Many of the secondary characters are POC, and a major side character is queer. Maas has responded to readers, or so it seems, by creating more diverse characters in this book. I feel like by the time the next book rolls around, excitement and tension over Aelin's predicament will have waned for me. I think it was a bad decision to insert Chaol's 600+ page perspective here, right when Maas has us on an emotional hook. We're reading in the past with Tower of Dawn when Empire of Storms left us on such a delicious high, wanting to know what would happen to Aelin. Perhaps this was a case of poor timing perhaps there was just less tension knowing the last book left us chronologically after the end of this book's events. As the book drew to a close, it was easy to see that Tower of Dawn existed for the sole purpose of creating a new love interest for Chaol and getting him back on his feet. Though the powerful healer - Yrene - seems to hate Chaol at first, we know this is a Maas book, so he can only be shirtless so long before she starts falling for him.Ī subplot emerges with healers being murdered in crimes that look suspiciously like the actions of the Valg, and yet from the beginning through to the very end of this looonnnggg book, it felt like what it was: a mere distraction between the Chaol and Yrene love/hate flirtations. Chaol goes to appeal to the rulers and healers of Antica - for the former to ally with Dorian, and the latter to heal him and help him walk again.
The events of this book occur alongside the events of Empire of Storms, filling in the blanks of Chaol's adventures on the Southern continent.
The romance is predictable, and I'll spoiler tag it but it should come as a surprise to no one that Chaol magically recovers from the disability that put him in a wheelchair.
You can sum Tower of Dawn up as an overlong healing process with a love story. but here I thought the story really lacked something. The poor representation of marginalized characters, the frankly creepy obsession with "manhood" and "maleness", the nauseating and repeated descriptions of characters' beauty. It wasn't awful, but many parts were boring. But it's kind of hard to tear apart the personality of a beloved character, turn them into someone whiny and bland, then try to create a whole 672-page book out of their perspective.
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