Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Published: January 1, 2012
Synopsis from Goodreads: After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.
Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.
Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.
Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Okay. I'm halfway through Crown of Midnight right now and - Shit. Just. Went. Down. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to coherently write this review if I continue reading anymore. Holy crap beans though...
To say that I immensely enjoyed Throne of Glass would be a massive understatement. It's like a fantasy Hunger Games shmooshed together with Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness Quartet. There are a lot of elements in Throne of Glass that were really reminiscent of both book series. Normally this would have bothered me a lot but Sarah J. Maas put enough of her own spin to the storyline that it just wasn't a big deal at all. Admittedly though, I had a bit of trouble getting into the story in the beginning but I'm pretty sure that's just because I wasn't giving myself enough reading time. Reading only on my half hour lunch breaks is no way to start a book but once I actually sat down long enough to read properly, it was pretty hard to stop.
Sarah J. Maas created a wonderfully elaborate fantasy world of Erilea. I haven't read a high fantasy book in a while and this book just reminded me of how much I truly love it when it's done right. It's easy to make a fantasy world sound boring and cliche but there was just so much detail in Maas' world that it never even came close to that. Her world building is simply amazing. Not only do we get bits about the history of Adarlan - the country where the story takes place - but we get pieces of history of the world itself. We learn about Terrasen and Ellywe and the ancient Fae and how magic was banned but once flourished. Every character gets a full back story on top of the history of their home country. Even the other champions, most of whom were minor characters, got back stories. There was talk of politics and religion. There was just so much depth to everything without ever resorting to massive info-dumps. The only thing I had a problem with was I kept forgetting what characters looked like for some reason but that was probably just me.
Let's talk about Celaena. At only eighteen years old, she's become Adarlan's most feared assassin - a great feat considering her age and the fact the she's a girl. She's the only girl in the competition to become the King's Champion and because of that, most of the competitors brushed her off at first. She also survived a year in Endovier - a death camp created by the King of Adarlan where the average life expectancy is only a month. She's endured love and heartbreak and betrayal. But on top of all of that, she kept her sense of humor and her ability to laugh. She can best anyone with swords or with wit. She plays the piano beautifully and emotionally. She reads like a true book nerd. She loves food and eats candy (and chocolate!!) with the happiness of a child. And PUPPIES - double points for loving puppies! In short, she's the epitome of a kick ass female character.
There is a love triangle here but it's the kind of love triangle that I'm okay with - more than okay actually because of how well written it is. Dorian Havilliard is the crown price of Adarlan - son of the ruthless tyrant king who basically destroyed all that was good in the world. But despite all of that, he's intelligent and kind and can easily match Celaena's wit. He's no where near the spoiled brat prince you'd expect. His ten year old brother is apparently but we don't meet him in this book. However, even though Dorian is great, I found myself really, really hoping Celaena would choose Chaol. Chaol Westfall is the Captain of the Royal Guard and Dorian's best and oldest friend. He's loyal, kind, honorable, and really sweet even though he puts on a good tough guy act at first. He takes his job as protector of the royal family seriously. He somewhat reluctantly becomes friends with Celaena over the course of the book but eventually it becomes pretty clear that the feelings go deeper than that. His sense of morals is so strong though that he is willing to step aside to allow his best friend to be happy instead. Both characters are extremely well written and it's obviously why Celaena has feelings for both but - I'm Team Chaol all the way - most definitely.
[Side note: One thing I'm particularly glad of in my copy of the book is the pronunciation guide in the back. For a while, I could not for the life of me figure out how to pronounce Chaol. I went from CHA-oll to Chaowl to something that sounded way too much like Kal-El. Chaol is not Superman
There were so many other amazing characters as well. Nehemia is a kickass female character all by herself and she's a princess. Nox was bascially the Finnick of the competitors and I loved him - and I'm hoping to see more of him in later books too, maybe? Duke Perrington and the king were each wonderfully horribly despicable in their own ways as was Lady Kaltain but specifically in a I-really-want-to-slap you kind of way.
If you haven't read this book, you need to. Like you needed to yesterday but now that's it's today you really, really, REALLY need to. If you loved Tamora Pierce when you were ten like I did, then you'll definitely like this but regardless, I'd recommend this to anyone who loves a good fantasy filled with endless adventure. But just be prepared for massive feels and nonstop reading. When I say nonstop I mean this book made me find creative ways to keep reading while multitasking.
But seriously - you HAVE to read this. It's necessary.
If you have read this and the rest of this series, tell me how you liked it! And also, after Crown of Midnight should I go directly to Heir of Fire or should I read Assassin's Blade first?
"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."
- Elena, pg 399
[ February 2, 2015 edit - I'm counting this towards my 2015 Fairytale Retelling Challenge. I joined the challenge after I read the book and wrote this review but considering both the author and the publisher consider this a retelling of Cinderella, I'm making it count. =) ]
