If you don’t know, which you probably do since I feel like the only person in existence who hasn’t read it yet, Throne of Glass is about a girl named Celaena Sardothien, who is an assassin. Actually, she’s the most notorious assassin in the country where she lives. Before the book, Celaena is captured and put in a labor which she is intended to die. After a year in the camp, she is taken out by the prince, who wants her to represent him in a competition to become his father's personal assassin. The book is filled with humor, action and, of course, romance.
I had so much fun reading Throne of Glass this time because I was able to get past the first hundred pages and into the good part of the book. I’ve found that with almost any fantasy book, you have to give it time to allow yourself to adjust to the world. The first time I read it, I had a lot of other books I could read instead, so I pulled out of the story the moment I got tired of world building. If you haven’t read it yet because you’re having a hard time getting into the book, I recommend trying to push through the first 100-150 pages and really isolating yourself from the idea of other books. I also recommend trying to read that first 150 pages in one sitting so you don’t try to delay continuing with the book. My other tip is, if you really can’t get into Throne of Glass, to try reading The Assassin’s Blade, which is the prequel. I read it after Throne of Glass but you can read it before or after.
The first thing I want to talk about is all the names. I love Sarah, I really do. She’s a great author and is a wonderful human being from all the interviews I’ve seen. But her character names look like someone vomited the alphabet. It’s like Ahren from the Selection series. I read it as AH-rehn, but then Christine pointed out that it’s pronounced AIR-rehn. Like Aaron. Yup :/ . So I tried my best to look up all the pronunciations that I needed help with because I want to get these names right, but it was frustrating for me and took away from reading.
Character names aside, I did enjoy Sarah’s writing. She has a very descriptive writing style without it going completely Wattpad and erupting with adverbs (if you’ve never read a FanFic, I’ll link an example of overly descriptive writing here). At some points, I did kind of lose her train of thought in the story, but that only happened a few times. One thing that did seem to irk me was how many times she mentioned that Celaena was blonde or blue eyed. It seemed to take away from the trait because she kept emphasizing it.
There’s not much to say without spoiling you, but I highly recommend this book, even if you aren’t a huge fantasy person. Come back when you’ve read the book so we can discuss it. Goodbye if you HAVEN’T read Throne of Glass yet!
So first of all, I need to vent about Celaena. I have grown to love her over the course of these books and really respect her, but she is so arrogant that it really frustrates me sometimes. The fact that she didn’t feel the need to train the night before a competition started against a bunch of other assassins kind of concerned me. I think a huge part of that was actually my fault because I expected it to be a lot more Hunger Games-y rather than Triwizard Tournament-y. I thought everyone would fight to the death and she would get killed super fast because she hasn’t trained in years, but the competition was actually a lot less intense than I thought it would be. I’m not saying whether I find that a good or bad thing, it was just different. I wish it was more intense because it would have been a lot more fun to read about, but I didn’t enjoy reading about any of the tests except for the poisons one and the final one. I still felt her arrogance throughout the book to really bother me, but I think that part of it is just her way of shutting fear out and other parts of it will kind of disappear over time.
I suppose now is as good of a time as any to bring up the love triangle. I typically hate love triangles because either (a) they’re forced on by the author and take over the entire plot of the book and/or (b) it is completely obvious who the main character is going to end up with. I think the only love triangle that I’ve ever read and felt was executed properly was the love triangle in The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare. In this book, the love triangle is not forced on, it is definitely not the center of the book and I’m honestly not sure who she’ll end up with but I feel like it’s going to be Dorian. I feel like all the change she wants to instill is only going to be possible if she is queen and she kind of has to marry Dorian for that to work. From what I’ve heard, this is going to take a lot more twists and turns, so who knows, it might not even be either of them. As for the question of whether I am Team Dorian or Team Chaol, I don’t think it’s a completely fair question after just Throne of Glass because I feel like there was so much more Dorian time rather than Chaol time. I think I’m leaning towards Dorian, but that is truly subject to change. I don’t really like one more than the other, I think that Chaol is just more closed off about his feelings than Dorian so I know Dorian better.
