Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (2012)

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Image result for throne of glassAt 18, Celaena Sardothien is the most notorious assassin in the land, which is why for the last year she’s been a slave in the salt mines. That is, until the Crown Prince travels three days from the kingdom to retrieve her. There he gives her a proposition: compete and win the title of the King’s Champion and be released into freedom after four years of service. With the alternative being staying is the salt mines, Celaena leaves with the prince, along with the Captain of the Guard, Chaol, back to the kingdom, where buildings are made of glass. What awaits is a set of grueling challenges that aim to dwindle down the 24 contestants up for the King’s Champion. What she doesn’t expect is to be thrown into a mess of royal politics that don’t seem to have a happy ending. With both Chaol and the Crown Prince by her side. Celaena must not only fight for herself, but fight for the entire kingdom.
Ever since Throne of Glass came out, it’s been getting mad hype. The start of a six book series, it’s been described as a mix between The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones. So, I was going into it with pretty high expectations, even though I didn’t enjoy Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses. Honestly though, this book didn’t live up to the hype for me. It was okay, but it didn’t carry the mind-exploding story I was expecting.
Overall, this book is really a court drama, with a little bit of action. Which is totally fine, but I thought it would be a lot more action packed. Still, there was some really cool action scenes that were really easy to follow, which I thought was awesome since sometimes I have a hard time following action scenes. In the plot itself, some of it was pretty atypical, and kind of felt like a cop-out. However, it was still interesting enough that I wanted to continue the story, although I will warn you the beginning is kind of hard to get through and that the ending is a little underwhelming.
In general, I’m really conflicted on the characters. First of all, I absolutely loved Celaena. Yes, she was a little self-centered, but I loved  it. I would rather have a really confident female heroine than one that’s insecure, because I think it can really set a positive impression on the reader, and hopefully inspire them to more confident. The only thing I would’ve like more is if I had some more background knowledge of her. I don’t really know why exactly she is the greatest assassin of the land. There was a really weird love triangle she was in involving Chaol and the Crown Prince, Dorion. I don’t think that either of the boy’s characters were developed,  and were mostly there to create a love triangle. Also, their love for Celaena came out off nowhere. They knew her for literally four days before they started becoming overly jealous of each other when the opposite one got to spend time with Celaena. And kind of possessive, which was not cool.
There is a lot of world building in Throne of Glass, which I though was done well. At the beginning, I was a little confused, but it was quickly resolved within the first 50 pages or so. I also thought it was extremely cool was literally built out of glass. Sarah J. Maas also did a great job communicating how big the world was, and how the politics inside it worked.
Overall, I was neither super impressed or disappointed with Throne of Glass. It definitely set up an interesting story that I do plan to continue reading.
3 Stars

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