Published by Bloomsbury on February 8, 2012
Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Retelling
Pages 432
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?
"What if Cinderella was not a servant, but an assassin? And what if she didn't attend the ball to meet the prince, but to kill him, instead?"
With that statement alone I was very interested in this series. As a debut novel from a fantasy author it is not bad, in fact I enjoyed it, but it was a step down from her second series A Court of Thorns and Roses (as is expected when an author gets a feel for things and changes personally and in a working mindset). The biggest difference between the the first installations of each series is the world-building. The world for this novel is established but not fleshed out quite as much as I would have liked and you can immediately tell the focus of the book is the characters. This is not a bad thing whatsoever, however a critical part of a fantasy novel, for me, is the setting and it felt slightly overlooked and lacking in the detail it could have had.
The idea of a young female assassin was a bit far fetched for me; my inner dialogue consisted of: how young is young? If this is YA then the protagonist would have to be a teen assassin and that is a really awesome but can that be executed? In the beginning I was hesitant but the idea was refreshing, I enjoyed the idea of a strong female lead that takes control and fights. However, the Cinderella aspect was very prominent from the start and I found myself questioning the character. Celaena can be very kickass, unexpectedly charming and the embodiment of what you would want in a female character but it was brought down by her sometimes spoiled, superficial and bratty disposition. She is a character that grows on you but, for me, I was never fully hooked. It does remind the reader that she is a young girl, but it detracts from the idea that she is deadly and capable of much more than any normal teen.
I enjoyed the action, in fact Maas is amazing at writing action scenes, but I found the amount of romance outweighed it at times and that caught me off guard, not that I don't enjoy some romance. Nevertheless, the romantic interactions between some characters seemed a bit forced at times and I became much more invested in the the platonic/friendship tones that were very well done and key for some of the characters development.
Honestly, Chaol and Nehemia are my favorite characters and I hope to see more of them in the future books; as for Celaena I am looking forward to more development as the series progresses. Dorian is another character that grows on you, but there is something about him that is slightly too perfect and I find that irksome if not completely untrustworthy and unsettling.
As for the plot, I found it to be very original but it did not capture my attention to where I stayed up all night to read. The novel had moments that were very intense and some that seemed a bit too slow. Seeing how this is the introduction to the series I did not worry too much but I hope things move a little quicker and stay at a decent pace in the second novel.
Overall, Throne of Glass is a 3 out of 5. While I liked this book and I will continue the series it does not capture my interest and keep me on the edge of my seat like A Court of Thorns and Roses or other fantasy novels I have read. This is a series I have to be in the mood to read.
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