At the end of Queen of Shadows, the King of Adarlan has been killed, Prince Dorian is going to be the king, Aelin and her court are on their way to Terrasen to take her crown, Kaltain has blown up the dungeons of Morath, and Manon has rescued Elide. For some reason, I felt like the story was over. As it happens, it wasn’t and that annoyed me.
I read Empire of Storms under a cloud of annoyance. I probably could have shaken it off if I had known this was the last book in the series, but it is not. It might not even be the penultimate novel.
The Throne of Glass series needs a good editor. There is way too much repetition, and way too many late teens/early 20’s characters (or appearing characters) running around with crowns. There’s a lot of posturing, conflicting, and sexing going on. They have spent every book of the series running around looking for magical maggufins. It gets old.
Aelin has developed a bad habit of not telling her “court” about her plans or machinations. She says she likes to see the surprise on their faces. Personally, I think it’s because Maas doesn’t know what she’s doing, or how to build tension any other way than throwing out some random thing and yelling, “Surprise!” I think the first couple of books were so successful that Maas and/or her publisher decided to draw this story out as long as possible. Either that or Maas is so in love with her characters that she thinks hanging out with them is the same as building a dynamic plot. She is not a good enough writer for that.
I haven’t read this book yet because all the issues you mention are present in all the earlier books too. I want so badly to like them – fun, frothy, sexy, female-drive fantasy. GREAT! There are great elements here but they’re tossed together in a slapdash fashion. Maybe she’s rushing them to market (it feels like a new book comes out every 6 months)? And yeah definitely needs to kill some darlings. I think she falls in love with every minor character and thus they have to get drug around for the next 3 books even after they’ve served their purpose.
I’m rambling. TLDR – agreed.