a deal with them to use the Lock to send the gods back to their home world, and they would take Erawan with them. But by wasting all of the Lock's power on Erawan's tomb, Elena ruined their chance and doomed her own bloodline. The gods tell her that her bloodline will pay the price she couldn't and ultimately one would have to give their own life to reforge the Lock and seal away the keys, sending the gods and the Valg out of the world. She agrees, and agrees to set clues and hints for that future descendant to help lead them into doing it. They are then shown Nehemia coming to the Stone Marshes, thinking the prophecies and clues were for her. Elena appears before her and tells her that it must either be Dorian or Aelin that does it, and that Nehemia must help by going to Rifthold and preparing one or both of them, but that she will forfeit her own life in doing so. Nehemia agrees. Aelin is enraged at Elena even though she had already figured out that she would have to die to reseal the Wyrdkeys. Elena shows her what really happened the night her parents were killed and she fell in the river. She almost drowned but was pulled out by Elena put in a physical form by the gods. Aelin died from the cold but Elena revived her, and the gods told Elena to take Aelin then, as a child, to reforge the Lock. But Elena wanted Aelin to at least have a chance to live her life before she died and instead compelled Arobynn Hamel to come and find her. The gods were angry with her for this and as her punishment Elena cannot enter the afterlife and she will simply cease to exist the moment the keys are put back.

The battle between the courts' forces and Maeve's wages on. Lysandra is able to take out some boats in sea dragon form, but against Fae warriors they are ultimately losing. But then the Whitethorn ships turn on Maeve's armada and begin assisting them. Abraxos flies back with the Thirteen, ultimately turning the tide of the battle and causing the remaining force to flee.

Manon and Aelin are sucked out of the mirror and teleported to the beach where Elide had been sent by Lorcan for safety. Her guards are all dead, and Maeve has her held prisoner. She cuts Gavriel off from the blood oath, and reveals Lorcan's betrayal, as well as how Aelin walked perfectly into her years long schemes. She also reveals that Rowan is her mate, and that she used her magic to trick him into thinking Lyria was his mate, and then had her killed in order to get him to take the blood oath. She then demands that Aelin surrender or Elide will be tortured. Aelin surrenders, and Cairn whips her brutally. They seal her into an iron box and sail away, right before Rowan, Aedion, Dorian, Lysandra, and the Thirteen arrive. Elide and Manon reveal everything to Rowan and the others, and Rowan reveals that they had a secret marriage, making him the King of Terrasen. Lysandra then reveals that she and Aelin already made a plan for her disappearance/death in which Lysandra would pretend to be Aelin for the rest of her life and Aedion would father her children so Terrasen would have heirs. Lorcan is immensely remorseful, and Elide and Aedion are enraged. Just then Ansel and Rowan's cousin Enda arrive, along with Galan Ashryver, Prince of Wendlyn, and all of his naval forces, and the Silent Assassins of the Red Desert. They realize that Aelin called in every life debt owed to her to raise an army, and Lysandra shifts to become her to maintain the ruse that she is still leading her own forces. Dorian leaves with Manon, Elide, and the Thirteen to find the Crochans, and Rowan, Lorcan, and Gavriel head off to begin the hunt for Aelin.

Aelin Ashryver Galathynius (Celaena Sardothien/Aelin of the Wildfire/Fireheart): Aelin has shown a lot of growth in this series, but we still get to see her mistakes. Even though she is learning to trust her court and delegate more, she still takes on a lot of secrets and schemes on her own, which leads to the attack from Maeve in the first place because Lorcan got scared for Elide and summoned her. While she accepts her role as the sacrificial lamb of her bloodline, we still see it scare her, and I'm glad she didn't just stoically accept her death.

Aedion Ashryver (The Wolf of the North): While I am personally not a huge fan of Aedion overall, Aelin and Lysandra's plan to use him to produce heirs was really messed up and he had every right to be angry with them about that. It also doesn't make sense because according to shapeshifter rules (Feyre's pregnancy in A Court of Silver Flames for example) if Lysandra and Rowan made kids while Lysandra was in Aelin's form, the kids would look like a mix of Rowan and Aelin, so Aedion is completely unnecessary. That would have really sucked for Rowan but getting him involved in that way wasn't even needed. The kids wouldn't even look like Lysandra's usual form either because Lysandra's form isn't how she was at birth and she can't go back to her original look because she doesn't remember.

Storyline: I once again loved seeing old characters come back into the fold and watching Aelin's schemes fall into place. Everything feels connected and purposeful and there are reasonable explanations for everything. Nothing is just left up to fate (looking at you House of Flame and Shadow) and things come together either by Maeve, Erawan, Aelin, or the gods' scheming and planning.

