Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas
Throne of Glass #1
Release Date: August 2 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Rating: Enjoyable

Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted? - Goodreads

After reading Graceling by Kristin Cashore I was on a bit of a fantasy high, so I decided to pick this one up seeing as it was already on my TBR list for the month of July.

The beginning of the novel pulled me in straight away. I loved the introduction to the world this was set in, and I loved the idea of a king who is trying to take over and rule ALL THE COUNTRIES *insert Tumblr gif here* and the fact that magic was outlawed like in Maria V Snyder's Study trilogy (which created awesome drama and tension, by the way).

The middle of the novel was, unfortunately, a very slow read and it seemed to lose all the momentum the beginning had built. There wasn't enough action going on, as very few of the trials that made up the tournament were actually given full descriptions. A few of them merely had a sentence to describe what had happened. I think there could have been a much better way to integrate them with the plot and to make it more exciting.

The ending managed to grab me and suck me back in, though, and it gave me hope for the sequels because it was action packed and it showed what an awesome writer Sarah J Maas can be.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked Celaena given her personality. She was very arrogant and hot headed, and this is something that would usually annoy me but I think it worked well with the story and with her role.

There was a love triangle, and I don't really have any strong feelings about either side of it. I'd be happy for Celaena to end up with either of the men, or neither. I think she's badass enough on her own, so if she ended up staying single at the end of the series without the love interests dying on her, I would adore that.

Like I said, I really enjoyed the world that this was set in and I am definitely intrigued by some of the plot points, especially with the magic. I'm going to be reading the sequels, and I hope that we get to see Celaena use her assassin abilities to kill some people. That makes me sound like a complete crazy person, but I think there is a lot of opportunity there and I would really like to see where the author goes with it!