Throne of Glass is a dark, intriguing story about a former assassin forced to compete in the King's competition in a desperate attempt to win back her freedom. Fighting other competitors and investigating a dark evil that's stirred beneath the kingdom, Celaena is caught up in a story and a plan even bigger than she knows, forced to step forward to protect herself and the people she loves most.

This is the second SJM book I've read (the first being ACOTAR), and I have to admit that I really enjoyed it!
SJM's writing style is easy to understand, effortlessly descriptive, and gives you a great sense of the world, what everything looks like, and how it makes you feel. She is a fantastic author when it comes to action scenes, and we see so much more of her writing potential in this book, because Celaena is a fighter through and through. 
I really appreciate how this book centered around the main character, and not her love arc. It was refreshing to see her develop as a character, and while there was a romance sub-plot, it didn't feel as closely interwoven with the main story as ACOTAR was (obviously). In some parts, it felt a little bit underdeveloped, or at least her main love interest did (

Dorian

). While he was still interesting, it came from who he was to the politics and to the story, and not his character's personality. I didn't find myself caring much about him, but I suspect that was the intention, as

Celaena broke it off with him rather abruptly near the end.

I am holding out hope that

Chaol

and her will develop something, but I won't hold my breath, just in case I'm wrong.
I genuinely think that the only part of her writing that I don't enjoy is her descriptions of clothing, particularly fancy dress. Sorry, but some of those dresses Celaena wears sound atrocious, and even Dorian wasn't spared the wrath of bad descriptive elements on his clothes. Oh well, I trust she had a vision that I just didn't see.

Celaena was a quite typical FMC but not in a bad way. She was shaped by the world, a strong fighter who had been wittled down by a year of slavery, clawing her way back up. She was cunning, and fast, and I really enjoyed reading her story, seeing her work things out, and following her through the book. She seems like a character that will face a LOT more changes over the next few books, and I can't wait to see where it takes her. 
The side characters were honestly amazing. Nehemia, Chaol, Dorian, Kaltain, and everyone else was relentlessly interesting. Everyone had so many layers to them. It was very often that I would read one person's POV, and then the POV would switch, and a whole new perspective dawned on me and shaped the character in a completely different way. It was a really interesting way to approach the book, and I hope that the multi-POV story continues on in the series. 

As always, SJM's worldbuilding is stunning, fully developed with intricate layers that leave you always finding more and more tidbits that you didn't even think to ask about. This is a very slight spoiler about her other books and series, but

I believe that all the worlds of her books are all sort of intertwined, or written within the same vague universe/with the ability to travel to her other universes, which gives her a lot to build on.

It's only been mentioned very briefly in this book, so I don't assume this will be 100% accurate, but it does support her worldbuilding a lot, and really speaks to her credibility as an author when creating these worlds.

Definitely looking forward to the next in the series!