Tuesday 13 September 2016

Empire of Storms

29559052

Book Title: Empire of Storms
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass #5
Date Started: September 7th 2016
Date Completed: September 11th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Action, Adventure
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

Empire of Storms has flaws. A lot of them. And from the reactions of other people that I've been seeing, I'm definitely not alone in that response. However, by the general standard of Young Adult fantasy it is leaps and bounds ahead - I think it's just by the standard of our wonderful Sarah J. Maas it's not what we wanted. Regardless, I still enjoyed Empire of Storms a lot, and wow that ending made me forget the problems I was having for a good while.

I've taken a couple of days to think over what I want to say about this book because all the notes I have are all the things I didn't enjoy, the things that didn't work or lost their way. But I loved this book. I don't want everything I have to say about it to be negative. We have amazing characters; stunning places with their own detailed mythos; developed politics and relationships and plot twists and obstacles that feel real. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that everything I didn't get on with was to do with double standards in the writing. Whether that be double standards in the way characters are presented: Manon and the Fae males, both having committed equally terrible things, seem to be looked at with disgust and pride respectively; it's okay for one of the 'good' main protagonists to act possessively or in a sexist way, but not one of the 'bad' ones; it's okay for the males to be objectified, but not the females. In each instance, it's always a little thing - just a little comment or portrayal that made me tilt my head a bit and move on from, but the more and more little things there are, the more they start to build up. I think it got to me in the end because, really, they could have been solved with little revisions and there wouldn't have been such a problem anymore, but in trying to get across power in some characters, or vulnerability in others, we ended up with a lot of double standards scattered through the whole thing.

High fantasy is my favourite genre, and you can't have a good high fantasy without some politics and social tension. At the start of Empire of Storms, I was worried we were going to fall into the convention of the long lost princess coming back to her kingdom and realising she has to be married off, and fighting that within her own walls - a plot line that ultimately ends up as pure court intrigue with some quite shallow politics at its root. I clearly need to let myself trust authors more, because of course Sarah wouldn't let that be all that happens to Aelin. You have to give credit to her for being unpredictable even in battles or scenes that feel familiar. I personally love when stories go back over everything that's happened in their series so far through references or, as we see here, by bringing back old characters in a way you wouldn't have seen coming. Each book in this series has taken an already complex storyline and added another tangent to build on its foundations while also drawing back on what it has already built, and we really do have an epic conclusion to the series coming up.
As I've already mentioned, the conclusion to this book was enough to stun me into silence for a little while. Sarah knows how to do her varied climaxes: the Throne of Glass books don't all end on the 'final battle', we have duels, chases, magic wars, epic showdowns and sea battles. Though I prefered Queen of Shadows on the whole to this book, Empire of Storms is definitely in the lead with its conclusion - and damn, I don't know how you can finish this book and not desperately need the next one in your hands immediately.

Empire of Storms takes us back to the Aelin show - and don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Aelin show. But it was a bit of a shock after Queen of Shadows, where we had something like six primary characters each with their own little narratives going along. I mean, where the hell was Chaol for this book? Maybe his story wouldn't have been quite as dramatic as Aelin's but he breaks his legs and sent off to get healed and we then just hear nothing from him? It was such a shame. Furthermore, we went into this book with a brilliant host of strong, well-established characters, but I felt like their personalities were getting lost with the romance being pushed so hard: the stubbornness to get across sarcastic and 'entertaining' characters ends up actually losing some of the essence of the people.
Having said that Aelin, as usual, was wonderful.  In fact overall it was so wonderful to just constantly be surrounded by female characters. I think there might still be more named male characters than female, but there being so many scenes with a group of women talking naturally about the plot, or working something out together, or supporting each other, or just being plain friends amongst the horrors around them, was such a brilliant thing to be able to read. Because it does not happen a lot - I found myself pausing a moment when near the end we had three female characters alone being at centre of solving the entire series plotline. I would say that it feels like Sarah's a little lost on exactly who Aelin is at points: she is undoubtedly a stronger and more solid presence when she falls back into Celaena, but doesn't know whether to be assertive or aggressive, patient or gentle as Aelin. (Also, on a side note, magic is awesome and all, and Aelin kicks ass with it, but I do miss her good old fhasioned sword fighting.)
Now Rowan symbolises an interesting point for me that applies to the whole of this book - I honestly think I would've just let everything little thing go if it had not been for this. Rowan has, up to this point, never been annoying, never made me angry, and never felt off to me. I still think his and Aelin's romance came out of nowhere, and again we have a jump in their relationship between the end of Queen of Shadows and here, but I appreciate what Sarah is doing with him. The issue I had in Empire of Storms was the 'territorial fae bullshit' to quote Aelin. It's all very well to have the female characters saying they're being territorial every hundred pages, but it means nothing if the men continue to wrap the girls in cotton wool - that's an exaggeration, Aelin would never let that happen, nor would the others. But the point is we know that Rowan repects Aelin to handle herself, and we know he loves her and wants to protect her, and he has shown that without standing in her way before. But here we were given a self-indulgent romantic interest at Aelin's every beck and call to the point where he was clingy and didn't let her show her own independence. Part of what has always been so strong about Aelin is that she can have romantic interests without them taking away from her character and ability to function as the protagonist in the story - and she does still have that, yes. But Rowan wasn't her partner standing alongside her as she fought own battles; he was her guard stepping in front of her unless she tricked him and went off on her own. And because of some of this, I lost some of that intimacy between them. In fact, intimacy between everyone was something I found harder to feel, despite romance becoming an incredibly dominant and overpowering force in this story as a whole. I think the sex scenes (and there are quite a few, kids) are supposed to be the main focus of romance, but there was a lack of intimacy outside of the bedroom in the rest of the book. I don't object to sex scenes being included in books at all, but I want the quiet moments of intimacy too.

I've been saying some pretty negative things in this review, but honestly I don't give a book five stars lightly: I'm not lying when I say I adored this book and my love for this series can only grow. The fact that I have so much to say about what I feel could be improved is because I so strongly want these books to be the absolute best they can be because they mean so much to me. And I know Sarah is going to make the final book to this series outstanding, we just have to be patient for all the ties to come together.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29559052-empire-of-storms

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