Rating: 7.5/10
This was my first foray into Sarah J. Mass' writing. I've been kind of out of the realm of YA books for awhile and I was excited to get back into it! Throne of Glass is about an 18-year-old assassin named Celaena Sardothien who is taken from the death camp that she's been at for a year by the crown prince of Adarlan. She's entered into a competition in the castle which is meant to determine who will become the King's champion. All of the champions have to participate in tests where their lives may very well be in peril, after each test champions are eliminated (because of poor performance or their death). After the start of the competition, champions begin dying, they're being slaughtered and eviscerated by an unknown assailant. Not only does Calaena have to fight to become the champion (while hiding her true, infamous identity), but she also has to uncover what is causing the deaths of the champions to ensure that she won't be next. Sarah J. Maas' style of writing flows easily and allows the story to progress quickly. She really capture's the reader's attention and keeps it, especially once the competition tests begin. The characters are all well done (though Perrington and his whole deal is still a mystery to me). Maas does an excellent job world-building and allowing the reader to full immerse themselves into the setting. The little bits of history that help to understand Erilea are great additions! My chief problem was that all of the twists were very obvious ahead of time. There wasn't really any shock factor. They were all predictable, the clues aren't just laid about they're kind of shoved in your face. Plus, it took a minute for me to warm up to the main character. Something about her personality and behavior was kind of off-putting. Celaena really did seem to have the overpowered "protagonist in a YA novel syndrome" which is fine, the trope exists for a reason, but if you're not into that then this is your warning. The longer the story goes on, the more you're able to begin to warm up to Celaena. The longer it goes on the more Chaol and Dorian are able to warm up to her as well, so get ready for the love triangle. Overall, this was a great story full of all of the intrigue that comes with high fantasy. The story carries itself along nicely and you're not left waiting around for something interesting to happen. If you've been thinking about reading it, go for it! I'm excited to get into the next book in the series, to see how everything (and everyone) grows and evolves! Of course if you want to know my complete opinion, there are some spoilers below.
Spoilers Below!!
Most of the twists felt pretty obvious, clearly Cain was performing the rituals, you knew this almost from the very beginning. Plus, once you know that Cain is causing the trouble, it makes it pretty obvious that anybody with a black ring is also going to be messing around with wyrdmarks and evil powers. So it wasn't surprising when it was "revealed" that the King and Perrington were involved (as their black rings were mentioned a lot). Kaltain's headache's also seemed pretty obviously to be caused by Perrington (at least once you assume the other stuff). Though his tricking her was a nice touch that wasn't quite as obvious. If they had wanted a real twist, then making Nehemia the real bad guy would've been quite the surprise, though honestly I'm glad that they didn't. Even though it was clear that Celaena was going to win the final duel, Maas really knows how to engross you into a fight scene, my heart was beating like crazy. I thought that Celaena would end up killing Cain, but it was still satisfying when Chaol did the honor (though it seemed weird that he hadn't killed anyone before as he was the captain of the guard).
Comments