Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas - A Review

Before getting into this book review, I would like to say that I have already reviewed the first two books in this series, so this is just a spoiler warning in case you have not read those two books yet. If you have not read my review for Throne of Glass you can click here, and if you have not read my review of Crown of Midnight click here.

Photo Credit: @icelandicbookworm on Instagram 

I was very excited to leave Adarlan behind after I finished reading Crown of Midnight, since I was looking forward to explore more of this magical world that Maas had created with Celaena. Although I would miss the interactions between Chaol, Celaena and Dorian. But instead of opening the pages to find Celaena on an adventure, we find her drunk on a rooftop, drowning in her own self pity and doing...well..nothing. It was really a let down, especially after the exciting end of Crown of Midnight. It is not clear why Maas chose this opening, but it definitely gave the book a low emotional start.

Things begin to pick up when Celaena encounters a mysterious person who brings her to her Aunt Maeve - her cruel and ultimately, despicable relative. Before Maeve will share any secrets about the Wyrdkeys, Celaena is told she must master her powers; thus begins hundreds of pages of training and brutality between her immortal Fae warrior tormentor, Rowan Whitethorn, and Celaena herself. Celaena is filled with self loathing page after page, and holds such a low opinion of herself. This is not made better by Rowan agreeing that she is not worth keeping alive. There are many rounds of Celaena lashing out and insulting Rowan, and Rowan punching, taunting and horribly shaming Celaena back, and at points I wondered why I continued reading this story. But, eventually, Celaena inches towards accepting and actually understanding her powers and Rowan becomes a character you loathe less than you did before. I really liked their friendship together towards the end of the book though, and I think that Maas did a bad job of developing it in the later books (but we will come to that in the next reviews).

The endless training made the story feel dull at points. We understand that it will take a while before Celaena is comfortable enough to reach into that well within her and unleash her power, but it wasn't necessary for her to have to train to no avail in so many scenes. Of course, this was a way to show off her growing relationship with Rowan, but it made the beginning of the book a real struggle to get through.

Finally in this story, we got all the memories of the night Celaena's parents were killed. It was hinted at in the previous two books but never explained. Hopefully, now that Celaena has faced the darkness of her past, she can become a leader and stop running.

During my first read through of the Throne of Glass books, I absolutely hated the Witch chapters. Their story line served no purpose to advance Heir of Fire, and at the time it felt like it was just another plot line that was put into the book to add more filler to it. It had no connection the the plot of this book's arc and if erased from this novel there would have been no effect on the overall outcome of the main character. As much as I love the addition of Manon and her Thirteen (who are my personal favourite characters in the whole series) I feel like Maas should have saved their story arc for the fourth book in the series. Everything began to make more sense when I had read Queen of Shadows, but I still believe that their story could have been put into that book, or that their story line in Heir of Fire should have been smaller so that we were aware of them, but they weren't a major distraction from Celaena's Story.

Another issue I had with this book is that a lot of the characters make absolutely terrible decisions, or spend so much time crying over their unworthiness. Even though this is YA and Drama is to be expected, this was a little bit much. Celaena was a child when her parents were murdered, but she is still filled with so much self-loathing over th incident and the aftermath, it does get a little trying, especially when all magic is banned and there is little that she could have done. She gets even more upset about Nehemiah's death, even though she has already accepted that Nehemiah has chosen to sacrifice herself, so her refusal to forgive herself - or Chaol - makes her look foolish. I feel like this was the authors choice more than a character choice to keep a hold of these feelings, just to remind you that these events happened, but to me it really did not come across well.

Without Celaena there to ground them into a scene, the main side characters seemed to be a little lost. Chaol turns into a complete mess, filled with indecisiveness instead of mastering them, while Dorian spends the whole book hiding his powers rather than trying to master them. Speaking of Dorian, we were introduced to a new love interest of his, which was a bit meh. I felt no real emotions when she died as I never understood their relationship, it felt like Maas had created a character to make Dorian an "Off-Limits" character to Celaena romance wise. However, I did enjoy Dorian's growth in the way he manages to stand up to Chaol, pushing his once close friend to choose sides.

We were introduced to Aedion, which was a nice surprise, although his adoration for Celaena came across a little bit creepy and over the top.

The King of Adarlan remains an undeveloped character to me. He is given very little page time and is simply a background threat, ever present, but hardly ever in the scene. His assassin as been gone for months, but nobody seems to question this or check up on her to make sure that she has done the job that she has been sent to do.

Another thought, which I am not sure where this is going to fit into the review so I am giving it it's own mini paragraph, who do we need three names for our heroine. Celaena, Aelin, Elentyia...are they all really needed? It just made me very confused and wondering who this character was when finding out that it was actually the main character in the series. Please stick to one name, its already confusing enough as it is!

Overall, while it is really easy to pick on the little things in this book, I really love Maas' writing, and although this is a really slow, filler book, it all pays off in the next installment in the series. Much of the plot in Heir of Fire is over dramatized and the inclusion of a subplot that is irrelevant to this particular story really lowers my opinion on this book. Maas should have toned down the self loathing in this book and either found a way to connect Manon's story to the plot of this book or saved it for the next installment.

Although it is a struggle to get through this book, it is definitely worth it and everything makes much more sense when you get to the later books in this series.