Fraught love, severed heads, surprises in magic sequel.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 14+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
a lot
Characters who readers care about perish violently. Others are gravely harmed. Hand-to-hand combat with and without weapons is described, with characters taking delight in inflicting pain on enemies. In the present and past, so much beheading and mutilation it's hard to keep track. Severed heads and hacked bodies galore. Cannibalism, stabbing, slashing, poisoning, drugging, lethal magic, torture, and impaling. Assorted ghosts and monsters, including a once-human creature transformed by dark magic, who roams the castle seeking prey. The king enslaves untold thousands in brutal salt mines that few survive; a revolt may be brewing. A character is imprisoned in a dungeon and regularly raped by a "visitor." A magic sword is especially important, and lethal.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
Lots of star-crossed love; swoony scene of first sex between young lovers, followed by hot but not explicit moments of connection. Characters are sex workers, courtesans, madams; other characters are their clients. In the past, a character discovered his alleged friend in bed with his lover, all carefully planned and staged by the alleged friend.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
"Taverns overflowed with drunks and whores and everybody else who sought temporary relief from their miserable lives." Adult characters drink alcohol in many scenes—Celaena, 18, who is functionally an adult, among them. A character who's an opium addict suffers withdrawal in prison.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
"Damn me, I might be a whore, but I'm not a traitor." Frequent "hell," "damn," "piss," "bastard," "bitch," "pain in the ass." Also "s--t," "shut your rutting face," "I bet you wipe your ass with gold."
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.
Love and friendship in spite of often lethal obstacles. Self-sacrifice for your loved ones. Try to do the right thing, find and accept your destiny. Save the world from an evil oppressor. Find the courage—and the problem-solving skills—to do all these things. Consider whether the solution someone's suggesting is worse than the actual problem—like overthrowing an evil ruler only to replace him with a dozen more.
Positive Role Models
some
All the central characters—Celaena, an assassin; Chaol, the captain of the king's guard; and Dorian, the evil king's son who seeks better ways—are complex, conflicted, and not entirely what they seem, to themselves or others. Courageous and strong, and brokenhearted over her murdered loved ones, Celaena is gleefully bloodthirsty in slaying enemies—but also shows kindness, often in surprising situations. Chaol is strong and principled, and also just loves Celaena, often making heroic sacrifices because of it. Dorian makes a number of unwelcome discoveries about himself and powers he didn't know he had, but unlike many of his family tries to do the right thing. Supporting characters are often helpful—or murderous—but none reveal much about what's really going on and what's motivating them.
Diverse Representations
a little
Strong male and female characters. Main characters read White. Supporting characters of color who come from different regions and have many skin tones/hairstyles. Death of one such supporting character motivates the actions of a White main character, a turn of events that sparked some controversy at the time of publication. A male sex worker has clients who are both women and men.
Lots of detail about weaponry and martial arts. A strong theme of tyrants and what can be done about them, and what happens when you try.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Crown of Midnight, originally published on August 27, 2013,is the second book in Sarah J. Maas' eight-volume Throne of Glass fantasy series, all reissued in February 2023. As in Book 1, the sex is much less explicit and lurid than in the author's Court of Thorns and Roses series: lots of romantic longing and confusion; a young couple in love has sweet, swoony first-time sex and hot but brief follow-ups; flirting, talk of lovers, sex workers, and dalliances; an important character is a high-price sex worker and calls himself a whore. The violence is off the charts from the get-go, as the story opens with teenage assassin Celaena about to slay a sleeping couple; while she shows kindness in many situations, she also takes vivid, detailed, gleeful delight in inflicting pain and death on her victims. Beheadings and severed heads are a recurring theme. An imprisoned, drug-addicted character is raped in her cell. Plentiful crude language includes "bastard," "s--t," and "wipe your ass with gold." Set against all this darkness is a complex, compelling story of three characters—an assassin, a soldier, and a prince—who love each other, are frequently forced to be enemies, and try to do the right thing in a world of deadly plots and intrigue that makes it just about impossible.
This book was so amazing! It was so cute! My daughter loved it. Little to violence! Also very cute plot! 10/10 loved it. Also I am a Christian mom using this reviewer website. Trust me I wouldn’t allow my daughter to read anything bad.
What's the Story?
CROWN OF MIDNIGHT finds teenage assassin Celaena—now the "king's champion," aka hit woman—weapons in hand, hovering over a sleeping couple she has been ordered to slay. Shortly afterward, she presents the king with the man's severed head and the woman's severed hand to show her success. The king, who has murdered, enslaved, and imprisoned entire populations in his campaign to wipe out magic, is pleased. The king's captain, Chaol, who loves Celaena, less so. Likewise the king's son, Dorian, who saved her from a brutal death in Book 1 and hates his father's evil ways. As with so many things in this tale, not everything is what it seems to be here. But there's little time to think about that, as Celaena soon has her next target—and it's someone she's known since childhood.
Romantic longing meets court intrigue, brutal stabbing, hacking, poisoning, plots, and dark magic amid many, many severed heads as the tale of Celaena, Dorian, and Chaol—and a devoted dog—unfolds. Amid Crown of Midnight's relentless gore and oppressive evil, the three main characters are relatably conflicted, from star-crossed love to ethical dilemmas, as brief moments of joy often give way to betrayal and doom. Sarah J. Maas packs in a lot of danger, death, and narrow escape along the way, and also a number of surprise revelations—not always welcome—as the story unfolds and our heroes, often at odds with themselves and each other, try to do the best they can and maybe save their world.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about stories featuring assassins—whether in a positive or a negative light—and why they've remained so popular. How does Celaena in Crown of Midnight compare to other assassin characters you may know about?
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where it seemed like all the choices were bad? What happened, and what did you do?
Do you think it's "cowardly," as Nehemia accuses Celaena, to just want a peaceful life with your loved ones, and put your energy into that?
Available on:
Paperback, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
Last updated:
March 8, 2024
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
By Mary Eisenhart
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
