Review – Throne of Glass

Title: Throne of Glass

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens

Publication Date: August 7, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1599906959

Available at: Amazon – Kindle – Barnes & Noble

From the publisher:

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 three 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.

Review:

I had been eagerly awaiting the release of this book since May. I was a little worried that I’d be disappointed but there wasn’t anything to worry about. I was captivated from the first few paragraphs.

At age eighteen Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan’s greatest assassin. She’s spent a year doing hard labor in a salt mine for her crimes. She’s brought before the Crown Prince of Adarlan after that year and she still has her spirit. She hasn’t been broken. She’s been whipped, half-starved, worked to death, and maltreated. Yet she still has fight in her.

As I got to know Celaena, I grew to admire her even more. She was even more resilient then I imagined. Yet she had all the realistic weak spots you’d grow to expect from someone who had spent all that time in a prison camp.

Celaena also had determination. She was understandable physically weak from her year in a prison camp. So to  get in shape for the contest she trained hard. She could have reveled under the feel of what freedom she was afforded and luxuries she had instead she worked hard towards the ultimate goal.

Her romance with Prince Dorian was something! It wasn’t surprising though. It was sweet. It was romantic and I liked it. He was devilishly charming. Only  the whole time they were together I wondered where it would lead to? In fact it added a bit of excitement to it in that it was a bit of a forbidden romance. That question wasn’t answered in this book. Maybe it will be answered in another book.

There was a bit of a love triangle, but it was very well done. There wasn’t any rivalry. Chaol and Dorian are best friends and they want nothing to come between them, especially a woman. Celaena has no designs on being that woman to come between them. Yet there is something there between Chaol and Celaena. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s further explored in upcoming books.

Chaol was more antagonistic towards Celaena, but in the end I liked him for that. Their banter became something I looked forward to. At first I thought he was rather hard-hearted. Eventually though, he softened towards her making him all the more endearing.

There is a mystery in the book. It was very intriguing. I was at a loss until the end of the book. I always love a good mystery. Between the killing of the champions and the tests themselves, it was a very interesting way to go about a book.

I loved this book. I tried not to read it too fast but I couldn’t help myself. If I had another way of making it last longer then I would have taken it. I had a really hard time writing this review and I can’t help but feel that my words haven’t done it justice. I can only urge you guys to read this book yourselves!

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