4.5 Stars. 
 I stayed up so late last night reading this omg. After Throne of Glass I was really skeptical as to whether I would think this was AMAZING like everyone said it was, but I was really hopeful. BOY was I surprised. A lot of the issues I had with the first book were resolved, and GAH I'm super excited to continue with the series. 
 From the get go, the drama was turned up ten-fold. In the last book, I was kind of disappointed because the action was put on the back burner a lot so that there could be more cheesy romance scenes. Don't get me wrong, the romance is still there, but I was so much more open to it because I didn't feel like it was a hindrance to the plot. 
 AND OH MY GOD THE PLOT. It was really action-packed, mysterious and dark. Sarah J Maas has a way with creepy scenes, and it definitely scared the shit out of me. They kept you thoroughly intrigued and nervous and I literally couldn't put it down. 
 Also, there were a boat load of plot twists and revelations. I have to be honest and say that I did see quite a few of these coming (and a lot of people have said the same) but definitely not all, so I was still very excited and invested in the book. (view spoiler)[ Was it just me, or was Celaena being Aelin SO OBVIOUS? She literally spent like 2 pages going on about how Archer's knowledge of this missing princess Aelin must be a pile of crap and how this other Aelin was an imposter. It also got me a little bit annoyed when it took Chaol so long to figure it out. When he was looking up families that died to try and find out who Celaena was, why didn't he just use the date of the death of her parents??? He knew that the day she ran away was the day her parents died so she didn't really need to spell it out to him, did she??? Also Archer being a backstabbing asshole was pretty obvious to me too. She always commented on how he was sneaky and not dumb af so it made sense to me. But the Fae thing came as a surprise, I never saw Dorian has a magic guy so I loved that, and OMG I did not expect as much Chaolena in this book as we got, and even the ending OMFG I WILL SHIP CHAOLENA TILL MY DEATH BED (hide spoiler)]. 
 Honestly, the biggest issue I had with the book was that I felt like not all the character's were given enough time to shine. Both Nehemia and Dorian definitely played significant roles in this book, and some of the revelations about these characters were extremely exciting but honestly I felt very "meh" about them. I feel like if they were to be killed off, I wouldn't really care. (view spoiler)[ As much as I love the idea of her character and the strength/values/etc. she represents, I didn't really feel phased when Nehemia died. I mean I will miss her, but I definitely didn't feel anything close to what Celaena went through, which made it a bit difficult for me to connect with the book. I feel like the main issue was that the author talked a lot about how Celaena and Nehemia hung out, and how good friends they were, but we only really got maybe 3 scenes of them together. I liked their friendship, but without you really getting to see them together often, it was hard for me to feel like it was a very close and strong relationship. (hide spoiler)]. On the other hand, Celaena, Chaol, the King and even Kaltain were characters that really stood out to me. Jesus the king is scary, and I'm so excited (and terrified) to see what happens next. 
 But all of that being said, I loved every second of reading this book. If was fun, fast and action-packed. LOVE. If you didn't enjoy the first book, I definitely recommend giving this one a go.