Friday, August 7, 2015

Throne of Glass

by Sarah J. Maas
404 pages
(Throne of Glass, #1)
Published: August 7 2012

Blurb:


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 moreINTERESTING 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 toDISCOVER a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.


Rating:






Thoughts:


First and foremost, I am very aware that half the people who even see this review have probably already read this book. For reasons mostly involving boredom, reading slumps and the possibility of me not finishing another book for a while, I will review this book anyway. This disclaimer is merely for repetitive thoughts that will undoubtedly occur throughout the review. I hope you enjoy it regardless of them :)


Alright, so the the thing that stuck out to me the most about this book was the characters, which is my first very repetitive thought. I don't have much to say other than I am actually torn, for the first time, on who's side of the love triangle I'm on. I can't begin to describe the characters since that would be a spoiler, and also because I'm not sure I can do them justice with my own words. Celaena was a strange mix of girly, book-nerdy, smart and brave that I found refreshingly unique. I felt myself relating a lot to her, and loving that she was as vulnerable at times as she was great in others. You sometimes read a lot of characters that are either too pathetic or too perfect, so this was a nice, realistic mix of the two. Sarah J. Maas is the new queen of clever, badass, sarcastic, swaggery (don't think that's a word) characters. The love-hate relationships between them were funny, the love-love relationships were heart warming, and most importantly, there were villains well-worthy of beheading, eye gouging, or whatever appeases the dark, sadistic part we all undeniably have in our hearts. That was a very happy sentence. 


Moving on to the actual world Maas set up for this series, I couldn't get enough of it. I loved the royal, castle-type setting, with all gowns, parties and fancy rooms. This book was descriptive enough to make you feel like you were witnessing the scenes clearly, but not so much as to bore you with knowledge of every crack in the wall. Again, it was a nice balance between the two. We didn't get to see much of Calaena's life as a slave in the mines, just reocurring thoughts of all the terrible things she went through and how she actually managed to survive. I didn't mind that too much since I enjoyed the setting of Rifthold so much. The only thing that bothered me slightly was that the premise of magic in this book wasn't explained as well as I'd hoped. There wasn't much history to be told, but I suppose that's all we could get since Celaena only knew so much. Info-dumpy chapters are never fun to read. I feel like this book was an excellent start to what i hope will be a magnificent series, if what I've heard is true about the other two books currently out. The world-building was very good. 


The plot, however, was very interesting. I didn't expect there to be so many deaths, which only increased my growing curiosity as to who the killer was. This is in the blurb, so I'm not spoiling anything. This book turned out to have a mysterious conflict, which I did not expect. There was also a lot of suspense, which I happily devoured. But again, my only problem was how predictable the resolution was. This is probably another common thing you hear about this book. i expected there to be some kind of major plot twist that would send me rocketing back in my seat in shock, but I saw it coming from the start. This made me contemplate giving the book a lower rating, but no matter how unsurprising it was, I still thought it was written fantastically, and enjoyed it nonetheless. For that I think the book deserves a solid 4.5. 


Definitely recommend this for anyone who likes books with mystery, supernatural creatures, snarky characters, or just plain awesome action! 

10 comments:

  1. I am one of those people who still has yet to read a Sarah J. Maas book. This series is so popular and I really want to read it so I can join in with all of its fans. Great review!
    ~Chioma @ Blue Books and Butterflies

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! I really think you should read this one since it's such a fun book with fantastic characters. Definitely worth it, Chioma :)

      Delete
  2. I love this series, so glad you love it! Crown of Midnight is even better :D (New follower)
    I also nominated you for the Blogger Recognition Award, see details here: http://lessrealitymorebooks.blogspot.ie/2015/08/the-blogger-recognition-awardi.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just uploaded mine! And I'm so excited to start Crown of Midnight from all the good things I hear!

      Delete
  3. Thanks so much for following me on blogger! I am going to follow your blog on Bloglovin now!

    I am so glad to hear that you were able to enjoy this book so much, especially the first one! I have heard so many people loving this that I intend to read it myself and have it on my TBR now. I hope you enjoy the sequel!

    Check out my recent post: http://olivia-savannah.blogspot.fr/2015/08/top-10-reasons-why-i-love-kung-fu-panda.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome. Yes! I think you should definitely give it a try because it just has an awesome plot and characters. Thank you! :)

      Delete
  4. Yayyyy! I'm so happy that you loved this book! This series is my new obsession. Quick Jans you have to read Crown of Midnight and Heir of Fire which by the way fix all the mistakes in Throne of Glass regarding predictibility and other short comings, because Queen of Shadows comes out on September 1st and you have to be able to read it with Ryan and me so we can all share our thoughts. Great review! :)
    My own review of the series is somewhere on my blog. xD

    www.bookrantorrave.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cathyyy, yes! I'm currently reading Crown of Midnight and hopefully Heir of Fire after that. I really want to be able to read Queen of Shadows right when it come out! So far, I can already tell this one's going to be even better and more surprising. I'll definitely check out your review now :)

      Delete
  5. I'm so glad you liked this book and I hope you continue to like the others - you know, the fourth one comes out very soon, so you could binge read the next three. :D

    I'm glad you noticed the many sides of Celaena; I think this is very important, as it makes her somewhat more real, as it adds a complexity to her, as many people are not just one thing - she's also not perfect, as in real life, no one is. I get what you mean about not knowing whom to root for in the love triangle - I like them both, but I am Team Chaol all the way. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oo I'm counting down the days! I have actually finished the second one and reading the third so I will hopefully be done soon :)

      I'm actually glad I did, too, since I'm sometimes too blinded by my annoyance at certain aspects of a story to realise how well-written its characters are. Of course that was not the case in this book, since I loved the story. Some people think Celaena is too perfect and annoying, but I completely disagree as well. You're totally right. I think right now I'm leaning more toward Chaol as well, but I still love Dorian so much! Its not fair xD

      Delete

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *