What do you do when the only way out of ‘hell’ is to work for the very person who put you there in the first place?
The person who murdered your parents and concurred and enslaved your kingdom.
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas is a young adult fantasy about Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan’s best assassin, and her fight to become the King’s champion and free herself from prison.
She must win a competition against many others of similar dark professions. Including fellow assassins, thieves, murders, and military generals. To prove to the King she is the best choice for Champion.
During which Celaena will make both close friends and deadly enemies and come to uncover a dark and mysterious plot that threatens her only chance at freedom.
If you like medieval fantasy, magic, royal hierarchy, fae, witches, and demons I’d say it’s definitely a book to check out. Just be prepared to stretch your suspension of disbelief quite far.
Though the book is very well written with good, flowing sentence structure and a distinct author voice that never once took me out of the story. The characters and their relationships, however, though not completely flat, could have used a little more depth and development.
As well as a lot more thought into who they are and their abilities in regards to certain situations within the book. An example of this being Celaena’s claim as the best assassin and yet both Dorian and Chaol are able to catch her by surprise.
Unfortunately, I found much of this book’s plot and subplots to be rather pointless and unbelievable. As well as just plain lacking in any real sense.
The epitome of which is the fact the King is not only having criminals stay in his castle and compete for a position he could just assign. But also training them to be better killers/thieves. All the while, at least in Celaena’s case anyway, being given rooms and clothes and free rein of the castle. (Note: This fact makes more sense as you're given more info later in the series.)
The romantic subplot felt completely forced and seemed, at least for me, entirely pointless.
And the supposedly deep friendships between Chaol and Dorian and Celaena and Nehemia were always talked about and never actually shown. This can kind of be excused for Chaol and Dorian as they grew up together and don't have to have that development, but it's still never really show well.
All in all, the book is a fun read with interesting characters that could have been even better with more thought and development put into it.