The Gray Wolf Throne and The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #3 and #4) by Cinda Williams Chima
- Martina Berrutti
- Mar 16, 2019
- 3 min read
4 stars
This was also simply awesome. Funny, emotional, complex, believable, romantic. It had everything I enjoy in a book.
Character developers was right on track; everyone keeps being rounded off perfectly, and there are some very nice and insightful reflections made along the way. Most importantly, everyone was portrayed in an unbelievably realistic way.
Romance development... 5 stars to that. I couldn’t help but keep waiting for them to think about each other and let themselves feeel everything.
And the epilogue... oh boy. Those subtle hints are literally all that I live for.
Everything was so poetic. The writing never fails to blow my mind, and I’m so grateful that I decided to start reading this series of books.
Onto the next one.
5 stars
This book was a worthy conclusion to an amazing series that I’m not forgetting anytime soon, and I can’t wait to start Flamecaster right now.
There’s too many great things to say about this book. What’s amazing about it is how real everyone is. Every character, no matter how annoying or infuriating, felt genuinely human, and this was very refreshing.
Let’s start with Micah. I understand that some people have a soft spot for him, and believe that, in his own twisted way, he did what he did because of his love for Raisa, and it even feels like what he does is portrayed as “not that bad”, because there’s Nightwalker to compare him to. But I just hate him. Because I can’t overlook the simple fact that he can’t take a hint, even when it hits him right in the face, or literally runs away from him because of a forced wedding. This behaviour is constantly repeated throughout the books, and it just made me wanna strangle him; so yeah. I don’t like him. But that’s so very similar to many actual people nowadays that I have to commend the author for such an excellent portrayal of that kind of personality.
Then there’s the abundance of unreliable, untrustworthy adult characters. Lucius is revealed to have been the one to betray Alger in the first place, and Elena and Averill have their own personal agendas that never seem to coincide with Raisa’s. As frustrating as that was, it made the story overall more believable.
I loooved everything about Crow. How his past is slowly revealed, how he slowly changes his character after meeting Han, how committed he to being happy and never giving up, and how that relentlessness (and many other traits) are mirrored in Han not only in this book, but in the previous books as well.
Raisa: she’s amazing. There’s not even the smallest negative thing I could say about her, except that she should’e distrusted Micah a little more. She is constantly promoting messages I strongly support; what stood out in this book is her conviction that increasing the amount of weapons was not a good solution, because violence is not the answer.
And now my favourite character: Han. What can I say? What I probably loved most about this book is that, despite the mind-blowingly good romance, it didn’t feel like a romance-centered novel (with all the political scheming going on). And yet, one of the two main character’s motivation is centered exactly on that: love. Even though he states it more than once in passing (three times in fact; I counted) I just didn’t realize that Han was serious about marrying Raisa. And their love story was sooo authentic. It was complicated— but simple. And I just can easily buy that they’re in love. I mean, it’s reinforced in basically all of their interactions and thoughts. Han’s explicit statements on how in love he is is a clear example, but a more subtle example of this would be Raisa’s conviction of Han’s innocence.
The one thing that I thought Han was missing was a little more grief for the loss of his family, but considering Han’s “always look forward and move on” very positive kind of attitude towards life in general, his mild reaction is understandable (again: very authentic, rounded off characters).
And of course, let us not forget the best character of all: Dog. What an endearing and entertaining addition.
Overall, my feelings for this book haven’t strayed very far from the what I felt while reading first three: incredibly awesome. But what really put this one above the other three (and, somehow, it was better) was how incredibly nerve-racking it was that, all the time, over and over again, everything starts to make sense and simultaneously it starts to fall apart. It was a roller-coaster of emotions, this one. And worth every single second.
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