this was way slower than the 1st book and also pissed me off so much more than the 1st book from the same series. 

first of all

chaol is just a dumb dumb that wasn’t trying to be malicious. so much build up for their relationship and it was all thrown away for something pretty stupid, especially since celaena knows nehemiah death is not his fault in any way.

secondly,

this book now means that dorian and celaena are related???? why even make that a detail if they were involved romantically in the first book, that’s just some weirdo detail to add for basically no reason. the royal lines of adarlan and terassen don’t need to be related at all, especially since it is only from 1 person hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

thirdly,

there are still way too many loose ends with the plot and basically no planning whatsoever made by the 3 main characters about how to defeat the king, so everything it just magically turning out right.

this book made me want to take a break from the series, and it’s only the 2nd installment. i absolutely want to read the others because i am still interested and heard it really picks up at book 3, but i’m also very annoyed about the way things are going. book 2 definitely feels like it is more world building and context building before a potential take off, so i am planning on reading book 3 at some point.