Representation: Aedion is bisexual, Rowan's cousin Enda is mentioned as being gay, and Lord Darrow was the former King of Terrasen's consort. Representation for POC is once again lacking. Elide is crippled due to her ankle being deformed from a break that was never healed.

Summary: This is my second favorite book in the Throne of Glass series, right after Queen of Shadow. All of the plot line were entertaining the whole time and everything is intentional and flawlessly comes together.

Quotes: "The world... will be saved and remade by the dreamers..."-Aelin (p.248) "I love you. There is no limit to what I can give to you, no time I need. Even when this world is a forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, I will love you."-Rowan (p.350) "It is not such a hard thing, is it--to die for your friends."-Dorian (p.594)

[385bookreviews]

1.72.5 Queen of Shadows by Sarah J Maas

SPOILERS

Pages: 645

Time Read: 11 hours and 23 minutes

Overall Rating: 5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 5★

Genre: YA Fantasy

TWs for the book: Violence, blood, death, murder, gore, torture, injury, grief, war, confinement, slavery, fire, physical abuse, vomit, miscarriage, emotional abuse, body horror, pregnancy, s*xual abuse, kidnapping, death of a parent, genocide, su*c*de, child death, child abuse, su*c*dal thoughts, trafficking, colonization, mentions of r*pe, s*xual violence, medical trauma, classism, domestic abuse, self harm, gaslighting, s*xual harassment, ableism, cursing, misogyny, panic attacks, stalking, alcohol, execution, xenophobia

POV: Third Person

Time Period/Location: Rifthold, Adarlan; Morath; Oakwald Forest; and Terrasen on the fictional continent of Erilea

First Line: There was a thing waiting in the darkness.

Aelin lands in Rifthold from Wendlyn and goes straight to The Vaults, the seedy underground tavern/fighting pit/pleasure house in order to find Arobynn Hamel. She is surprised to discover Chaol, with an unknown woman, meeting with Arobynn. He leaves without noticing her, and Aelin confronts Arobynn. He informs her of Aedion's capture by the king, and that he is set to be executed at a grand party for Dorian's birthday. He offers to help her free him, in exchange for her capturing one of the Valg soldiers now infesting the city. Arobynn leaves, and the city guards Aelin had led there break in, and she wrecks the entire place. She then leaves to hunt down Chaol in the sewers, and encounters the woman who was with him. Her name is Nesryn, and she is a member of the city guard now aiding Chaol and the rebels. Chaol sends Nesryn and the rebels and the captives they freed ahead, and explains to Aelin what happened with Dorian, Sorscha, and Aedion. They part angry with each other after Chaol refuses to tell her how to free magic. Aelin goes back to her apartment, and the next day finds Lysandra and a child named Evangeline outside. Lysandra insists she has changed from when they were children, and gives her a letter written by Wesley, Arobynn's former bodyguard, and Lysandra's deceased lover. In the letter Wesley explains everything Arobynn did involving Sam's death and Aelin's capture. Chaol and Aelin argue about whether or not to kill Dorian now that he has a Valg prince possessing him. Aelin swears she won't, and so Chaol tells her how to free magic. Aelin sneaks into the castle with a troupe of dancers set to perform for the King and Dorian at his birthday party. She spills water to wash away Wyrdmarks that would notify the King of her presence. Madame Florine, Celaena's dance teacher for years, aids in the ruse, and gives all of the dancers black glass roses. Aelin sneaks through the crowd, disguising herself as a man to get close to Aedion. When the dancers smash the glass roses, the whole hall goes up in smoke and Aelin uses the distraction to free Aedion. Everyone rushes out, and Aelin and Aedion run through the gardens until they are confronted by Dorian. Aelin uses a Wyrdmark to freeze him in place and tries to kill him, but is stopped by Nesryn. Her and Aedion run, and with the help of Lysandra, manage to make it back to the apartment. Chaol and Aelin fight over her almost killing Dorian, and Lysandra finds out that Aelin is Queen of Terrasen. Aelin discovers that the eight creatures on the clocktower, that she dubs Wyrdhounds, are living in the sewers and that the King uses them to speak to his Valg commanders. She goes out for drinks with Aedion and Nesryn, and on their way home, they are stopped by Rowan. They tell each other of what has occurred when they are back in the apartment. Rowan then reveals to Aedion that his father is Gavriel, and also lets it slip that he took the blood oath to Aelin. Aedion believes it was his right to be the only one to claim the blood oath, and him and Aelin fight and he storms out. Rowan then finally tells Aelin why he came to Adarlan against her orders: Lorcan is hunting her and the third Wyrdkey.

