Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Release date: August 2, 2012
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 140883233X
Pages: 404
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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?

MY THOUGHTS

I will be attending a Sarah J. Maas event in Sydney later this year so I decided it was finally time for me to read Throne of Glass.

There is so much hype about this series and initially I wasn’t overly impressed by it, but I did like the characters and the plot. I was a bit disappointed with the first part of the book. It felt kind of slow to me and I had a hard time really getting into it. It picked up when the competition actually began and it got more interesting from there. I thought the plot was great and there was this mysterious element running throughout the book, which kept me guessing and kept me intrigued. I was expecting the tasks in the tournament to be a little more exciting but they seemed to be logical tasks for the Champions to be undertaking considering the position they were competing for. I wouldn’t say that anything in the book really surprised or shocked me, but there wasn’t anything that was predictable either. For me, the final battle in the tournament was really long and confusing, and I had a hard time figuring out what was really happening. But I think that might have been the point… since Celaena probably wasn’t sure what was happening either. I’m happy that some of the questions that arose during that scene were answered in the subsequent chapters.

I really loved the characters in the book. Celaena is a strong and kickass female protagonist, who is independent and doesn’t really need anyone. I loved her from the very first page; her strength and abilities are revealed almost straight away and you just can’t help but love her and want to be her. I also really liked Dorian and Chaol by themselves, but also as Celaena’s love interests. I think I might be Team Dorian because Dorian is so sweet and funny, and the things he does for and with Celaena are just adorable. But I can also see Chaol being really good for Celaena and I like their relationship together too. I don’t know. I’ll see what the next book brings.

What I liked most about Sarah J. Maas’s writing is that she’s able to bring out so many emotions in me. I love the characters that I love but I also really hate the characters that I’m supposed to hate. I thought the writing flowed so well and I just loved the dialogue. There were a couple of chapters that I felt were dedicated solely to developing the romance between Celaena and Dorian, or Celaena and Chaol. I didn’t feel like these chapters added anything to the plot and sometimes they felt out of place. But I did like reading about these interactions, particularly scenes with Celaena and Dorian. What I also liked was that the book didn’t really end on a cliffhanger. While I’m still excited to read about what happens in the next chapter of Celaena’s life, I feel like the book had a proper ending and answered a lot of the questions that I had about the story.

This series definitely has great potential. Throne of Glass was a great first instalment to the series. I’m excited to learn more about the magic system and see how our characters develop in the next few books.