Throne of Glass

Celaena Sardothien spent years in the Endovier death camps, where she would spend the rest of her life. Until, crown prince Dorian appoints her to enter a competition for the title of King’s Champion, who will tasked to do the King’s secret bidding. But when one by one, the competitors turn up dead, Celaena knows that something evil lurks in the castle.

This was a huge letdown for me. It mainly involves the writing and the major lead.

For someone who’s supposed to be a deadly assassin, ’s pretty weak. I get it. She's a girl who likes to be pretty and wear nice clothes and date popular boys (I actually love when female characters are both girly and badass at once). The problem is that she is so narcissistic and stubborn that you can't help but focus on the tooth-cringing parts of her personality. She never (or rarely) speaks without thinking first. Sometimes, she really lacks tact, not to mention good manners.

While none of the other characters got on my nerves quite as much as Miss Celaena , I felt like there could have been more work behind the scenes. This is because the entire story didn’t really engage me from start to finish for this reason.

You can tell someone didn’t really do their part of research. The setting and the way all characters behave could have been a bit more authentic. However, holy cow, the out of character moments are too much, even for a mediocre book.

In short, Celaena Sardothien is a Mary Sue. But even worse — she is an unlikable, vain, shallow, self-centered Mary Sue. And if you expect me to believe she’s a deadly killer, then you better think again.

Next, I will discuss how the competition itself was a let-down rather than a fight-to-the-death (or similar) scenario. We had a race, an archery competition, and wall climbing. And a lot of other things that happened off-screen.

Amidst all these competitions and training programs, the plot scattered into flirting banter, gatecrashing parties, and some girl-on-girl hating; as if the author wasn’t sure whether she wanted her novel to be the story of a ruthless assassin, or the romance of a ruthless assassin princess-wannabe.

So, no. The plot didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t like the characters. I don’t see myself continuing this series.

You can also find this review on my blog: Click Here

A good, fast-paced read, but not quite as good as Maas's later work; certainly feels the Y in YA. Can be read as a standalone but is probably better if you continue on to read the whole series (I assume).

To summarize it briefly: Celaena, a proficient assassin, has been in the salt mines for a year when she is taken out by Prince Dorian and his guard captain Chaol to be the prince's candidate in a competition to find the next King's Champion. But someone, or something, is picking off candidates even outside of the competitions designed to winnow out the unworthy. Celaena's heart is also pulled into two directions, between the overtly romantic Dorian and the steadfast Chaol.

The major drawback to the book is that it's so clearly written to be part of a series. For instance, from very early on, I started to suspect that Maas was pulling a Megan Whalen Turner and Celaena was more than she seemed. I think Maas was fairly clever about this, and if I hadn't read The Thief multiple times I might not have caught all of the clues. (And then later on there was a kind of stone maze and supernatural elements that also recall The Thief.) I had to check the description of later books in the series to confirm it, as it isn't resolved in this one, which was moderately frustrating. But on the opposite side, the love triangle appeared to be gearing up to be an even bigger part of a larger storyline - while Dorian is clearly the "winner" of the triangle through the book (I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say this) given his active romance with Celaena, Chaol's feelings for her were pretty much unresolved. But in checking Wikipedia to find out the other thing, I saw that this triangle is completely abandoned in favor of a totally different love interest who doesn't appear in the book! That was frustrating to find out, as I was getting pretty invested in the romantic tension (and I do not usually like love triangles much). I don't really understand why Maas did this and it retroactively make the book go down a lot in my estimation.

There is a strong female friendship, which I loved! Princess Nehemia is a kind of hostage at the court and she has her own secrets, but she is a genuine friend and equal of Celaena and I'm very interested in her as an individual and in her future plotline. The Strong Female Friendship thing often feels pasted in in a lot of books, but not here - it's organic and I love it.

The mystery plotline is ... I don't think it's something to pick up the book for. The person doing the killing is pretty obvious, although there is a twist at the end that was worth reading!