Why you need to tandem read Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn
I’m just a girl, standing in front of you, asking you to really consider tandem reading Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn. .
I’m just a girl, standing in front of you, asking you to tandem read Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn.
First of all, you shouldn’t ask yourself this question unless you have at least finished Heir of Fire. In fact, you probably need to read half of Queen of Shadows before you have a solid answer to this question. So if you haven’t read the above, bookmark this page and come back.
And once you are ready to tackle this big decision, here are two questions to guide you:
- Do you like Chaol?
- Do you deal well with cliffhangers?
If you say no to these questions, you are better off reading these two books in tandem. Tower of Dawn focuses on Chaol. It is Chaol’s redemption arc but you need to be open-minded to allow him to redeem himself. And as a fellow reader, I understand this can be hard, especially when we might not have any patience for him when Aelin’s life is hanging on a balance.
While readers who read Empire of Storms when it first came out in 2016 had to wait 2 years to continue Aelin’s story, we are already lucky enough that there are only 660 pages separating us between Empire of Storms and Kingdom of Ash. However, by tandem reading Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn, you will make this a lot easier for yourself!
And let’s look at the data, shall we?
There are 4786 reviews on Goodreads that mention ‘Tandem’, which is 12% of the reviews. This means the option is popular. And overall, the rating for Tower of Dawn is rather high, at 4.27, but it is lower than the 4.61 average for Empire of Storms. So if you want a more even reading experience, maybe you really should tandem read.
Having just finished Empire of Storms, I dreaded starting Tower of Dawn because I personally would have answered NO to the two questions. Why, then, didn’t I do the tandem read? Super simple – I didn’t want to bring two books around.
Finally, a question that I asked myself and one that many of you who don’t want to tandem read might ask: can you skip Tower of Dawn and go straight to Empire of Storms? Is it possible to treat Tower of Dawn as a “novella”?
No. At least not the second half of it. There are important plot points and new characters.
So in conclusion:
Please tandem read the two books. But if you really don’t want to, please do not skip Tower of Dawn. After all, we guarantee that you will like Tower of Dawn.