Aelin sneaks out at night to lure Lorcan into the sewers. He is attacked by the Wyrdhound and kills it, and follows Aelin, threatening to kill her. Rowan puts a knife to his throat, and Lorcan warns them that Maeve let them walk out of Doranelle, and that she isn't done with them yet. Rowan meets Lysandra and reveals that she is a shape-shifter. She warns them that Arobynn wants his demon tomorrow, so they go out and capture one and interrogate it themselves. They manage to talk to the man the demon is possessing, Stevan, and tell him a plan. The next day, Rowan, Aelin, and Aedion go to the Assassin's Keep. Arobynn tortures the Stevan for information, and Stevan tells him that the King put him under his control by putting the ring on and licking his blood. Arobynn cuts the ring off Stevan's finger before killing him. The three then have dinner with Arobynn, and he becomes jealous at seeing how close Aelin and Rowan are. He then pulls her aside to talk to her privately, and gives her the Amulet of Orynth containing the third Wyrdkey in exchange for her working for him again to take down the King. She agrees, but he then puts on the Valg ring and licks her blood. She becomes his slave, and he sends her back to the apartment. She is silent until they arrive there, and then she takes off the ring, revealing that Stevan lied about the blood and that Arobynn just revealed his true intentions. That night, Lysandra kills him in his sleep. The next day, acting as Celaena, the trio goes back to the Keep and Celaena demands from the other assassins and Lysandra to know what happened. They determine it wasn't anyone among them, and Arobynn's will is read. All of his fortune, lands, and the Guild are left to Celaena, much to the dismay of the other assassins and Clarisse, the brothel owner that owns Lysandra. Aelin kicks them all out, and tells them to come back with money if they want to buy it from her, which they do. Aedion and Rowan figure out she switched the will so that way they would have money for an army.

Aelin, Rowan, Aedion, and Chaol go into the sewers in search of hellfire, a potent mixture that would blow up the clocktower and free magic. They find the hellfire, but also an old temple built of bones, where wicked people carved their confessions onto them. They go through the temple till they find the confession of Gavin Havilliard. He explains that him and Elena fought the Valg king Erawan and that they could not kill him, so they entombed him in Morath and sealed it using the Eye of Elena. Nesryn finds them and tells them that the King is building a dark army in Morath, and tells them about the witches and wyverns. Aelin storms off and Lorcan pins her, telling her and Rowan the true reason he is here. He isn't on orders from Maeve, and plans to find the Wyrdkeys and destroy them to keep Maeve from becoming a monster. He offers to exchange Athril's ring, which grants protection from the Valg, for the Amulet of Orynth. Then he leaves to let them think it over. When they arrive home, Evangeline breaks in and tells them that as part of Arobynn's will, he had a letter sent to the castle informing the King that Lysandra was a shapeshifter. The guards came and took her and she was being taken into Oakwald forest for the King and Dorian to have a meeting with the witches.

Manon, the Thirteen, and the other Blackbeak covens have been stationed at Morath for months, taking endless orders from Duke Perrington, a collared and lifeless Kaltain at his side. The Duke demands that Manon chose a coven to be implanted with Wyrdstone so that way they can bear witch/Valg offspring. Manon initially refuses, but a Yellowlegs coven volunteers. Elide Lochan, daughter of Marion and Cal Lochan and niece to Vernon Lochan, is chained and crippled, working as a slave in Morath. She is assigned to serve Manon, and when Manon gives her a small cut and tastes her blood, she discovers she has witch lineage. She tells Elide to choose whether she is human, or whether she is a witch. Elide says she is a witch, and so Manon sends her to go and check on the Yellowlegs coven. She discovers that the witches are being bred multiple times, and producing monsters as babies. Manon is angered and writes to her grandmother, to no avail. Asterin, her Second and cousin, grows increasingly angrier with Manon and they fight multiple times, and it ends with her being demoted. but is then summoned by the Duke to meet the King and her grandmother in Oakwald forest.

