Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
I recently finished reading the A Court Of Thorns And Roses series by Sarah J. Maas and I am absolutely obsessed with it now. Naturally, my first thought was to check out any other books she wrote and so I started Throne Of Glass. Needless to say, I am officially in love with Sarah J. Maas' writing.
Celaena Sardothian is an imprisoned assassin who is hand selected by the king of Aderland to compete in a tournament to become the King's Champion. Side note: Celaena is the only female in the competition and uses an alias. Sounds pretty interesting to me.
The world building in this book was pretty good for a start of a series. While the book mostly takes place in one general area, you really get a great sense of the world these people are living in. The descriptions painted are so vivid and detailed that you feel like you're watching a movie rather than reading a book.
The catacombs hidden in the castle were so creepy in the best mysterious and suspenseful way. I loved that all the hidden passages led to different parts of the castle that people could use to spy on others. Also, there's was a possible escape route for Celaena but, she decided not to use it unless necessary.
Celaena is a great character and everything that you would expect an imprisoned assassin to be. She's smart and perceptive, and you can't help but to root for her to win. She's so powerful and skilled that she is forced to compete at a lower performance level than what she is capable of, so as not to raise suspicion. She also is forced to take up an alias so no one knows who she really is. I feel as though there is more to her back story than what has been revealed to us so far but, that will most likely come into play later on.
The romance in this book was pretty minimal, which was fine as there was so much mystery and action going on that it didn't need too much romance. I wasn't crazy about Celaena and Dorian together, as it was just very cliche and in this genre it's been overdone. However, their romance fizzled out pretty quickly and I feel like they could have a pretty solid friendship. I loved Chaol's character, and while they may just be friends right now, they could easily become more. I wouldn't really be opposed to that and like the possibility of it more than Celaena and Dorian.
I really liked Celaena and Nehemia's friendship. It was just very pure and nonjudgmental. Even when they had their differences, they worked through them. Nehemiah even risked her life saving Celaena in the final competition. You can just tell how deeply these characters care for one another.
I despised Kaltain initially, as she just seemed like that typical, catty, mean girl in high school. However, as the story went on, I really started suspecting that she may not be completely in control of her actions. Regardless, she is still a very dislikable character and I felt like it was a fair dose of karma when she got thrown in the dungeons.
The action scenes were awesome and were done very well. I would have liked to have seen a little more of all of the different events of the competition but, understand that there are page limits sometimes and certain minor things sometimes get cut. It was always cool when Celaena would slip up and let loose some of her potential and surprise people.
During the final competition, Kaltain drugs Celaena, and despite it being blatantly obvious that she has been drugged, no one does anything to intervene, with the exception of Nehemiah using the wyrd marks. After she defeats Cain and he tries to kill her by attacking her when her back is turned but, thankfully Chaol jumps into action and kills Cain before he can attack Celaena.
The ending was wrapped up well and left a lot of openness for the next book in the series. I'm very excited to see what kind of trouble Celaena will get into next and I'll hat is in store for her. If it's as good as Throne Of Glass, it'll be a hit for sure.
Rating: 4/5 stars
