Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Publication: August 7th 2012 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Genre: Young Adult ~ Fantasy
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Rating: 2/5
Review copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
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 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.
My biggest issue was Celaena, who the story revolves around mainly. She was way too arrogant for me to like her and spend a lot of time thinking about how beautiful she is. Just... no. Also, she's supposed to be this asskicking assassin, and though we saw a little bit of her in that way, I thought it wasn't enough at all. The second biggest issue was how I quickly lost interest in the story. I had wanted more action and fantasy elements than there were.
The other characters in the book all blended into a faceless bunch for me. And what can I say about Chaol and Dorian? As the two love interests, I had expected to at least like one of them and I just didn't. Both had no personality for me. I felt like there wasn't enough character-building for me to get to know them. The romance was simply awful to me. It was mostly centered on Celaena and Dorian, though we can all see that Chaol was liking Caelaena too. Sometimes a love triangle is nicely done but the romance in this book was a lot of 'bleh'.
Even though I usually love multiple points of view, I found that in this book it didn't work at all. For one thing, aside from Celaena's, they were too short and I couldn't care less about what Chaol, Dorian, Kaltain were thinking or doing. They were completely unnesessary to say the least. At the end of the book there was also the pov of the king, which I have to admit was slightly more interesting, but only a bit.
All in all, Throne of Glass was an okay concept. It was promising but due to the lack of good writing, tedious plot and unlikable characters, it fell flat for me. I do want to read the other books because I heard they get better but this one wasn't a great one for me, sadly enough.
About the Author:
Sarah J. Maas is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Throne of Glass series (Heir of Fire, Book 3, will be out in September 2014). Starting in Spring 2015, her New Adult Fantasy series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, will be published by Bloomsbury as well.
Sarah lives in Southern California, and over the years, she has developed an unhealthy appreciation for Disney movies and bad pop music. She adores fairy tales and ballet, drinks too much coffee, and watches absolutely rubbish TV shows. When she's not busy writing, she can be found exploring the California coastline with her husband.
Could not agree more with everything you said, Steph! This book was a 2-star for me as well. Honestly, what kind of competition was that? Lamest thing I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteFinally! Someone who agrees with me on this book!
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