A review by mxcopmy
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I apologize if there are some translation errors in this review. English is not my first language so there may be some linguistic errors.

"I am Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan's Assassin. If these men knew who I was, they'd stop laughing. I am Celaena Sardothien. I am going to win. I will not be afraid."

My feelings during this book with the hours: 📈📉📉📈

In "the assassin's blade" I was introduced to the brave, suspicious and sincere badass personality of Celaena Sardothien. I was immediately sucked in by her character and fell in love with the way she was portrayed, so I then immediately picked up the next book in the TOG series. As the pages progressed, however, I became confused. Celaena suddenly became hugely naive and easy going, laughed a lot (believe me, this was a miracle when she did this in TAB) and was portrayed in a feminine light. All aspects of the promised "most feared assasin of the continent" were taken away from you. I was really deeply disappointed by this. This made it very difficult for me to place myself in the book because it felt more or less like I was diving into a new character I hadn't read about in the prequel.

In addition, the story was also just... okay. The reason I had taken up the throne of Glass series was because I was promised (by social media admittedly) that romance was not considered a main topic, whereas I felt that it absolutely was here. 2-0 for the painful disappointment in my heart. The tests Celaena had to pass to become "Champion" of the King were also very superficially written out, while I thought this should be the main focus of the book. With this, the world building was again weak and a lot of details were missing. Then the love triangle became the ultimate centerpiece of this first book. Bleh.

The only thing that still pushed me through in the book were the mysterious and magical elements. Even though I was still quite perplexed by the "at random" throwing of this route in the middle, I started to appreciate it more and more as the end approached. Only in the last 150 pages did you still get the suspense you expected and the duel that was powerfully set up. So those last 150 pages just put me over the top not to give 2.5 stars as I was very hooked here!!!

To be honest, had I not read TAB as a prequel, I might not have continued the series. The only thing that still gets my hopes up is the fact that Celaena may yet change into what I had read/thought/hoped for. Then again, I did end the story with a lot of open questions that I want answered. On to crown of midnight!