Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1) by Sarah J. Maas: Review

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Pages: 404
Published: August 2, 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Price: £3.99 (Paperback from Amazon)
           £13.50 (Hardback from The Book Depository)
           £3.79 (Kindle Edition)
Series: Throne of Glass
Source: Bought

Triggers (in the book, the review is safe): Rape, Abuse, Death, Vomit, Blood, Serious Injury.

About the book (Taken from the blurb):

Meet Celaena Sardothien. Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the filthy salt mines of Endovier, an 18 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 Westfell 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, Calaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassins heart be melted?

My review:

!Very mild spoilers present!

What a huge let-down. A colossal, humongous, stupendous waste of time. I'd rather eat my own shoe than say Celaena is a good assassin. My hunt for the perfect assassin story continues...

Despite what you may think, I don't enjoy writing negative reviews. It may be two really pessimistic reviews in a row, but I really wanted to like this one! From what I gathered from the hundreds of people who recommended this to me, in one way or another, I expected assassins and swords and epic battles and treachery and all that fun stuff.  But all it had was a dipsy girl and a love triangle. I thought YA was moving away from love triangles now after the Katniss catastrophe, but nope, YA authors just can't let that trope die.

I don't see why Dorian and Chaol would even like Celaena, the wannabe assassin. Both are unbelievably good for her. I was so excited every time there was a chapter from their perspective because it gave me a little break from being inside her head. Dorian was a sweetie pie. I really fell in love with his character! He just had one fatal flaw... he thought of Celaena every. Single. Second. Complete obsession isn't healthy. He's up there with all the creepy lovers! I'd put him snuggly next to Edward Cullen in my creepiness scale, and that's never good. He snuck into her bedroom in the middle of the night, he stalked her when she trained, he got incredibly jealous, and that's just a few of the reasons!  And why did he fall head over heels for her? Because she was gorgeous, obviously. If there were any other reasons, he must have kept them very hidden. I ship Dorian with Chaol. I know it's never going to happen because any mention of any kind of diversity must make Maas feel sick, but I reckon they'd be pretty cute together. Choal thought about the o so wonderful Caleana a lot as well, but that was his job, so that's a bit more excusable. But amazingly, Chaol fell for Celaena too, but just for her beauty, obvs, which created the universally loved love triangle. Not! Does anyone still actually like love triangles anymore? It was exciting in the first couple of books, but still? Bleh.

Maybe I set my expectations a little too high? I compared Celaena to the assassin I hold incredibly close to my heart, Lady Shiva, and the rest of the League of Assassins (even though she isn't with them at all times). If you didn't know they're semi-villains to Batman. She is a huge badass and knows how an assassin should behave. She's cold-blooded, highly trained, and incredibly deadly. Celaena, however, is not. An assassin should know that there is a lot more to a person than their appearance, so they should not think about it. Celaena judges everyone on their attractiveness as soon as she meets them. Assassins should not let their weaknesses be known, to anyone. Celaena does this several times. She is clearly incredibly embarrassed by being dirty when she leaves the salt mines, she tells anyone who asks about her still highly sensitive lost lover, and she makes her feelings to the two men so clear that everyone in a 10 mile radius can see it. Even the King picks up Chaol, and he was the 'lesser' of the two ships! Not to mention her obsession with crossing her arms like a moody teenager. You've no idea how much this annoyed me. I hated her as soon as she said 'Had her arms been unshackled, she would have crossed them' on page 10. Seriously! Do you want me to hate this character,  or want me to treat her any less than the annoying little brat she is?! That's not sassy, that's pathetic. It legit made my skin crawl when I read it. I put a post-it note on it and everything, and I never make notes like that. Then I was inspired to post-it note the rest of the book when I didn't like a bit, and nearly my whole pad was used.

Why does EVERYONE hold this series so dearly? If I could never read another book from this series, I'd be a happy girl.

 Did you enjoy this book? Does the series improve? Can you recommend a good assassin story? Let me know in the comments!

Follow me! Twitter          Instagram

Contact me! theintrovertswonderland@gmail.com

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Don't forget to subscribe to my blog! I put out a new review every Sunday (almost) and have the occasional Top 5 Tuesday! E-Mail subscription bar is at the bottom of the page, or there is a button at the top!