The Matron shows the King a new weapon, a wagon covered in mirrors on the inside, meant to amplify shadowfire, a dark fire that doesn't physically burn but kills and injures regardless, that is wielded by Kaltain. Manon and Dorian instantly connect, the Valg prince in him immediately fading away and giving Dorian control at the sight of Manon's gold eyes. Dorian tries to goad her into killing him, but she doesn't oblige him. Meanwhile, Aelin, Aedion, Chaol, and Rowan free Lysandra and are about to escape but Chaol disappears to go try and mercy kill Dorian. He runs into the witches instead. Aedion, Aelin, and Rowan run after him. Manon is about to let them go but Aelin doesn't believe her and goads her into a fight by revealing she killed Baba Yellowlegs. They run through a temple and Aelin and Manon fight. The temple begins to collapse and Manon is trapped and going to die, but Aelin decides to save her life and then leaves. While Manon is gone, Elide is captured by Vernon and thrown in a cell. After the fight, Asterin tells Manon they need to talk, and she tells her how she fell in love with a human man, and went back to the witches when she was pregnant. Her baby was stillborn, and Manon's grandmother, the Matron, beat her, branded the word "unclean" across her stomach, and threw her out to die. Asterin never told Manon, and that is why she had been acting out. Manon is angry, and decides that she will not give another coven to the Duke for breeding. She then realizes that Aelin was probably trying to rescue Dorian, and that Chaol was trying to mercy kill him, so she flies to Rifthold with Asterin and paints all around the city a warning that Dorian is still alive despite the demon.

Aelin reveals to Lysandra that she has paid off all of her debts and she is now free from Clarisse and the brothel. Rowan is recovering from the battle with the witches, but smells Lorcan out on the roof and goes to meet him. Lorcan says he killed all the Wyrdhounds and offers the ring again for the amulet. Rowan agrees and they trade. Rowan gave him a fake though.

Aelin sees Manon's message and runs to tell Chaol. Aedion and Rowan sneak through tunnels underground to install the hellfire at the base of the clock tower to blow it up. Aelin pretends to be Celaena again and leads Chaol through the gates as her prisoner. As they are walking through the gates, they see all of Chaol's men, tortured and dead, strung up on the gates. They go to the throne room to meet with the King and Dorian. Aelin pretends as though she has killed the Wendlyn royals and gives the king two fake seal rings to prove it. He then reveals he knows that she is Aelin, and he sends Dorian to attack her. She runs, and Chaol faces off against the King. Lorcan lied about killing the Wyrdhounds, and Aedion and Rowan are attacked by them when they are supposed to be lighting the fuse. Lorcan, after seeing that Aedion is Gavriel's son, saves them. Aelin faces off against Dorian, and puts Athril's ring on his finger to try and get the Valg out. Rowan and Aedion blow up the clocktower, and magic is freed. Rowan and Aedion are targeted by soldiers, and Lorcan flees, but Lysandra appears in the form of a ghost leopard and helps them fight them off. The King appears and taunts that he killed Chaol, and Dorian breaks free from the Valg. Him and Aelin combine magic to kill the King. The King then breaks free from the Valg that was controlling him and reveals that Perrington tricked the King, raised Erawan, let Erawan possess him, and then possessed the King with a Valg prince. He claims that he got rid of magic to help protect Aelin and Dorian so the Valg wouldn't find them, and that he magically attacked Aelin when she was a child in order to provoke her into killing him. Dorian doesn't believe him and uses his magic to kill him and shatter the whole glass castle. Aelin uses her fire to melt the glass into a wall so the city is saved. She proclaims herself as Queen of Terrasen and Dorian as King of Adarlan. Lorcan steals back Athril's ring from Aelin. Chaol is alive, but he is paralyzed from the waist down. Dorian makes Nesryn his Captain of the Guard and Chaol his Hand, but immediately sends the both of them to the Southern Continent so Chaol can be healed at the Torre Cesme. Aelin makes Lysandra a Lady of Terrasen. Aelin, Lysandra, Aedion, and Rowan all leave for Terrasen.

In Morath, Manon arrives to discover Elide missing. She immediately hunts her down in the dungeons, being dragged away to breed with the Valg. Manon slaughters the guards, and they run into Kaltain. She reveals that she had killed the Valg that had been possessing her a long time ago, and takes Elide's clothes to pretend to be her to give her time to escape. She then cuts open her arm and takes out a Wyrdkey and gives it Elide, making her swear to give it to Celaena Sardothien. Manon, Elide, and the rest of the Thirteen run, and Kaltain uses her shadowfire to obliterate a third of Morath. Manon gives Elide supplies and tells her to go north to Terrasen to find Aelin and Celaena.

Aelin Ashryver Galathynius (Celaena Sardothien/Lillian Gordaina/Ansel of Briarcliff/Aelin Fireheart/Aelin of the Wildfire): I know a lot of people find Aelin's endless scheming and plots to be annoying, but one of my favorite parts about this series is watching her schemes and subtle plans come together. None of it comes out of nowhere, it was all well thought out and planned (a theme I wish SJM had kept in her Crescent City series).

