THRONE OF GLASS by Sarah J. Maas | Review

Title: Throne of Glass 
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Book #: 1 in the “Throne of Glass” series
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publication: August 2012, by Bloomsbury
Pages: 404
Author’s Website and Twitter
Source: purchased
Format: paperback
Rating: 

Goodreads 

Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?

Synopsis from Goodreads.com

 

I will not be afraid.

Review

Oh my God, this book! THIS. BOOK. It is awesome you guys! The characters, the plot, the romance, the kick-ass-ness (yeah. That’s a word.). It was all beyond amazing! I’m really thankful to all of you guys who have been raving about this book and have made me pick it up!

Ok. Let’s get a bit more into details. We are basically in an imaginary world (think Merlin the TV show, or a Game of Thrones, just your typical high fantasy imaginary world) and we follow the story of Celaena Sardothien (love the name, by the way) who is an assassin. She’s been locked up in the salt mines for over a year now because of the crimes she has done until the prince decides to give her a chance to become the king’s champion. If she manages to take out all other competitors in the battlefield…

The first thing I loved about this book was Celaena herself. She is one of the strongest female characters I’ve ever read about. We don’t learn a lot about her background story (I guess there’s more to find out in the prequels of this book), but she is one of the few people to survive for so long in the salt mines and this experience didn’t even manage to change her personality. She is still sassy and funny and not scared to piss off even the prince.

Speaking about the prince, Dorian is absolutely fangirl-worthy. I love how much he respects Celaena and also how he manages to bring out a different side of her. He makes her open up and be more vulnerable and girly. She’s girly enough by herself, to be honest. I was so happy when I read about how much she loved dressing up and going to dances. You just don’t expect that from an assassin. It was a very positive surprise for me and made her character more dimensional.

On the other hand we also have Chaol who is the captain of the guard and also has an interesting relationship with Celaena. At first he doesn’t trust her, of course, but slowly he starts empathizing with her story and the strength she manages to keep despite all that she’s been through. He’s definitely a very cool character too, but I’m team Dorian all the way!

But enough about the characters. The book also has an amazing story to go with them. The biggest part of the book is about the battles Celaena has to win in order to become the king’s champion. But there are also some secondary stories which are just as interesting. Mysterious deaths, secret passageways, they all come together to make the book as perfect as it is. I actually thought that *highlight the text to view the spoiler* Nehemia was behind it all even before Celaena started suspecting her. I thought it would have to be a character we know about and someone who hates the whole kingdom. Well, I’m pretty sure she’s innocent now and want to see more of her in the future. The one thing in the plot that made me think “What? This doesn’t make any sense!” was *highlight the text to view spoiler* at the final battle when Dorian was thinking he shouldn’t stop the fight because Celaena might get disqualified. She’s about to die, you idiot! What difference will it make then if she gets disqualified or not! Yeah. Annoyed me a bit, but I was able to get past it.

So, to sum it up, this was probably the best book I’ve read so far in 2014! I’m not usually one for high fantasy, but this completely changed my mind about the whole genre and I might try reading some more books in the future. It’s a series I will definitely continue with and I might even read the prequel, which is something I don’t usually do.

Opening Line

After a year of slavery in the Salt Mines of Endovier, Celaena Sardothien was accustomed to being escorted everywhere in shackles and at sword-point.

Mini Review

The best book I’ve read so far this year.
Perfect characters and plot.
Read it!

Recommend it for…

• People who enjoy high fantasy
• Everyone, basically



The A to Z Challenge is an annual blogging challenge. It isn’t restricted to book blogs – all kinds of blogs can participate. It takes place every year in April and during that month you have to write a post on the designated days (all except Sundays). These posts must have some correlation to the letter of the day. So, there will be a total of 26 posts starting from the letter A and ending with Z. Here is a list of all my posts.