Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass, #1
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s
Publication Date: August 2, 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Source: Purchased

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Rating: 5 stars

In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien. The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass–and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.

Review:

Sarah J. Maas knows how to write a damn good book. I can’t think of one thing I didn’t like. Her writing is flawless. The characters she’s created, the world she’s built, it was all amazing.

The plot moved along at a perfect speed. She didn’t rush through major parts or give us major info dumps about the world or the characters or their pasts that would put us to sleep.

And the characters. Oh my goodness, the personality she’s given Celaena. She’s this wonderful heroine who doesn’t need anyone. She’s strong and quick-witted, and yet still has this great feminine side to her that makes me want to be best friends with her. In fact, all of the characters have distinct personalities that each gives them something important to add to the story.

I really like that this book didn’t solely focus on Celaena. Everyone got little parts where you got to experience what was going on in their minds. It was nice to get small glimpses into how they reacted to and felt about the events occurring in the book and not having Celaena give you her assumption of how they felt. It made the book that much more interesting and fun to read.

I’m glad that Sarah J. Maas didn’t try to cram too much info about Celaena and her past into this book. She left many unanswered questions and five more books for us to find out all those answers in due time. It definitely keeps me wanting more because Celaena is such a complex character with a heavy past and I can’t wait to know all the things that made her into this crazily awesome badass. And those unanswered questions also apply to all of the other characters and the world and how magic works. There’s so many things to find out, I’m so excited.

And now part you’ve all been waiting for: who I ship Celaena with (and some somewhat spoiler-y stuff in case you haven’t read the book) so check under the cut and we can battle it out over who is better for this kick-ass assassin.

I ship Celaena and Chaol. He’s serious and tries so hard not to be enchanted by this strong-willed and sassy assassin but he can’t resist. And I can’t resist them together because they balance each other out so well. Every time the story was back to his POV, you could see his walls crumbling little by little and it was beautiful to watch him slowly fall for her.

During her battle against Cain, when he put his fingers to the edge of the ring and told her to get up, I straight up flailed. That scene was so perfect in every way and I’m totally smiling like an idiot just thinking about it right now.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Dorian. I’m not here to bash him and call him names, but I just don’t think he’s the man for her. To be quite honest, I actually think he’s a wonderful character who has already showed signs of a strong development. For example, he knows that his father is the scum of the earth, the dirt beneath a shoe, and so on, and he wants to make sure that he is not like him when his time comes to rule. In that moment at the end of the book where he kind of spoke up against his father, you could see some small hints of him gaining this sort of confidence in himself and protecting the people and the things that are important to him. I look forward to seeing how he will continue to develop from this prince with a somewhat party boy reputation into a man and a king who fights for what he believes is right and good.

Throne of Glass is flawless and if you’re one of the three people who haven’t read it yet, you need to jump on the bandwagon with the rest of us and enjoy this insane ride full of beautiful writing and shipping wars.