Hello all! Last night I finished "Tower of Dawn" by the amazing Sarah J. Maas. I have to say, I was not looking forward to this book at all. The whole time I was reading the books prior to "Tower of Dawn" I was always so curious as to why the cover was so different and didn't have a badass illustration of Aelin on there and it is because its a parallel novel to "Empire of Storms." Which means while you read of Aelin's perspective in Empire, you don't hear anything from her in Tower... at all. The concept of that is really cool, but I was not thrilled to have an entire book about Chaol and without Aelin. Especially after Aelin and Rowan happen, I just was not interested in him anymore. He was one of my least favorite characters in the series because he was always so self-pitying and sulky. I even did the google search: is tower of dawn crucial to the plot of kingdom of ash or can I skip it? Not my finest moment. I ended up on goodreads where I found that a lot of other people were asking questions similar to mine and after reading some of the answers, I decided to give the book a go. My thought process was: worst case scenario, by reading this I am prolonging the ending of the series, so that was good enough for me. I will say though, "Tower of Dawn" was not as bad as I was expecting. It was definitely dull in comparison to Aelin and Lysandra and Rowan, but I got a little bit of my love back for Chaol. There were parts in the series that I think will be crucial to "Kingdom of Ash", and the romance in it was pretty steamy. I'm here for it. Also, Yrene Towers makes a comeback from "The Assassin's Blade," which I will say I have been waiting for that since the moment she and Celaena parted ways! All in all, I don't regret reading it. Guiltily, I admit, I did skip past some of the chapters that were focused on Nesryn and Sartaq, but I'd say is worth reading and you should do it. Throughout the books Nesryn and Chaol gather armies and forces willing to fight in Aelin's war and I can't wait to see how everything fits together in "Kingdom of Ash."
This section of the Current Read contains spoilers from "Empire of Storms" and "Tower of Dawn," read at your own risk. The whole time reading Tower I was just waiting for Yrene and Chaol to collectively figure out that the woman who helped Yerene in Innish was Aelin; and finally at the end of the book when they got it, I had goosebumps! So good! I'm a few chapters into "Kingdom of Ash" and everytime I read about Aelin in the iron coffin my heart hurts for Rowan. I cannot wait for Rowan to save her and for them to reunite... (not a spoiler, I just know it's going to happen, right? The series can't end with her in the iron coffin, so if you think that's a spoiler then, I apologize, but c'mon, it's bound to happen). Although I don't think it's going to go down with Aelin running into the safety of his arms and crying happy tears. I almost feel like Sarah J. Maas is going to hurt me by having Aelin being so scarred and tormented that she won't think it's real or Maeve getting so deep into her mind to make her forget who Rowan is or something. I don't know, that's just my prediction. I'm sure the final book in the series will be amazing and I'll love it, I'll be sure to do a Current Read on Kingdom, but until then, happy reading my friends!
-S