Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass #1

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books

Publication Date: August 7th, 2012

Rating: 5 Stars

Source: Bought off Amazon

Summary (from the back of the book): "Two men love her. The whole land fears her. Only she can save them all. 

In a world without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she will be released from prison to serve as the King’s Champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien. 

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. And a princess from a faraway land will befriend her. But something evil dwells in the castle — and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival — and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.”

Okay, so this will be one of my first ever reviews, so I’m not positive on how I want to go about this. Also, I tend to be long-winded and ramble a lot, so please bare with me!

We meet Celaena Sardothien in the salt mines of Endovier where she has spent the last year after being caught and enslaved for being the most notorious assassin in Adarlan. She is being taken to a meeting with the Crown Prince who is requesting that she join in the king’s competition to find a Champion. If she wins, she will serve the king for so many years and then she will be free. 

Soon after the competition begins, something evil in the castle begins killing the potential champions. And she is asked by someone unexpected to find the source of evil and stop it and become the Champion. So with the help of her new friends Dorian (the Crown Prince), Chaol (the Captain of the Guard), and Nehemia (Princess of Ellywe) she does just that.

Likes:

I really liked this book in general. I have heard a lot about how good this book is, so I was kind of expecting to be disappointed because that’s usually how I feel about books I’ve heard nothing but good things about. 

I loved Celaena. I loved how much she seemed to love herself! She deserved it after being stuck in that death camp for so long. I love how much she loved clothes and sweets and books. I kind of just want to be her. 

I really liked Chaol. Team Chaol. I liked that he was so protective of Celaena and did everything he could to help her train and help her be the best so she could win.

I don’t know, I just really liked this book. I’m finding it hard to just pick out certain things that I liked about this book. I’ve been getting really into fantasy books lately so I think that definitely helped that it’s fantasy!

Dislikes:

One thing that I was a bit disappointed about was the competition. I was kind of expecting it to be more Hunger Games-y. Like a fight to the death between all of them. But that wasn’t what it was at all. Basically just different trials to test their skills in different things. I wanted there to be more blood. There were some of the competitors that I kinda liked that I didn’t want to see die, but I wanted there to be blood.

I wished we could have seen more of Celaena doing assassin stuff. Show off her skills a bit.

I didn’t like that there was a bit of a love triangle going on. I liked both of them and I didn’t want to feel bad for one of them when they didn’t get the girl!! 

You don’t get to know much about any of the other potential Champions. Celaena gets sort of close to two of them, but you don’t know much about them. Cain just basically strikes me as the bully on the playground and most of the other Champions are like the other kids who go along with it just to stay on his good side. 

Overall, this book was really good and I would definitely recommend it! 

Also, I got that super adorable little Celaena bookmark from HappyHelloCo on Etsy! Check them out! So cute!