Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Celaena Sardothien is Ardalan’s greatest assassin. But she was thrown into a death camp and barely survived. To regain her title and her freedom, she must hide her identity and compete in a fierce competition to become the King’s Champion.  

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I desperately wanted to love this book. I kept telling myself: she’s a kickass heroine. You love that stuff therefore you must love Celaena!

I was disappointed. And angry. And still waiting for some badass moves from Adarlan’s greatest assassin.

Some things I liked about Celaena: she is outrageously arrogant. She likes to read. She’s brave especially having been in a death camp for a year and doesn’t appear to let that experience affect her.

Some things that absolutely grated on my nerves about Celaena: I was so pumped for a badass, flying-kicks sort of assassin but I didn’t get that. I liked the fact that Celaena can be an assassin and like fashion and dressing up, but it was annoying to see her primp and obsess over if Dorian and Chaol find her attractive. Doesn’t she have bigger things to worry about? Did she forget that there was some sort of creature waiting to kill the Champions?

She doesn’t always back up her claims of being the best of the best. She sleeps through the night without a care in the world. She doesn’t notice somebody sneaking up behind her. And how can she scarf down a whole bag of candy that was left on her bed without even thinking “hey, it could be poisonous!”

Side note: Katniss was dehydrated and practically dying of thirst but she restrained herself and was coherent enough to think about diluting the water first. COME ON CELAENA.

Although I was looking forward to some action, I’m not going to moan and groan too much over the lack of assassin-y scenes because Celaena isn’t supposed to reveal her identity. But after being trained to be an assassin, shouldn’t that training involve some wicked observation skills? Being cautious?

While I was indifferent to both Dorian and Chaol, Chaol is definitely the more interesting character. He was originally distrustful of Celaena but gradually warmed up to her which was nice to see.

Was I a fan of the love triangle? Not particularly. I didn’t feel anything much for Dorian or Chaol so it made it difficult for me to be invested in the romance. There wasn’t as much tension as I wanted. Although Celaena kept saying “I want Dorian” etc., it didn’t feel genuine. For some reason, I couldn’t imagine Celaena with ANY of the boys.

I also felt like there was so much stuff that could have been cut out simply because it didn’t lend itself to the plot and the story started to drag. The only thing that saved this book for me, were the last 100 pages.

The concept/idea is great; I love it. It’s different and there is a lot of potential for amazing characters. Unfortunately, the protagonist failed to impress me and that was disappointing.