Storyline: Once again, I love watching the intricate pieces and subtle hints all come together in this series, but especially in this book. She also lays the groundwork for later schemes in this book. The entire story was engaging and entertaining the entire time, and I loved seeing Lysandra, Rowan, Aedion, Aelin, Chaol, Dorian, and Manon all come together. I do wish Dorian hadn't killed the King as quickly as he did, as there was so much more information they could have got from him.

Representation: Ghislaine, one of the Thirteen, is described as being POC. Characters like Rowan, Lorcan, and Dorian are left up for debate as to whether they are POC or just tan.

Quotes: "She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph." (p.142) "'But would you bleed red, or black?' 'I'll bleed whatever color you tell me to.'"-Manon and Dorian (p.463) "You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live."-Aelin (p.527)

[385bookreviews]

1.72.4 Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas

SPOILERS

Pages: 569

Time Read: 10 hours and 27 minutes

Overall Rating: 4★ Storyline: 4.5★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: YA Fantasy

TWs for the book: Death, violence, blood, murder, grief, death of a parent, gore, war, torture, slavery, fire/burns, injury/injury detail, genocide, physical abuse, su*c*dal thoughts, animal cruelty, emotional abuse, body horror, vomit, mental illness, confinement, bullying, colonization, cursing, panic attacks, toxic relationship, self harm, abandonment, classism, misogyny, racism, child abuse, child death, su*c*de attempt, drug use

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: Varese, Doranelle, and Mistward on the fictional continent of Wendlyn; Rifthold, Adarlan, and The Ferian Gap on the fictional continent of Erilea

First Line: Gods, it was boiling in this useless excuse for a kingdom.

Two months after being sent to Varese to kill the King and Prince of Wendlyn, Celaena has made no progress and realizes she doesn't plan on it. Drunk and starving, she is confronted by a Fae named Rowan and taken by him to a fortress outside of the Fae city of Doranelle called Mistward. There she is confronted by her aunt, Queen Maeve, and she demands to know about the Wyrdkeys. Maeve says that because she is demi-Fae, she cannot gain access to Doranelle or the answers she wants until she trains in her magic and proves herself worthy. She instructs Rowan to stay with her in Mistward and train her.

In Adarlan, Aedion Ashryver arrives in Rifthold at the behest of the king. He is Aelin/Celaena's cousin, and since the fall of Terrasen has become one of the king's best generals. Dorian and Chaol dislike him immensely, especially after Aedion starts taking Chaol's guards away to parties. Chaol goes to search for him, but discovers that Aedion doesn't even attend his own parties. Chaol begins to track Aedion all over the city in order to get blackmail so he can tell him to stop stealing his guards. He sees him meeting with a hooded figure, and is then kidnapped. He discovers Aedion has been meeting with two of the rebels who were working with Archer Finn, Ren and his grandfather Murtaugh. Aedion is also a rebel, and Ren and Murtaugh are former nobles from Terrasen. Chaol tells them that Aelin is alive, and privately tells Aedion that she is Celaena Sardothien.

We are introduced to a new character named Manon Blackbeak, an Ironteeth witch, heir to the Blackbeak clan. By order of the King of Adarlan, all three witch clans, the Blackbeaks, Bluebloods, and Yellowlegs, are all required to gather in the Ferian Gap and train to ride wyverns bred by the king so they can be his new aerial cavalry.

Rowan instructs Celaena to work in the kitchens in the morning, where she meets Emrys and Luca, two demi-Fae. Rowan comes to get her to train and commands her to shift into her Fae form but she refuses. Growing frustrated, Rowan tells her to walk through a field full of barrow wights, grave robbing cave creatures, and if she can come out the other side she can go to Doranelle. In the field, she is attacked by a creature who looks human but wears a black stone collar. It makes her relive her worst memories and slowly begins feeding on her essence. She is rescued by Rowan, but he refuses to take her to Doranelle. After several days of not shifting, Rowan bites her, forcing her to shift. She can't do this again, and slowly bodies of demi-Fae begin to appear around the area, withered husks sucked of all life. Rowan and Celaena get into a fight, and she decides to leave Mistward. She treks off on her own and lights a fire, but is very quickly hunted down by skinwalkers. Rowan saves her, and the fear and panic makes her able to shift and use her fire magic, and she burns the skinwalkers alive. After another fight between them, Rowan takes Celaena to a cave under a mountain with a lake, and he freezes it completely with Luca chained in the center. Celaena makes her way across the ice and controls her fire enough to free Luca, but they are then attacked by a lake monster. After leaving Rowan and Celaena fight again, and Rowan promises to never involve anyone else in their training again, and they grow a bit closer.

