About the book. 

Book: Throne Of Glass
Author: Sarah J Maas
Pages: 404
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Synopsis: 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 exhilirating. 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.Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Recommended for: Young Adult readers however can be read by anyone 13+. Fans of the Graceling series and other Fantasy novels will enjoy!

OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES 

My thoughts. 

SUMMARY

Throne Of Glass written by Sarah J Maas is the first book in the Throne of Glass series. It is about Celaena Sardothien, an assassin. Unfortunately for Celaena, she had made a mistake and had gotten captured. As punishment, she was forced to work in the salt mines of Endovier which is when the story begins. Captain of the Guard, Chaol Westfall offers her a deal. Either she represents the Crown Prince of Adarlan in a tournament or she rots in the salt mines. Desperate for her freedom, Celaena agrees and from there begins her story.

IDEA

To be honest, the idea for a teenage assassin isn’t extremely new. It has been done before. The backstory Celaena has been given is also quite cliché. Despite that, I liked the way Maas created a whole new world for these characters to live in. I liked how it mixed a little with medieval time fighting with swords on horses yet the characters seemed quite modern. It has everything from fight to the death competitions, secret tunnels in the castle and beautiful balls, so it’s a mix of everything pretty much.

PLOT

I’ll be upfront and say that this book is not my favourite. The story line for Throne Of Glass is fairly dry and is setting up the series for the books ahead, rather than really working to grip readers. I didn’t find myself on the edge of my seat or desperate to turn the page because it was slow, slightly boring in some parts and I took my time reading this one.

The plot was also fairly predictable and one thing that absolutely made me cringe in this book were the love triangles. This could be because of personal preference, but I hate love triangles.

I find them to be quite annoying because there is always one character who is tossing up between these other two people and I just hate it. I also feel so bad for the person who gets left out towards the end.

In saying all that, I am currently reading the next book, Crown Of Midnight, which is 1000x better! (A review for that will be coming soon, right after I finish reading it).

CHARACTERS

Aha…now on to the characters. There are four main characters. Celaena, the assassin, Dorian, the Crown Prince, Chaol, the Captain Of The Guard and Nehemia, Celaena’s friend.

I found Celaena’s character to be quite overdone in this book. She was too perfect. She wasn’t real enough, not very layered. She was beautiful and dangerous and funny and relaxed and kind. There was nothing she could do wrong. People who get to know her can’t help but love her.

It’s too much. It’s too unrealistic. Her character doesn’t bounce of the page. Her backstory made her seem very flat and cliché.

Despite that, one thing I adored in Celaena was her strength. I love strong female characters who defy societies norms and be themselves and she is certainly one of them. I liked how she could go from cutting people into pieces to shopping for clothes and reading books.

Dorian is not someone I understood very well. He’s kind and intelligent and caring and he is definitely going to make a good king someday but I feel like I wasn’t able to connect with him in the story.

Chaol on the other hand, I adore! He’s loyal, honourable, kind, caring and gruff, but that makes me love him more. He isn’t as smooth as Dorian. But it’s easy to see he is an amazing, amazing guy. He puts his heart and soul into what he does, he works hard and he tries never to lose focus, the complete opposite of Dorian.

Finally, Nehemia is a slightly mysterious but loyal, caring and ethical character. We always see her trying to do what is right for her people, even if it means sacrificing a few luxuries. I love the friendship between Nehemia and Celaena because the two always seem to have each other’s back.

FINALLY...

This has been quite a lengthy review! Overall, I didn't mind Throne Of Glass even though there were some aspects I didn’t like as much and I do recommend you read it because I have a feeling it only gets better from here.