Review: Throne Of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Edition: E-Book, 404 pages
Published By: Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2nd August 2012
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult
Rating: 3 stars
Completed: 30th September 2015

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?

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(Side Note: I forgot to published this last year, oops. I am currently catching up with writing all my reviews from last year!)

Ever since the 4th book was dropped, everyone has raving about how fantastic this series is, so I thought it’s high time I started reading it. I went into reading this knowing that I’m not going to like it, that it will be a mediocre read and most of all, knowing I am going to dislike the main character. This was all true in the reading experience. So I’m not too disappointed with it because it was expected.

To summarise: Eighteen-year-old Celaena Sardothien is acclaimed to be the ‘world’s most notorious assassin.’ One day, she got caught (so much for being an notorious assassin, eh?) and was sent to a death camp in Endovier to work as a slave for a punishment for her crimes. But then there was an offer that involves her freedom, which she could not refuse. The King is needs an assassin and decides to hold a competition, in which 23 Champions compete to win that title.

In short, essentially this is the Hunger Games meets Disney’s Cinderella with a Game of Thrones setting. Go figure.

MAJOR SPOILERS will be present in this review.

My favourite kind of characters is a strong female independent characters and I love it especially when they really kick ass in martial arts style. I should like Celaena but she is really full of herself, which was expected. I heard she is better in the next book, but for now, this girl…I can’t even… her ego is as big as her head. And two men love her for some reason…because she’s pretty?

What does the cover tell you about the book? It looks like it’s about a girl who can kick ass with swords. But really, it’s about a girl who spends most of her time, flirting with a Prince, reading in the library, taking walks, moaning/whining, prancing around in pretty dresses and reminding herself how pretty she is or how she’s the best. Er…yeah. This is how an assassin should sound like, right? No.

I’m going to talk a bit about this so-called love triangle.
Dorian? Not a fan to be honest. He is a bit like Will Herondale without the sarcasm because he’s very attractive. I could tell from the beginning that some romance thing was going to happen and it did, no surprise there. It was lust at first sight. But I admit they do have some nice scenes together, not that I cared. Dorian’s a bit…I don’t know? Well, he’s dull. He seems like just a pretty face. I’m sure in the next few books, he’ll be more than just a pretty face, but for now he’s just dull.

I really like Chaol. There’s something about him. He’s very on guard and serious. He’s good at his job. He likes to keep things professional. That’s why you never see him joking or laughing. We don’t know much about his backstory, so he’s a bit of a mystery. Chaol is a better fit for Celaena but who knows what Sarah J. Maas decides? I have a sinking feeling that it won’t be Chaol. Dorian just seems like an obvious choice. But I think Celaena and Chaol are meant to be 😀

I did some googling and found out that the original title for this book was actually called ‘Queen of Glass.’ You know what that means… it means it order for Celaena to become Queen, she has to marry a Prince. Well, what do ya know? Dorian is the perfect suitor.

The mystery aspect of the book is the mysterious murders of the champions. The champions are being killed off one by one by an evil force and its up to Celaena to find what who it is and eliminate it. We find out it’s actually…Cain. That was a pretty obvious choice. I was expecting the unexpected. There’s a lot of really interesting groundwork in terms of the magical aspect of the story. It sounds very promising and I am interested in seeing how that concept is developed in the next few books.

I had my suspicions on Nehemia; I felt like there was something off about her but it turns out she wasn’t a villain after all. I don’t know what she is at the moment. It seems like she can work magic? She’s a mystery.

The challenges that the champions had to compete in were a bit mediocre, like knife throwing and archery, but as the story progressed the challenges had gotten a bit tougher, such as the wall climbing and finding out which drink is not poison. That last challenge was very INTENSE. It went on forever. Kaltain had poisoned Celaena’s drink and thus had resulted in her being unable to fight Cain and looks like she is losing. She was blacking out and experiencing these hallucinations. Dorian’s is all like, ‘I need to rescue her!’ Chaol comes to the outside of the ring; he knows he can’t help her because it would mean she’d be disqualified. So all he does is tell her to get up and keeps telling her to get up until she does. I really liked that scene.

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you so much for interfering on my behalf.”
“You don’t need me to rescue you.”
“It still would have been nice.”
“You can fight your own battles.”

With this quote, I liked how Chaol respects that Celena is a strong independent person who does not need a man to rescue her. But Celaena seems like she wanted for someone to stick up for her and rescue her, for some reason. I think she wanted Prince Charming to come to her aid, but ha, Chaol is not that person.

Let’s take a moment to reminisce some of Celaena’s arrogant and annoying moments:

“Fetch my slippers,’ she mumbled. “The floor’s like ice.”

What was she doing in a palace? Why was she – Adarlan’s Assassin! – Participating in some absurd competition to prove that she is the best? She was the best!

Oh, they were fools for thinking they could tame her!

Oh, how she adored candy!

“And I’m the Crown’s Prince’s Champion!” She flipped her hair over a shoulder.

This is the first book I’ve read that that tells the reader about the female character going through menstrual cramps. When you think about it, it’s literally never ever mentioned in books.

Another thing: how was everyone pronouncing the names in this book? For Celaena, it’s basically Selena but different spelling. Chaol – I was pronouncing it as Cha-ol, but as that was too much effort, I was pronouncing it as Cole lol, but I realised that it’s like how you’d say Chaos. Kaltain – Caitlyn?

Overall 3 stars out of 5. Despite my ranting review and how long it took me to finally finish it, I did enjoy it in some way. Celaena was really annoying but I tried to look pass it somehow. My consolation was that at least it wasn’t written in first person POV. About the writing style – I really liked it and the style is very sophisticated. Third person POVs are actually my favourites to read because I find that it progresses the story a lot quicker and we get in the mind of the other characters.

I don’t know where this fandom came from (probs Fiction Press) but this fandom has just escalated and has recently been opted for TV. It has become one of those overhyped series. Everyone loves it and I have yet to see what the fuss is about. I will be continuing with this series. This is probably a bad comparison as both stories are completely different, but I think of Throne of Glass as a teen version of Game of Thrones.

Have you read it? Are you Team Dorian or Team Chaol?