Tower of Dawn? More like Tower of Male Entitlement

Listen. I love a good romantic fantasy as much as the next girl. But designing a female character to be a man's perfect doll? Too much. Overall, the book was good but the depth of the book lay in the supporting characters.

Yrene Towers was a strong, independent girl who crossed mountains and rivers and a freaking SEA by herself (Okay, with the help of Aelin, but that's beside the point) and Chaol comes in and suddenly she's all gooey eyed and mushy. She's the heir apparent to the Torre Cesme, but decides to go heal soliders in a war. Wow, what a noble cause. I love it. A woman with her own direction, her own goals. But in swoops Chaol, and she ties her life to a man who's entire purpose is to die in this war. What the heck?

Sure, it's cute. It's romantic. They had sex in a tent on her birthday, how can you get better than that?

I could think of a few ways. Like maybe not spending the entire book healing Chaol for the last few pages to (S P O I L E R S) reverse the entire process in the span of a few seconds and then forcing Yrene to live her life FOR CHAOL and then Chaol doesn't even get to have full use of his legs. Chaol Westfall deserves better? More like Chaol Westfall deserves worse. Yrene would've been far better off leaving Chaol to fend for himself and she could go find Aelin and join her court as the court healer. She would've done far more good than healing an undeserving dirtbag.

The depth of my issues with Chaol is an entirely different post. I could write a full length essay on why he's the worst character known to man (except maybe Humbert Humbert from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita)

The best parts of the book lay in Nesryn Faliq's story line. She was the one who found more information on the Valg. She was the one who convinced Sartaq (and eventually the khaghan) to provide aid to Aelin. She also ended up marrying (or making a promise TO marry) the FUTURE KHAGAN. This book should've been Nesryn's story, not Chaol's. Nesyrn was the one who was brave enough to leave on a trip with someone she barely knew and go to a place she had never been and eventually discover through almost dying that Maeve was (SPOILERS) a Valg queen. Nesryn did all of this without Chaol, and with a man who treated her as an equal and as someone who could hold her own. Nesryn was the one who was brave enough to ride her own ruk, to face a giant spider, and to stand in front of all of the ruk clans and convince them all to help her and her cause. This book should've been her story with Chaol's parts as cut scenes.

Wishing you peace and good books,

Lexi