Dorian is lonely since Celaena left, not trusting Chaol and Chaol keeping his distance so Dorian doesn't discover that Celaena is Aelin. Dorian gradually grows closer to a healer named Sorscha, and it quickly turns romantic. Aedion and Chaol meet in the secret tunnels to discuss everything Chaol knows about Aelin and the king and the Wyrdkeys. Dorian, who was already in the tunnels, hears everything and is angry with Chaol for keeping all of this from him. Ren, Murtaugh, Chaol, and Aedion begin investigating how to bring back magic so Aelin and Dorian can stand a chance against the king.

Manon begins training her covens, and the time comes to pick a wyvern. She has her eye set on the biggest and meanest one, Titus, but when he is put in the pit and set on the bait beast to show off his skills, Iskra, the Yellowlegs heir, shoves Manon into the pit. The bait beast defends her when Titus tries to attack her, and, with her help, he successfully kills Titus. Manon chooses him as her mount and names him Abraxos, much to the anger of her grandmother, as he has never flown. He is able to fly, but not able to pass the test of flying the Crossing, so Manon goes to the Ruhnn mountains and steals spider silk from the Stygian spiders to reinforce his wings. With this, Abraxos is able to make the Crossing and lead the rest of Manon's coven, the Thirteen, in battle.

Rowan and Celaena continue to investigate the murders of demi-Fae, and come across 200 Adarlanian soldiers and three of the creatures with the black collars hiding in caves. They begin to prepare Mistward for attack, even though no aid would be coming from Doranelle or Wendlyn. They set traps, and plan to flee down a secret tunnel if the fortress becomes compromised, but they are betrayed by someone in the fortress, and the soldiers infiltrate through the tunnel while the creatures attempt to break down the magical wards surrounding the fort. Celaena goes out and uses her fire magic to hold off the creatures, and the reveal themselves to be Valg demons that Elena and Brannon fought centuries ago, all being controlled by the king of Adarlan. A fourth Valg appears in the body of General Narrok. Rowan's warrior friends arrive to help defend the fort, but when Rowan tries to run to Celaena, Lorcan and Gavriel stop him. She begins to be consumed by the memories of the days leading up to her family's death, starting with a magical meltdown she had when the king of Adarlan arrived in Terrasen. She realizes he was using his dark magic to make her react like that so they would have to send her away and split up their family, making them easier to assassinate. She also remembered her mother's lady in waiting, Marion, who died to save her, and the fact that her family heirloom necklace that she had been wearing, the Amulet of Orynth, went missing that night. While the demons continue to torture her, she is given a vision of her younger self that tells her to get up, and she does, unlocking the true depth of her power and she begins incinerating the Valg. She slowly begins to lose power, and Rowan finally frees himself and runs to her. They cut their palms open to form a blood tie and combine magic to destroy the rest of them, making them carranam, magical soulmates. After the battle Celaena realizes the third Wyrdkey is in the Amulet of Orynth, and that Arobynn Hamel must have it. She doesn't tell Rowan this though in case Maeve tries to force it out of him using the blood oath.

Manon and her coven participate in the War Games to see who will be crowned Wing Leader. The Blackbeaks are winning, but Iskra commands her wyvern to kill Keelie, the Blueblood heir Petrah's wyvern. Petrah and Keelie begin to fall to their death, and instead of securing her victory right then, Manon saves Petrah's life. They win the War Games anyways, but Manon is beaten by her grandmother for saving the life of her rival. As reward/thinly veiled threat to stay in line, her grandmother orders her to kill a Crochan witch and take her cloak for herself.

Rowan and Celaena travel to Doranelle and Maeve gives Celaena what she wants to know, which isn't much. She tells her what the Wyrdkeys look and felt like and then asks her where the third key is. Celaena refuses to tell her, and Rowan doesn't know, so Maeve begins whipping Rowan. Celaena encircles the whole city in fire and threatens to burn the people in it if Maeve doesn't stop. When they were in the cave with the lake monster, Rowan found a sword named Goldryn and and a golden ring, both that belonged to Athril, Maeve's former lover. Celaena figured out the true story, that Maeve tried to keep the Wyrdkeys for herself, but Brannon and Athril fought her. When Athril died, she was so distraught that Brannon took the Wyrdkeys from her. Celaena bargains the ring for Rowan being freed from the blood oath, and Maeve relents. Rowan immediately kneels and takes the blood oath to Celaena, and they leave Doranelle.

