Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Kingdom of Ash

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas

100 reviews

barbarianmissy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

My name is Hailey Friggin Williams.

And I will not be afraid….

CAUSE IVE OFFICIALLY FINISHED READING THROUGH THE SJM UNIVERSE AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO COPE WITH IT😭

Holy shit monkeys. WOW. Just… wow….

I feel like I adored all of the SJM sagas but Throne of Glass really got me feeling lots of feelings. It was a slow burn love story between me and the series because it started off being real meh and turned into one of my all time fav series. I loved it. Seriously. I’m gonna force anyone who will listen to me to read it.

Onto Kingdom of Ash in particular:

This finale was epic. So much heart was put into it and the war and chaos and grief aspects were beautifully done. For a series with a crazy amount of characters, all of their stories were all lovingly ended and tied with a bow. Even Aedion, whom I shan’t punch. (I’ve forgiven his antics)

The sense of peace and hope this book ended with… TEARS!!! So many tears were shed throughout, though. And even though I believe the ending was perfect I STILL WANT MORE DAMMIT!

I want an entire epilogue book that’s written 10 years in the future cause I wanna check on everybody and see how they’re all doing! They deserve a happy book like ACOTAR got with frost and starlight.

In conclusion, I’m gonna miss these characters very very much.

Anywho, I’m distraught. Bye. ✌️

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bi_n_large's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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ashleighrobin's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

What a way to wrap up this series. Even though this is almost 1000 pages, I still feel like l some characters didn’t get the storyline and wrap up that they deserved.

The battle between Maeve and aelin is what is knocking this from a 5 star for me, because it’s “it was all an illusion” was kind of convoluted imo. I understand why she wrote it like that bc of Maeve’s valg powers, but still I don’t love it.

also enjoyed some of the crossovers between acotar and cc (like the glow worms!)

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juliapatt2007's review

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

3.0

Overall I did like this book as the conclusion to the series.

I thought the final closing of the gate was anticlimactic. The whole series was leading up to this point and I felt that Maas made the closing of the gate insignificant in the whole scheme of things. I did feel that Yrene dealing with Erawan was appropriately handled for which I was grateful. When Aelin branded the members of her Cadre to bring them out of Maeve’s control I was hoping they would all be left with a lasting matching mark unifying them as a court. The battle seemed to go on forever and while I appreciate there were different days and battles I did find myself skipping over some of the scenes as I was getting bored. There were several times throughout this book when I had to put the book down and process the epic scenes being written which always makes me happy when I read. The final dialogue between Maeve, Eerawan and Aelin gave me chills. As did Manon’s scene when she rallied the witch clans with the flame.

While this series certainly isn’t my favorite I do like Maas as an author and I know how well known she is in the YA fantasy genre. I love her writing of strong female characters that are paired with men who support them but also encourage them to be better and aren’t afraid of challenging them when needed. I plan to read her other series at some point and I hope I will be pleasantly surprised by those.

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spatterson7's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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undecidedpersonality's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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kelread's review

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is a commentary/rating on the series itself, not just this book (which is roughly 500 pages too damn long): I don't get the hype. There are so many threads, so many arcs, character development is borderline contrived, some romantic relationships between characters baffling, and there are just. so. many. plotlines. and too. many. words. And good lord does Maas love to write a torture scene which is 100% not my jam.

TBH, I finished it out of spite.

Diehard SJM fans will (and do love this).

Fans of ACOTAR...it's a 50/50 chance and it's worth noting that there's not much spice (or, really, spark).

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aksmith92's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Oh my....the war kept going and going and going and going annnddd.....

The setup (note: maybe some slight spoilers since this is the final book in the Throne of Glass series; I tried to make it as least spoiler-y as possible): Aelin is MIA and going through it; she's captured by the villain Maeve who I'm still so confused about, but regardless is quite ruthless alongside her weird "pet" named Cairn. Fenrys is there with Aelin, too, and they play an awful blinking game to ensure they know the other is ok [spoiler, they are not!].

The gang is all separated - Rowan, likely bawling every second, is with Lorcan, Gavriel, and Elide, who are all on the hunt to find Aelin. Dorian is traveling with some witches, including Manon, who pretends not to like Dorian at all, which is most certainly a lie. Chaol is still traveling from the southern continent with his new wife, Yrene, whom he married in 2.5 seconds flat; they are on their way to aid Terrasen with warriors. Aedion, Lysandra, and a bunch of others are fighting non-stop in Terrasen, constantly being told by some old dude named Darrow that they are ding dongs.

The connection? Fighting the infamous Vlag, "demons" from another world accidentally left in Erilea because of one of Aelin's ancestors. Oops! There are about 200 (ok, maybe not, but it seemed like it) other sub-plots that somehow connect, which is bananas. Anyway, this nearly 1,000-page novel is about the final battle (um, "final" 100 battles, maybe) between those in Erilea and the Vlag.

Buckle up! I have a lot to say about this novel. Notoriously, I've been relatively pessimistic about SJM's works. Almost everything I've read has been 3 or 3.5 stars (including the books in her ACOTAR series!), and this is the first book I've given below three stars, and it is my LEAST favorite novel I've read by SJM. It's important to me to describe why because this woman gets one million accolades about her work when this, to me, seems like cheap writing. Listen, I speed-read through her books. My brain goes *poof, off*, and if I don't think too hard, they can be somewhat entertaining. That is why none of her works are 1-star reviews for me. Buuuuuuuuut, I must shout to the world that these are not works of art, AND at times can be problematic. Let's jump riiiiiight in.

