Tower of Dawn, Review

Here's my review of this book.

By The Cosmic BardPublished about a year ago • Updated about a year ago • 2 min read

A Desolation of Critique: Tower of Dawn

Once revered in the young adult fantasy genre, Sarah J. Maas has now fallen beneath the surface with her latest book, "Tower of Dawn".

This novel—or, more accurately, this auditory experience—shifts the narrative focus from the thrilling high-fantasy world of Adarlan to the sturdy but unremarkable character of Chaol Westfall, a former supporter of the main character, Celaena Sardothien.

Maas fails to scratch the surface of Chaol’s character in "Tower of Dawn", and while it may seem an obvious bond for her to form with the lead character of ... a half-hearted character study, it hardly does him justice.

Characters in novels have a right to be flawed and broken, but if an author is to present a character as such, it must be done honestly and with some allowance for vulnerability.

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Even though Elizabeth Evans is a proficient narrator, she does not impart much required interpretive depth to "Tower of Dawn". Her voice could almost serve as a text-to-speech function—clear and steady but lacking the expressiveness and nuance that would better match the book’s source merit.

Evans's performance is a tad too decorous for the amount of ass-kicking and sexy times that this book contains. And while Maureen Johnson swears that Evans is "the best narrator in the universe," I can't carry her enthusiasm—or reason for it—into my appraisal. Evans is good, but best? Neh.

And if "reading" book 6 in the series is also not as good a time as "reading" books 1-4, then there goes for my enthusiasm too.

Even so, it would be unfair to dismiss "Tower of Dawn" altogether.

Within its pages are glimmers of magic, pure and simple, where Maas's storytelling soars. And you might be surprised to learn that there is a plot, albeit a very loose one, which mainly functions to allow the characters to do what they do best—engaging you, for the most part, in their dialogues and internal monologues.

The plot concerns Chaol and a new character, Yrene, who was introduced in this volume. The story serves mainly to establish their relationship, which, by the way, is all well and good.

If a story tries to do anything, it should at least try to establish the kind of relations between its characters that will make you care about those characters. But I wish the talents of Maas could have been put to some better use in this installment, because to tell this story when and how it has been told feels like reaching for an opportunity and aspiration and not quite achieving either.

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Ultimately...A Disappointment

Therefore, it is possible to conclude that "Tower of Dawn" can be viewed as the novel that produces a certain ambivalent emotion in the reader.

It is a book that makes me realize that I know it but I cannot name it; It is a book that seems to be fulfilled yet lacks something.

It’s one of the novels that, like its main character Chaol Westfall, is injured and seeks atonement and, ultimately, is a disappointment.

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