Aedion, Dorian, Chaol, and Sorscha are called before the king. The king threatens to cut off her head if one of them doesn't admit to treason, and Aedion takes the fall and is arrested. The king reveals that Sorscha was actually a rebel spy this whole time, in contact with Ren and Murtaugh and feeding them information. He cuts off her head and Chaol tries to fight the king. He is almost killed with an arrow until Dorian uses his magic to save him and Chaol escapes the castle with Fleetfoot. Dorian is captured by the king and given a Wyrdstone collar.

Celaena, leaving Rowan in Wendlyn, sails home.

Celaena Sardothien (Aelin Ashryver Galathynius/Elentiya): Watching Celaena/Aelin's growth throughout this series makes her one of my favorite characters ever. Especially in contrast to The Assassin's Blade and Throne of Glass, she has matured a lot, and her realizing that her parents' death wasn't her fault, and the memories pulled up by the Valg making her stronger, really shows her strength as a character and made for very believable character development.

Storyline: When I first read this series I didn't care much for Heir of Fire with the bouncing POVs, but after this second read through, this is one of my favorites. The series really starts to pick up and come together at this point, and a lot of growth happens, along with the introduction of Manon and the Ironteeth witches. There were a couple of slow parts, but I honestly didn't mind that much.

Representation: Emrys and Malakai, two the demi-Fae living at Mistward, are gay. I believe some of the demi-Fae are described as being POC, but no one major, and as much as I love this series, I would be remiss to not point out the lack of representation.

Summary: This book, along with Queen of Shadows, Empire of Storms, and Kingdom of Ash is some of SJM's best work as far as plot and character development.

Quotes: "See what you want, Aelin, and seize it. Don't ask for it; don't wish for it. Take it."-Rowan Whitethorn (p.234) "You cannot pick and choose what parts of her to love."-Dorian Havilliard (p.344)

[385bookreviews]

1.72.3 Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas

SPOILERS

Pages: 418

Time Read: 7 hours and 8 minutes

Overall Rating: 3.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4★

Genre: YA Fantasy

TWs for the book: Death, murder, violence, blood, grief, gore, injury, torture, slavery, kidnapping, death of a parent, assassination, body horror, confinement, war, genocide, colonization, physical abuse, classism, toxic friendship, misogyny/sexism, su*c*dal thoughts/su*c*de attempt, toxic relationship, gaslighting, animal harm, hunting, minor s*xual content, cursing, stalking, abandonment, mentions of r*pe, panic attacks, self harm, mentions of drug abuse

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: Rifthold, the capital of Adarlan, in the fictional world of Erilea.

First Line: The shutters swinging in the storm wind were the only sign of her entry.

Celaena Sardothien has been the King's Champion for a couple of months at this point, and has already been on five assassination missions for the King. However, she has faked all of their deaths. The King then gives her a mission in Rifthold to kill Archer Finn, a courtesan she knew from growing up at the Assassin's Keep, as he suspects him to be a part of a rebel plot. Her friendship with Chaol has grown during this time, and she takes him with her to "accidentally" bump into Archer. Chaol is jealous by how closely they bond, and starts to realize his feelings for her. Celaena attempts to go to the library and finds what appears to be a cloaked person standing there, and it growls at her. The Eye of Elena begins to glow, and the creature runs off. She goes down into the tomb to seek answers from Elena, only to discover that the bronze skull knocker on the door can talk, and his name is Mort. He tells her that Elena wants her to find the evil in the castle. Dorian's cousin Roland arrives in the castle, wearing a black ring like Perrington and the King, and Celaena immediately dislikes him, even though he is trying desperately hard to gain Dorian's trust. Celaena and Archer go to dinner, and she tells him that she was sent by the King to assassinate him. Archer pleads for his life, saying he has no involvement in the rebel plots, but that some of his clients do, and that he knows that they want to find Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the heir to the throne of Terrasen, and use her to overthrow the King of Adarlan. Celaena gives him till the end of the month to get his affairs in order and to give her as much information as possible about the conspirators. He begins by taking her to a ball held by one of his clients, Davis, and she sneaks into his office and discovers a book on Wyrdmarks. In the back, she finds written, "It is only with the eye that one can see rightly." Davis catches her snooping and cuts her with a dagger that was covered in gloriella, a paralytic poison. She manages to kill him and make it back to the castle in time to tell Chaol to give her the antidote. Celaena then involves Nehemia, asking her to teach her to read the Wyrdmarks and help her solve the riddle. They go down to Elena's tomb, and discover that when standing on a constellation of the Stag, a hollowed out eye appeared in the wall. They both looked through it, but discovered nothing. Chaol and Celaena grow closer, and Celaena takes him out for a romantic dinner. She confesses that she hasn't actually been killing her targets, and Chaol is angry but ultimately chooses to be with her, saying he'll leave Rifthold with her one day. They have a lot of s*x over the following week.