Another character that I really want to talk about is Arobynn, even though we didn’t get to meet him. At first, I thought he was so nice for taking in this kid and keeping her off the streets. I thought of him as a father figure, like her Dumbledore. Then, we slowly learn about how cruel he was, making her break her hand and making her pay him back for teaching her then spending it all in a night. We’ll probably meet him at some point but I feel like it’s not going to be pretty. Did he disown her or something as a student for getting caught? I have so many questions about what exactly happened between them.
With the whole murder storyline, I suspected Nehemia immediately because she was the one who knew about Wyrdmarks in the first place and seemed to be hiding things. Even when Celaena saw Cain in the hallway all zoned out, I thought that was too obvious. It wasn’t until Celaena read this one line in one of her books about how the killer gets all the strength from the victims that I immediately knew it was Cain. I was disappointed in how long it took Celaena to make that conclusion.
While we’re talking about Cain, I want to talk about the final fight between the two of them. I was so frustrated the entire time when Kaltain came up to her with the wine and I was screaming in my head for her to not drink it but, of course, she did and she got poisoned. It was so stressful to read her slowly becoming dizzier and falling down and the stupid stick she had breaking. While it was a very important fight, I thought it was stretched out for a long time and the constantly shifting points of view left me really confused about what was happening with the visions she was seeing and if anyone else could see them. I also wanted to yell at Dorian to get up and go closer to Celaena because he just sat there telling himself to get up but he wouldn’t move.
I was also kind of confused about what was actually going on with Kaltain in the book. I know she is an opium addict and she gets terrible headaches, but the King and Duke Perrington mentioned something about testing mind control with her. I really want to learn more about the way magic works and some of the boundaries that it has because it hasn’t been described very thoroughly yet. I also think Celaena has some kind of magic because she keeps dropping hints about magic being outlawed and she’s extremely afraid of the King so there’s something she’s hiding from him. I think there also might be something to do with her identity since her parents were ordered to be killed and I’d assume she was too, so there must have been a way she fought off whatever poison or weapons they used on her.
I think that the other competitor, Nox, who she was giving lessons might reappear in a later book. I was so annoyed that she was giving him lessons because she shouldn’t be helping someone when she wants her freedom so badly she’s willing to cut Dorian off. I thought there might have been a romance on his end but I hope that doesn’t come into play or this love triangle is going to get a whole lot messier.
The whole Queen Elena deal was also kind of vague and I was very annoyed with her for Celaena. She just said “find the evil in the castle” and who knows what that means. Of course, Celaena figured it out but I would have been so angry with her. She also said something to Celaena about bloodlines, meaning that they’re attached in some way or she’s hinting at her heritage and not denying it. Again, I think there’s something about Celaena’s past that she’s hiding. Also, I find it kind of strange that Celaena and Elena sound so similar and wonder if that’s on purpose and is some kind of foreshadowing. I’m so angry about the fact that they changed Elena’s story to make it sound like she was some damsel in distress when she actually fought on the front lines with the king.
Now it’s time for some favorite parts!
I love the ball scene so much and you really get to see both Chaol and Dorian showing their differing natures like how Dorian is ready to ask her to dance while Chaol just kind of hangs back and watches her from afar.
The scene when Dorian gets her Fleetfoot, the puppy was so cute because he listened to her request about keeping Fleetfoot alive. I also love puppies so it was so cute to see that she had a little reminder of him.
I also loved the part when Celaena got her period she says something to Chaol like “I can’t be bothered to do anything right now” and Dorian comes in to try and cheer her up.
The last favorite part I can think of is when she was in the fight with that one guy, I think his name was Baron, and just wiped him out without even pulling out her sword. That was so funny, I think I actually laughed out loud for a solid minute because I was so proud of Celaena.
Those are all my current thoughts about Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas. Please comment below letting me know what you thought of the book and also what team you are!
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Thank you for reading and I’ll talk to you soon,
Caramel