I first read this when it was posted as Queen of Glass on FictionPress and in a strange way (since I've never known her, other than leaving her reviews back then), I'm proud to have seen this author come so far. It's kind of a sense of legitimization, I guess, that all those FictionPress readers so long ago had discovered a gem and that the rest of the world is finally beginning to see that. I was on FictionPress so long ago that I still remember when it was still part of Fanfiction.Net back when both fanfiction and original fiction authors posting on the Internet were completely derided for their literary (or lack of) ambitions. Unfortunately, the recent spate of Twilight fanfiction turned into books (or Cassandra Clare's rewriting of her Harry Potter fanfiction into her original series) has made the fanfiction/Internet connection even more derided as a source of derivative and second-rate work. 
 All that said, I am really glad that one of the stories that I truly believed was worthy of publication was actually published. Given that so many lackluster YA and adult novels are published these days, publication isn't really the standard of quality that I used to think it was, but it's still nice to think that success does come to good writers, even writers who start from such humble beginnings as FictionPress. I am even happier to see that unlike some other authors, Maas has never tried to bury her past links to FictionPress and remains touched by all those thousands of encouraging reviews that everyone left for her. 
 Crown of Midnight is just as good as I remembered, although I can see some of the changes that have been made. Mostly, Celaena's reaction after (view spoiler)[ Nehemia's death unfortunately is even less convincing now than it used to be and feels as though the author really did force her to blame Chaol. His decision to keep it from Celaena doesn't really make sense in light of all that they have shared -- any other time, he would have just told her. However, in the original version of Queen of Glass, Nehemia's death scene was far more gruesome and explicit. I think the editors had Maas take out most of the description, although it is mentioned later that Nehemia is dismembered - but even now, probably eight years from when I first read it, I still remember that I was absolutely horrified when I was reading the original scene of her decapitation and torture. However, the shock of the scene did make it easier to understand why Celaena completely snapped and was going to kill Chaol, whereas in Crown of Midnight, it didn't make as much sense for her to lash out at him. Yes, he betrayed her indirectly by not telling her, but she already knew that he thought the king was just going to question her AND at that point, she knew that the king did not have anything to do with Nehemia's death. (hide spoiler)]