Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

 Title: Throne of Glass

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Format: Audiobook

Narrator: Elizabeth Evans

Genre: YA Fantasy, NA Fantasy, High Fantasy

 I purchased this book and chose to do an honest and unbiased review.  The author neither requested nor is associated with this review.

 Goodreads Description:

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 four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. 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.

Here's What I Thought: 

Someday I am going to be consistent with my blogging. Since my last post, I not only continued with A Court of Mist and Fury, I have finished the entire ACOTAR series and I highly recommend it! Maybe I should go back and do posts on books I've read and not blogged about... That's a thought for another day. 

Well, I am officially an SJM fan. I tried to write her off as an author with one pretty good series, but one book into the Throne of Glass Series and I can already tell that that is not going to happen. Now, it has been a several weeks since I finished it and I have already finished several other books in the meantime (including others in the series), so after a nice little recap courtesy of the Recaptains so I don't jump ahead and spoil anything, bear with me. I will do my best to review this book with my true feelings at the time, and not hindsight 20/20. 

Note: I am doing the "romantic" reading order, which places Assassin's Blade after Heir of Fire.  

For the first book of a series and Maas's first book overall, it was good, but definitely not great. The premise of the story was good. There is a well-established big bad. There is a mysterious protagonist with a shadowy past. And let's not forget that love triangle! Although I could definitely have done without the love triangle, I'm kind of leaning towards #TeamChaol. Dorian is a prince and as sweet as he is, I feel like the prince always gets the girl. Anyways... This story seems to have it all. 

But...

It's weak. I wanted to absolutely love it, but I just couldn't. As fabulous as Celaena is, she is very one dimensional. She is the best assassin with the best aim, best agility, most expensive taste, and all the beautiful dresses. The love triangle between the best friends is cliche, at best. Seriously? Why do we always need a love triangle. Then, the good guy/bad guy (or girl) fake out was just plain predictable. Finally, from what I remember of the dialogue, it was "eh..." 

Despite all of this, I did enjoy the book. I even said so in the beginning of my review. I never expect the first book in a fairly large series, or any series for that matter, to be over the top spectacular. First books in a series tend to need a lot of world building and character introduction, as well as some sort of a plot, that it can be hard for authors to hit the mark in all of these things at once. Later on, once the world is established and characters have a chance to flesh out and the author finds their rhythm so to speak, that is when the great books come. That's why I rarely judge a series solely on the first book. Plus, I went into the series well aware that her writing starts out fairly immature, but she really grows throughout the series. 

I am (was 😜) excited to start the second book as I definitely see the potential for a great series. Also, how is SJM planning on tying everything together in the now confirmed multiverse?

 

Any Thoughts?

With any super hyped author comes polarizing opinions. I am actually surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did, as I generally don't love books that get blown up on all of the socials. Did you love it or hate it? Why? Drop a comment below and we can discuss.

About The Author:

Sarah J. Maas is the #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of the Crescent City, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and the Throne of Glass series. Her books have sold more than twelve million copies and are published in thirty-seven languages. A New York native, Sarah lives in Philadelphia with her husband, son, and dog. To find out more, visit sarahjmaas.com or follow @therealsjmaas on Instagram.