4.5 stars.

Empire of Storms picks up right after all the dramatic events that came to a head in Queen of Shadows. After all the excitement of the last book, EoS feels a little slow and has a lot of exposition until about the second half of the book.

Regardless, Maas's character development is a killer for me - she manages to get me so invested in even the most minor characters, and can sway your opinion so rapidly. I really enjoyed reading how everything comes together for Aelin & Co. in their quest to find allies and save Terrassen. I also read this in tandem with Tower of Dawn, and I was glad I did because it really enriched the plot for me, and answered a lot of questions.

I liked the romance ok, but there is so much romance between various characters getting paired off that it felt a little rushed.

Finally, the cliffhanger was a killer and I've already started Kingdom of Ash. Really excited to see how it ends for all these characters I'm now way too attached to! ( )

1st read: December 2020
2nd read: October 2023

Awesome book. It is kinda of cruel though that the author ended the book on a cliffhanger, then wrote a book about different characters before she showed the resolution of the cliffhanger. ( )

This book pulled the whole series together for me. All the subplots, the deviations from the main storyline, it all came together in an incredible way. ( )

I get it now! I understand the hype for the Throne of Glass series. I am very happy with Empire of Storms, and reading it made me realize that I’ll get a lot more enjoyment out of the entire series (especially The Assassin’s Blade) the second time around. ( )

"Would this be the cost? Not just in blood shed, but in dreams yielded?"

I love and hate this book so much. And for that reason it is now my favorite of the series. This book had me in the feels constantly. I went through so many emotions throughout. At one point I'm pretty sure I felt like ten emotions in like two pages. I really enjoyed this one. It starts out giving us more background into the Elena and Gavin war with Erawan. I enjoyed the different perspective and the background because it felt like the perfect time to get to know more. I liked seeing more connections to that generation and our current group.

All the main players experience some dramatic shifts in this one. Elide is still making her way to meet Aelin and she has an insane journey to get there. Manon and the Thirteen experience some insane moments I didn't see coming; she is going to face some intense repercussions for her decisions. Aelin is forced to face some hard truths about becoming queen. A lot of this one is Aelin and group trying to find the third key and follow the new instructions to search for something called the Lock. All while our dear sweet Aelin is trying to find a few alliances to fight with them against Erawan.

The number of shocks this book gave had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Aelin is still her scheming self and I love it. She is clearly working on something and each time we get the reveal I am shook. My brain could not handle all the information I was getting in this one, because it was just one "oh my god" moment after another. Once they were revealed they made perfect sense. Each one was either beautiful or devastating. I don't think I will recover from this one anytime soon. It was just so amazing. ( )