Blog #19: Heir of Fire

 So, I really enjoyed books one and two of the Throne of Glass series, but book three, Heir of Fire, was difficult to get through. It’s five hundred pages, and it doesn’t start getting interesting until the last 100-150 pages. It got more interesting to read when she met Rowan, and learned how to hone and use her fire abilities.

     Rowan was definitely one of my favorite characters in this book. He pushes Celaena to use her magic to shift into her fae form, and to use her fire. His ice powers definitely compliment Celaena’s fire, and I’m glad we got to see that at some capacity when the king sends ships to invade with his creatures of darkness.

     Speaking of the creatures, it was very interesting to me that they swarmed Celaena in darkness, and two things happened from that. One, as an attack they are trying to drain her life force and feast on her. But the other cool thing is while she was in the darkness she couldn’t accept her past, and we got to see her past. How she lived with her parents, how she struggled to maintain her fire even as a child, and how she found her parents slain and her mother’s friend Marion saved her and sacrificed herself to give her time to run to the river and hide. And this is why she blamed herself, people in her life kept sacrificing themselves for her and she did nothing. She feels she doesn’t deserve it.

     But she was able to hear the encouraging words from her mother, from Marion, and from Nehemia. And with that she is able to blast her fire power, and burn away the darkness and start burning the creatures from the inside out. It was such an empowering moment, having her use her full power and destroy these creatures that seemed almost invincible. I really enjoyed these chapters, instead of the self pity she had been drawing out all book. Like damn, look how powerful you are! 

     So we are introduced to witches and their different clans. Honestly, it didn’t seem to flow with the rest of the book. There are three groups: Blackbeak Clan, Blueblood Clan, and the Yellowlegs Clan. The main witch that is focused on is Manon. They are training to get the best Wyvern, and she chooses a weaker wyvern that was meant to be prey, but she chose him instead of the big one. Overall though it just didn’t flow with the rest of the book, it was almost like a different book that somehow got misplaced into Heir of Fire. I’m not sure how that’s going to go in the next book, and I hope it flows with the book better, because I did not enjoy the witch scenes.

     Moving away from the battles, power, and Celaena, we have Dorian and Sorscha. Sorscha worked hard to help the prince but keep everything under wraps and no one would know about his powers. She helped him, and made him tonics to diminish his powers and not let them come out with his emotions. I really enjoyed her character, and she did not deserve what happened to her. That’s all I’ll say about that.

     I won’t go into detail or spoilers, but the interaction with Maeve after Celaena finds her true powers is very enjoyable and you can just read how Celaena feels powerful, and can be a major player in this game now whether it be against Maeve or the King. She’s not afraid of Maeve and even has things she wants. Another favorite part that’s near the end of the book. Worth reading the first part of the book for these scenes.

     What I also didn’t particularly like was how the book switched between 4-5 different peoples point of view. We had Celaena, Chaol, Dorian, Sascha, and Manon. It made the book a bit hard to follow, and hard to remember what was going on in different areas. And since there are so many people to remember, whether it be side characters or main characters, it’s easy to get lost in the story. But that’s just my opinion.

     So overall the first two thirds of the book are hard to get through. But the last third redeems the other parts. I really enjoyed reading about Celaena coming into her own power, and learning about her past. I also really enjoyed Rowan, and having a warrior by Celaena’s side that isn’t Chaol, who had never experienced death before. I have high hopes for Rowan and Celaena, in a romantic sense.

     Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my post. I should have another one up shortly.

Signing Off,

Fenisha Estes