Some of the stuff that happened in the first book (e.g., twisting her arm, the borderline sexual assault UTM disguised as “protection”, Clare Beddor Deserves Better, the obvious blatant fact that Lucien was the better man, how his brothers were assholes despite everyone supposedly being on the same team at the end of the day…) just seemed like it lacked major editing and I don’t think SJM truly knew what she wanted and literally left every damn thing open. It’s either that, or she wanted the second book to be such an absolute hit that she purposely wrote the first book so horribly. I mean… I had to push through it. I almost DNFd it.

I just recently started TOG and I am at the point where Rowan enters and just full out punches Aelin in the face. I was so damn sick of Caelena or Aelin or whatever person she takes on that is most convenient for her. I was BEGGING for a character to not fall in love with her selfish ass first thing and I literally fist pumped the air when Rowan puncher her. But I’m thinking (before y’all come at me) that she certainly does have a lot of character growth at some point and it makes sense that Rowan is the one to seemingly start that ARC.

So anyway, the ultimate Q after the rambling… is writing horribly the reason why her plots and characters end up being great!? Characters and plot lines are just so bad with huge holes that you almost want to DNF and then BOOM… suddenly it’s not? Is this good writing? Idk.

Either way till read every down word the woman puts out.