Celaena and Nehemia get into a heated argument where Nehemia calls her a coward for refusing to help her plan to overthrow the King. Chaol is then kidnapped, and Celaena is left with a ransom note. She goes to a warehouse and kills 15 men before she is stopped by Archer. He tells her that Nehemia founded their rebel group, and that he had heard that she was going to be interrogated by Chaol and the King that day so they kidnapped him in an attempt to stop it and to show Celaena that Chaol had kept secret the fact that Nehemia's life was threatened. Celaena races back to the castle and finds Nehemia tortured to death. She attacks Chaol, blaming him for her death, and Dorian uses magic to stop her from killing him. Chaol puts her in the dungeons for a few days, where Kaltain tells her that Duke Perrington is taking her to Morath to be his wife, and that Roland will be going with them. When Chaol releases her from the dungeons, she sinks into heavy grief and refuses to speak to anyone. She then deduces that Grave, an assassin from the competition to be Champion, must have killed Nehemia, and she uses the tunnels to sneak out and kill him. She brings his head before the King, accuses the lord that was his sponsor in the competition of hiring him to kill Nehemia, and she gives him a list of the 15 men she killed from Archer's group. She solves the riddle talking about the eye and uses the pommel of King Gavin's sword Damaris to see another riddle written on the inside of the hollowed out eye. It is a map to to finding three powerful objects. She goes to a the carnival being held in honor of Prince Hollin, and speaks to an Ironteeth witch named Baba Yellowlegs. The witch reveals that Dorian came asking her questions about magic, and offers to sell his questions to Celaena but she refuses. She asks her about the riddle and the witch tells her that it speaks of Wyrdkeys, three slivers of rock broken off from the Wyrdgate, the portal between worlds. They are immensely powerful individually, but with all three one can open the Wyrdgate to all sorts of different planets and dimensions. She kills the witch for knowing Dorian's secrets, and her and Dorian grow closer again.

She then investigates catacombs she found beneath the library, using Wyrdmarks to unlock the iron doors. She finds an underground prison, and then the entrance to the giant obsidian clock tower built by the King. She is turning back when she is attacked by the creature from before. Dorian, who had followed her down, runs with her, and he tries to use his magic to seal the door. It doesn't work, so he runs to find the spellbook and they use it to trap and kill the creature. Celaena realizes it has a human heart, and that it must have been human at one point. She believes the King used a Wyrdkey to make it into a monster. She discovers the meaning of the first part of the riddle and discovers the key is gone. Distraught, she grabs the spellbook and uses it to open a portal to contact Nehemia. She succeeds, but Nehemia tells her to never do it again. Just as the portal closes, Archer appears, and reveals that Nehemia showed him the tunnels and he's been spying on her for weeks. Celaena realizes on of the coded notes in Nehemia's room was saying not to trust Archer. She acts like she is on his side and is willing to give him the book and work with him, and he confesses he was the one to order Grave to kill Nehemia. She attacks him once he does, and in their fight they accidentally open a portal to another world. Dorian is warned in a dream by King Gavin that Celaena is in trouble, and he runs to get Chaol and they discover the tunnel. They arrive to see a demon attacking Celaena, Fleetfoot (Celaena's dog) hurt, and Archer chanting out of the spell book. Chaol attacks the demon, Archer flees, and Dorian drags Celaena away. Celaena knocks him out, and sees the demon drag Fleetfoot through the portal and Chaol run after her. Celaena runs into the portal and immediately shifts from a human to a Fae, and attacks the demon with fire magic. They all get to safety and Celaena uses Dorian's magic blood to close the portal. Celaena then hunts down Archer in the tunnels and kills him, bringing his head before the King.

Chaol tells his father he wants to send Celaena away to Wendlyn to assassinate the King and his son, and that if he backs him up he will return to be the Lord of Anielle. His father agrees and they propose the idea to the King. He agrees, and tells Celaena to go to Wendlyn. She is panicked, not knowing how to get out of it, but Elena tells her to go. Before she leaves, she says goodbye to Dorian, and then says goodbye to Chaol at the docks. She tells him about the Wyrdkeys and everything she's learned, and then tells him the date of her parents' death and leaves. He is confused, and researches the date, and realizes that Celaena is actually Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, lost queen of Terrasen, and he just sent her away to the land of her distant Fae relatives.

Storyline: The storyline in this book was a little slow for me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Representation: Nehemia is the only POC, and she has herself killed in order to motivate and progress Celaena's character, which is a huge issue I have with this book.