Throne of Glass by Sarah J.MAAS| Spoiler Free Review

Title: Throne of Glass 
Author: Sarah J.MAAS
Pages: 404

Synopsis:

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?

My Review:

I finally got to Throne of Glass! yaaay me.
I have been putting this off for so so long because I had heard mixed reviews and I was scared, after my love for ACOTAR I wouldn’t like it. But I bit the bullet and finally gave it a whirl by going in blind and not knowing what it was about. It wasn’t the plot I had in my head that’s for sure!

Before every review I like to take a moment to talk about if I like the Book Cover or not because they can influence me so much. For me the Throne of Glass covers are so good. I have the copy as shown above which is the White Cover copy and they all look so beautiful especially with the blue/silver mist surrounding Celeana.

I was blown away by Sarah J.MAAS’ world building for this series. I thought she couldn’t surprise me after ACOTAR but I was so wrong. Her description made everything so clear from the brutality of the Salt Mines in Endovior to the home of the glass castle in Adarlan. The setting and the world building is strongly developed and it’s easy to lose yourself in such as High Fantasy.

It is also worth noting that like MAAS’ other work she has a map in the front of the book. I love maps, not just for the beauty of them but they are also a great addiction to Fantasy novels because you can constantly flick back and consult the map to see where each place is in relation to one another.

Throne of Glass is very different from what I was expecting, I know I went in blind but I never expected it to feature a strong female assassin. An assassin? Normally the female heroines aren’t fully fledged trained killers. From the moment Celeana was introduced I was  hooked.

Celeana is brought to Adarlan to compete through a series of trials in order to get to the final stage and win the title of ‘The Kings Champion.’  I loved the whole trial element, training aspects of fantasy books are usually my favourite aspect because it’s rare so much emphasis is placed on the build up of the character instead of the end result. I really liked the training and trails of Throne of Glass because here we had a series of misfits and criminals, all trained in some way and other to kill or injure so they were only getting more ruthless.

The training element is something that also reminded me of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard which also features a strong female lead training to compete in a game put forth by the Royal Crown. An aspect that comes with training scenes are the moments in which the heroine is doubted, her skills are doubted and she has to prove them wrong. I’m always left smiling like ‘YES GIRL, SHOW THEM MEN HOW STRONG YOU ARE!’

Of course Sarah J.MAAS isn’t just writing the training and trails scenes, there are mysterious deaths along the way. Who is killing the other contestants? That is something that will keep you guessing and even though we may learn who it is, things still don’t add up and we are further plunged into this fantasy world trying to understand what or who is murdering people.

Ultimately The plot is fast paced with action, tension, a hint of romance and suspense. All of which work together to keep you guessing.

If you follow me on Twitter you will know as I read Throne of Glass I was torn between Dorian and Choal throughout reading the book.  I’m not great with Love Triangles, I feel like their so over done now and there just a trope I’m not a fan off but Throne of Glass felt different. It didn’t feel like a normal love triangle, I think it was because Choal was somewhat hateful towards Celeana in the beginning so the love aspect kind of crept up on me. Whilst I lent more towards liking Choal as the book went on, I was still torn with Dorian because there is more to him that meets the eye. He seems like a player wanting to bed girl after girl but he’s sweet and caring deep down. Both characters have depth.

Throne of Glass also reminded me of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo based on the fact that it features numerous champions all of which are society outcasts in the sense of them being criminals and assassins.

Celeana is our heroine, the main female protagonist of the story and she has mixed reviews regarding her. I feel like Celeana is a you either love her or hate her character, for me I loved her. I thought she was fierce, funny and a strong character. There was depth to her that unraveled as the story progressed and I just adored reading her character.  Overall I love reading stories with strong female heroines and it was nice to read a story where the heroine is also an assassin so she is somewhat flawed. It made it unique and stood Celeana out amongst the sea of heroines previously published.

For me Throne of Glass is a 5 star read. I think going into the story blind definitely helped me in losing myself in the story straight away as it wasn’t what I expected it to be so I immediately wanted to read on. I thought the pacing was perfect as it built up towards each trial and towards the ending sequences and Sarah J.MAAS writing is as enticing as ever.  Celeana is a character which I am going to hold dear and I can’t wait to see what else she gets up to in the next installment!

Useful Links:

| Throne of Glass |  www.sarahjmaas.com | Amazon

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Have you read Throne of Glass? Who’s your favourite character?