Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Title: Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) Author: Sarah J. Maas Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery Published: August 2012 My Rating: 4/5 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.

A lot of people on Goodreads seem to know this book, I’ve seen it be mentioned a lot on there and it sounded really good. Something I always enjoy in a book is having a strong female lead, so when I read what this was about, I just knew I had to read it. I must say I was not disappointed.

And there was actually a nice surprise too, because I didn’t know there was going to be fantasy in it. I thought it was mostly action and romance. But there’s also magic! Yay!

Spoilers ahead.

First of all, I want to say that I really liked Celaena Sardothien (her name sounds so fierce, I love it). Although I do have to admit that it was a bit difficult for me to sympathize with her and understand her, because, well, she’s killed people. A lot. And it’s funny how girly she can be too. I’ve seen a lot of people complain about this part, how such a big assassin would go into a castle and worry about her looks, balls and sometimes about wanting to kiss a certain boy. But why shouldn’t she? Just because she’s an assassin doesn’t mean that she can’t also enjoy being a girl. Does she really need to be a tomboy who just cares about blood and weapons and killing? I like it. She’s different.

And, of course, there had to be a love triangle… Oh God, why?! I’m seriously starting to hate these triangles, because most of the time there’s always a lot of drama that I don’t need and the girl usually stays with the guy I don’t like...

I just can’t like the prince. I mean, I don’t dislike him or anything. But I don’t want Celaena to stay with him. She’s very strong, independent and has been through so much. And Dorian is kind of weak, he doesn’t know much about life and hard work… and he can't seem to keep it in his pants. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but if there’s something I don’t like in my male characters is for them to sleep with a bunch of women and also act like victims, saying that they’ve just had a lot of meaningless sex without emotions, when they want so much more than that, they’re looking for love… Ugh, give me a break. Should I be crying for you? Were you actually forced to have this kind of life?

Oh, oh, and then when Celaena breaks things up (hell yeah!), he acts all ‘Oh God, were you using me? Playing with my noble and honest feelings just to win? You cheap, ruthless woman.’ Oh yes Dorian, yes, now I’ll be crying for you for sure, let me just grab some freaking tissues… Please…  He’s just a very confused hormonal boy who likes to play the victim.

And he also wants to kill the puppy!! I told you! I told you he wasn’t good news and that he was not to be trusted! You can never trust people who hurt puppies. Ever.

Finally, when she’s going through her lady days and is in a lot of pain (especially since it had just come back after all those months!) he says ‘Oh it can’t be that bad’… What? WHAT?! Oh my God, you can’t just say something like that, what’s wrong with yooouuu?! I would’ve punched him. Right in the middle of his stupid face. 

Well, enough about Dorian, let’s talk about Chaol now, who is soooo much better than him! And Celaena actually tells him more about her and her past, which I find to be so nice. And I like it when they train together, they’re kind of similar, they’re both strong and have also strong personalities. They just match. And I feel like he actually likes her, whereas the prince seems like he’s just dealing with another silly infatuation… He couldn’t even stop looking at that short girl’s breasts when he was dancing with her, just minutes before dancing with Celaena and thinking to himself that there were no other women out there who were worth his royal attention.

Oh and there’s also Nox Owen, he seemed nice. I actually liked him a lot and I was sad when he left. It was great to see Celaena having an ally... He’s also better than Dorian.

I find it so hard to understand how these boys can start to like her and trust her though. I don’t know if I could be involved like that with an assassin, and the best assassin around at that! Because that’s who she is. Although let’s be honest here, the king is a MUCH bigger criminal, just saying. He’s such a hypocrite.

Enough about the drama now. For me the best parts were the championship, the mysterious champion killer and the magic :) (but I just had so much to say about Dorian, God, I’m so sorry) I was a little bit disappointed because we didn’t get as much action as I expected, just a few tests were explained and there were so many champions losing and being killed so quickly, I wanted to know more about all that. Oh and what’s with Queen Elena appearing when it’s convenient for her? She helped her before the poison test but she couldn’t tell her that she was going to be poisoned before the final duel? I also started to think ‘What if Celaena descends from magical creatures and stuff? How cool would that be!’

And Kaltain… every time I had to read from her perspective I just wanted to scream! Why was she even reeleevaaant!! (Well, we find out about that later, but still)… A very annoying girl. I actually think she’d be perfect for Dorian, I’m surprised he doesn’t like her.

We also have Princess Nehemia. I admit I thought she was a little bit suspicious at first, but she turned out to be a great help in the end, I guess. She also knows some magic, so that’s really cool. But I can't really trust her for some reason.

Well, I definitely enjoyed reading this, although I would’ve preferred to have more action instead of all that romance and drama.

By the way, how is Celaena no good at billiards? She’s great with bows and knives and has perfect aim. Hmm…

Thank you for reading! Bye-Bye! ♥