*SPOILERS* for those who have yet to read to our mid-point mark!
So we’ve hit the middle of the month and therefore (hopefully) hit the middle of the book! So shall we do a little recap?
So far, Calaena has been rescued from her enslavement to compete in a competition of criminals that will grant the winner freedom from their horrid sentences as well as the title of the King’s Assassin. For someone like Calaena, it’s a walk in the park right? She was born to be an assassin, trained from childhood to do as such. But things are more complicated than that as someone – or something – is killing off the competition…
So far I’m enjoying this a lot more than the first time I attempted to read it and only got a few pages in. Calaena is cool in that she loves parties and dresses as much as she loves punching people’s faces in in a way that almost makes me think of Jude from The Cruel Prince (although the two are very different).
[AK's note: Yay for female characters who enjoy feminine things! We need to celebrate all aspects of being a girl or a woman.]
Chaol is super cool and I like seeing him and Dorian (who is bae at this point) compete for Calaena’s attention while also being like “DUDE SHE’S AN ASSASSIN SHE’LL KILL YOU” at each other. They genuinely come across as best friends and I’m really enjoying them both.
[AK's note: There seems to be a number of Dorians in YA these days... or maybe I tend to see this name a lot.]
In this first half of the book we also got to meet Princess Nehemia and she is amazing! She’s smart, vicious, and passionate while also not having any patience for nonsense. She’s not here to play games because she’s definitely here to get justice for her people who have been so horrendously enslaved, killed, and otherwise mistreated.
[AK's note: Writers, if you're creating Strong Female Characters, please don't focus just on the ass-kicking aspect. In fact, I'd say that we should forget about Strong Female Characters - focus on REAL & FLAWED characters, and give your girls and women and non-binary characters more speaking lines!]
As for the other important characters we’ve gotten to meet, I definitely don’t trust the king and I’m impatiently waiting for Cain to just die already. I do like Nox but want more depth before I think I can start caring about him. And, while I hate her, I also feel bad for Kaltain and whatever is going on with her and that gross Duke Perrington.
I look forward to finding out how this ends, now that the stakes of Celaena’s life have been raised with the finding of the tomb deep within in the castle walls. (Personally, I think it means she’s actually Fae and there will be more hints at a series crossover with ACOTAR but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see).
[AK's note: I bet Cain doesn't die at all though - assholes seldom perish when we want them to. We'll see.]
[This post (sans AK's commentary) originally appeared in Lucien's blog.]