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

EBOOK; 404 P.
BLOOMSBURY, 2012
SOURCE: PURCHASED

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?

Throne of Glass is one of those YA fantasy series that is rather hyped up at the moment, with many people offering rave reviews. Thus when I was looking for something interesting but lighter to read during the holidays, I decided to give it a shot.

Throne of Glass follows a 18-year-old female assassin named Celaena Sardothien, who was the number one assassin of Adarlan before she was betrayed. Now enslaved in the salt mines, she is one day given a chance to win her freedom – by competing to become the King’s Champion. Funded by Prince Dorian and trained by Captain of the King’s Guard, Celaena enters the competition despite the inner conflict she feels towards the cruel King. However, as the young assassin prepares for the competition and trains in the castle, her fellow competitors start mysteriously turning up dead. Something dark is happening inside the castle walls and if Celaena doesn’t watch her back, she might be next…

Throne of Glass is one of those books that heavily rely on the main character. Before I’d even heard of the series, everyone was singing praise to Celaena for being a kick-ass female assassin. To be honest, I was prepared to hate the book and the main character. However, from the very beginning the writing cleverly brought me face to face with my own prejudices, and made me put them aside. Celaena is kick-ass but she is also vain and head-strong, and her unlikeable faults made me actually like her a lot more. The story was interesting, and as the first book in the series, it laid a lot of intrigue to the world, the its history and the characters. However, the  love triangle of the book (and probably the whole series) was a bit too obvious from the very start, and already one third into the book, I had formed an idea of the “who’ll-end-up-with-whom” plot. But despite some of the overused YA tropes, I found myself really enjoying Throne of Glass and hoping for more things in the future. I’m not absolutely sold on the series (yet), but I do plan to continue reading the series and to see how some of the plot lines develop. It’s not the best fantasy that’s out there, but it’s a nice change. I’d recommend Throne of Glass to readers who enjoy YA fantasy as well as to those who have been feeling hesitant to pick it up.

4/5

“You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if you only dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.”