July 18, 2018

Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) 
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication Date: August 7, 2012
Pages: 404
Source: Kindle/Own

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her ... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead ... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Review: I enjoyed continuing Celaena's story (I read The Assassin's Blade before this). I do think it was really good to read The Assassin's Blade before this because there was many references to Sam and The Red Desert and the friend who betrayed her that I otherwise would not have understood. I only had two issues with the book. The first being that for some reason, the writing of these is making it where it takes me much longer to read the books in this series than the ACOTAR series. The second being I did get a little bored with some of the talking and tests and working out. I definitely get why some of those scenes were thrown it, but I definitely glossed a few that weren't holding my interest. 

I really enjoyed seeing Celaena not only recover the strength she lost while in the mines, but also grow to trust a few people and make some new friends. I think after all the events that happened in the novella's, this making friends and trusting people was a good step for her. I also have to give her props on the restraint she showed. There was so many times when she wanted to try and escape or go against Dorian and Chaol's plan to keep her at the middle of the pack instead of standing out. She really restrained herself for a while. I thought it was really interesting seeing Celaena compete to become the King's Champion. We got to see her do a number of challenges. Some of which she excelled at, and others where she struggled a bit. We saw her not be perfect at everything. We also got to see her bond with some of the other competitors and help them better themselves, even if it made her competition a little more fierce. It was great seeing this side of Celaena. 

I thought the whole thing with other competitors being killed, and the magic was incredibly interesting. Especially since magic was supposed to have been wiped out and banned when Celaena was a kid. I thought it was really interesting seeing magic involved in killing competitors, Celaena needing to win, her friend Princess Nehemia using it to protect Celaena. Even the king seemed to be in on the magic use and what it was being used for (in a bad way) when he was the one who didn't want magic around to begin with. And the scheming. Obviously Celaena had her own reasons for trying to win and get her freedom. But we also learn that Princess Nehemia is scheming under the kings nose to help her own people out. We even learn that the king seemed to have his own scheme with the Duke and Cain to win the competition and have Celaena killed. And then at the end we find out that for some reason or another the king and the duke don't trust Kaltain either even though they used her to get a lot of what they wanted done. There is just so much going on. It should make Crown of Midnight interesting! 

Dorian and Chaol. Hmm. I'm not really a fan of either with the romance honestly. It was heavily pushed for a Celaena/Dorian romance in this book. I just wasn't feeling it. I mean, Dorian doesn't seem to bad at the moment, besides not being willing to stand up to his father. But I just wasn't interested in a romance with him and Celaena. It kinda seemed predictable that it would happen since he was the one who got her out of Endovier. And Chaol. I know he's all into Celaena, despite her having no interest in him. But I wasn't really feeling the idea of a romance with him and Celaena either. I do however think Celaena and Chaol are super great friends. They definitely grew to have a decent caring friendship and its definitely something I want to see grow throughout the series. Despite Chaol being a bit rude in the beginning, he turned out not to be so bad. 

I definitely interested in where things are going for the rest of the series. It's hinted at that Celaena has magic in her blood and I'm super excited to see how that will influence the story and what powers we'll see her using in the story eventually.