Wednesday, October 31, 2012

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

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: August 7, 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's
404 Pages

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 kings 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 exhilirating. 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.

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Review:

I've been looking forward to reading Throne of Glass for quite some time now. So when my dearest soulmate, Isabelle offered me an exchange for an ARC, my answer was, of course, "Hell-to-the-Yeah." And I'm very glad I did. This novel was originally posted as an internet story. I had never heard about it before I read another review of the novel and was shocked to see that the other already had "thousands of loyal fans." How weird. To my knowledge, besides a couple pulled-to-publish fanfiction novels, I have never read a "internet story." That piqued my interest even more!

Almost everything about this book was amazing. Almost everything. The love triangle and some minor bugs are why this is a 3.5 star book instead of a 5 star book. 

So let's talk about this love triangle. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate love triangles? This one is the only part of the novel that I didn't enjoy. Maybe it's bad that I lowered my rating because of that, but it's very hard for me to get into a novel with a love triangle. Especially when it's not well written. More often than not, I find myself avoiding books where the main character has more than one love interest. One of the two men that Celaena "connects" with just doesn't fit. Her immediate infaution with him seemed almost forced. She was constantly reminding us why she liked him. I think the novel would've been better if the love triangle had been kept out. All it did was give me a headache. I really liked the second guy. If Celaena wasn't so fickle in her affections and really noticed him, she would see that they would make a great couple. Since she obviously doesn't appreciate him, he's mine.

I really liked the characters in this one. Each played their own role in the novel. No one was put in the story to do nothing. Chaol was my favorite. As Captain of the Royal Guard, he spent a lot of time with Celaena and so the readers get to know him very well. He gives the swoon swoonz out like my grandma gives out money. All. The. Time. Nox, Nehemia and Pelor were other characters I enjoyed. Though I constantly questioned their loyalty, I'll admit it. You never can be too careful when going through this kind of competition! Cain was terrifying. From the moment he was introduced, the reader is fears him, or at least knows that he is going to bring Celaena trouble!

The plot? How crap. How interesting! I mean, really, how cool is this book? I've started to really get into fantasy novels lately, and this book is a good example of why. Making up an entirely new world cannot be easy. I admire an author who tries and applaud those who succeed. I believe that Ms. Maas's world is a success. A little hard to keep up with at times, but the world is utterly captivating. I only wish I could see it with my own eyes.

Fantasy lovers will really enjoy this, if they can deal with the love triangle. While I'm not thrilled that we have another trilogy (though the author hopes to make the series in total a six book saga) on our hands, I am looking forward to the continuation of Celaena's story. So much can be done with it and Ms. Maas is more than likely to do it justice, again, if she gets rid of that pesky love triangle!


I received an ARC for this from a fellow blogger to review based on my honest opinion.

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