What I Liked: Hm, it was readable. I was invested this far. I wanted to know how SJM wrapped some things up and how she tied bows around specific plot points. I liked some characters in the previous books, including Lysandra, Elide, Lorcan, Manon, and Dorian; I was ready to see what became of them. I'll share more below, but I was disappointed in the character development. I still enjoyed Manon and Lysandra (outside of the men), and there were not too many blatant plot holes (if you don't think too hard).

What I Didn't Like: My main frustration was that almost every character is the same. Here it goes: has confidence that is closer to arrogance; is always ready to fight in whatever "profession" they've deemed appropriate: warrior, healer, rider, etc.; is always ready to go with absolutely zero hours of sleep; shares some funny sayings once in a while; is beautiful in every possible way; likely has a "thing" that prevents them from being their best selves and holds them back, but not too far back, they're still perfect; is strong; and is somehow touched by a god, destined to be INCREDIBLE, is a descendent from a royal line, or is a queen/king. Who did I describe? Literally every single character. In previous books, I liked Manon and Lorcan because they veered on morally grey. I enjoyed Yrene and Elide because they were more passive in some ways. However, this book's characters seemed to lose their uniqueness in every way, and it bothered me to no end.

On a similar note, SJM seemed to have a stakes problem. I'm not saying I need main characters to die - I think sometimes that works and other times it doesn't! - but every single character was just the BEST! They might have hit some obstacles, but I knew that those obstacles wouldn't be meaningful in any way, and they would overcome them in one second or pull some magic out of their butt (that happened regularly). I wasn't worried about any of the main characters (i.e., those with a POV, AKA like 14 characters, lol) at any point, even when those obstacles surfaced. Honestly, this led to me not caring much about them.

Lastly, this book should have been shorter. There were so many overdone battle scenes and moments or some POVs we didn't need (I'm looking at you, Evangeline!). I was so over it that my capacity for the final-final battle scene was so low.

On a random note, I still think that Arobynn Hamel should have been the main villain throughout this whole series. He was layered and interesting, and you truly loved to hate him. The other villains in here seemed distant and I couldn't really understand them. I know it's a personal problem - people will choose how they feel about villains, but I generally need to understand them a bit.

Below, I bullet out some specific "what the f" moments within this book that contributed to my low rating. Spoilers ahead!

-There were like 6-8 heterosexual couples existing at once, and we had to hear about them all being mates all the time.
-Dorian managed to shapeshift in less than two days, and while he "practiced," it all seemed pretty unbelievable.
-SJM loved to romanticize war - "just under 500 deaths." "Good! Not as bad as it could have been." ~onwards to another battle, and not one single cares about the deaths~.
-Fenrys could suddenly break the blood oath, yes, with some consequence, but he did it ~magically~. [The blood oath is confusing anyway.]
-Yrene was supposed to be the Healer on High and the best healer in the world with 18 million tonics, even though her magic mostly does the healing (??). Also, she had all those tonics, and not one prevented a pregnancy during a literal war. There were lots of pro-life statements peppered in this narrative, too.
-The Vlag were apparently afraid of fire, hence why they were petrified of Aelin. Somehow, in the military and war strategy, everyone seemed to forget this fact and didn't plan on bringing any fire to the table. It changed a little bit near the middle/end, but they still made it seem like this revolutionary thing when they never tried.....fire....
-Manon begging for Dorian - that whole scene about marriage and Dorian being like "nah" because he "just knew" that Manon wouldn't want that without actually talking about it - was no bueno. Also, the Manon I've read about would do NONE of that—character regression at its finest.
-In Tower of Dawn, the Kaghanate knew everything because they had spies everywhere. Now, in this book, they knew NOTHING! Their interesting territory world-building fell through the cracks. And, instead, we got the random dude named Nox from Book 1 to be the messenger. Weak.
-I have to admit, I find it funny that the Ironteeth witches were all like, "The Crochans are pretty much wiped out since we've butchered and killed them all - ha ha!" Then, there were over 5,000 fighting in battle. Ok! Also, Terrasen's ancient Fae showing up at the end for funsies was ridiculous.
-Death and sacrifice were important themes, which I hate because yikes. In this book, Aedion was a JERK to Lysandra, and guess what? Lysandra gave him a chance once their lives were in danger. Lorcan and Elide said some pretty yucky things to each other and wanted nothing to do with each other until *ding, ding, ding* death stood in the way. This theme also impacted Gavriel and Aedion's relationship, and the list goes on.
-Thank goodness, after all that, Aelin still had access to tons of coins to live her lavish lifestyle. Phew, I was worried!

As you can see, I had some sh*t to say! Officially, I am done reading SJM; I don't think I can head into the next series of Crescent City. I need a long break, if not a final departure from SJM.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

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annikenr's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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oxfordcommas91's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What an emotional and fitting end to an epic fantasy series. TOG was my first high fantasy series so I didn’t know much of what to expect but I am so glad I undertook this adventure. I became so attached to Aelin and her band of heroes throughout the eight books. Though this final installment is almost 1,000 pages, they seemed to fly by as we jumped from battle to battle, from one part of the kingdom to another in massive clashes of good versus evil. At every moment I was surprised and intrigued. This book really beautifully brings back plots and characters that Maas expertly introduces books earlier - I was so impressed when something came up that I remembered from an earlier piece of the story and think that it’s the hallmark of a great writer to be able to make these sorts of callbacks. This book had some truly heartbreaking moments that were befitting of the finale of such an intense series but each one felt meaningful and instrumental to the storyline. I definitely found myself tearing up quite a bit at times and thought the overall arc of this novel was beautifully done.

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