** spoiler alert ** 
 *I marked my whole review as a spoiler but apparently goodreads isn't hiding it. So SPOILERS! This whole review is a spoiler.* 
 i was already hella annoyed because Chaol is nowhere to be found in this book. but then, Dorian goes and has sex with Manon?! the whole Manon/Dorian thing is hella weird. and i think him sleeping with her is completely out of character for him. i realize there's a lot more to these books than romance, but since Dorian is my favorite character, this really really messed up the book for me. i ship Dorian and Chaol. and i basically knew going in that that ship would never sail, but putting him with Manon just doesn't make any sense to me. at all. 
 none of the books in this series have been 5 stars for me. so because of the Dorian/Manon thing, and the complete lack of Chaol, this is getting 3 stars. 
 Edit: 9/16/16 the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I liked everything else. So I'm upping it to 4 stars. But I hope Dorian gets better in the 6th book. And that chaol shows up!