Book Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

 

Goodreads Summary: 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?

Goodreads Ratings: 4.18 stars with over 700,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Fiction, Magic, New Adult, Adventure

Goodreads Challenge: 37/50

2021 Reading Challenge: Read a book for under $5 (find the complete challenge here) 

Book Review:

Happy Saturday, Readers! I finished Throne of Glass late last night and thought I'd go ahead and get this post out of the way before I have to be productive. Apparently, I've had this book on my kindle since 2019. I got it on sale at the time, so it felt like a good fit for the Under $5 prompt.

Part of me was a little hesitant to read this. I recently joined a book recommendation group on Facebook, and Sarah J Maas's books are getting major hype. More so her other series, but this one as well. I went in this preparing to be let down because of all the attention her work was getting. I must say, I'm glad I didn't let the popularity sway me. 

First, let's get the things I didn't like out of the way. It's a YA Fantasy/Romance, so of course, there's a love triangle and swooning where it just seems ridiculous. There's also a lot of needless mention of how attractive someone is, including Celaena. Everyone in a YA Fantasy must be a model; it's an unwritten rule. No one wants to read about ordinary people that you can't even see. I thought the plot was pretty predictable, but it made sense. I didn't feel like any big plot twists just blew my mind. All that being said, I really did enjoy Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas.

The story kept me entertained. At first, Celaena came across as extremely arrogant, but I think the trials put her in her place a bit and made her grow. By the end, she seemed more like just an eighteen-year-old girl who has had to do terrible things to survive. I do feel that there was more telling that she was an assassin than showing, however. What I mean by this is because we meet Celaena after she's arrested and been enslaved. We just get told she's an assassin. It's reinforced by the number of times she's just referred to as "The Assassin." Sure, she can fight and threatens death a lot, but that's about all that gets shown. 

The love triangle wasn't anything to write home about, but I feel like most love triangles in books. It's not that I'm against romance in books. I feel like I read a ton of it. I just want it to make sense and not be there for the sake of being there. I feel like the only purpose it served was to create a little drama and break down some of Celaena's walls. This could have been just as easily accomplished with friendships, as seen with her relationship with the Princess (the likelihood I'm going to pell her name right is slim.) Anyways, I was neutral towards the slight romance, but it went just about how I expected it to go.

I'm inquisitive to see more of Celaena's backstory and how the banned magic will come into play more in future books. I think there was just enough of it in this first book to get me curious and wanting more. It will be interesting to see how the story progresses. Overall, I enjoyed the story. I wasn't obsessed with it, but it was entertaining. I needed something light and uncomplicated to cleanse my mind from how confused I was from my last book, so Throne of Glass fit that need pretty well. I'll probably read the other books eventually, but it's not anything I'm making a point to do right away.