ARC Review: Sarah J. Maas - Throne of Glass

Sarah. J. Maas - Throne of Glass

• Pub Date: August 7, 2012
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
• Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
• Age Range: Young Adult
• Source: ALA ARC

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 kings 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.

Fantasy is NOT my comfort zone. Between Shadow and Bone and this one, I think I've had my fill for a while. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy these. I did. But it's a bit much for my brain to handle, and I immediately had to take in some comtemp YA to make my brain feel better. There is just something about books with fake places and made up words I have to learn that really turns me off. And crazy creatures that aren't your conventional vampire or werewolf. We just don't get along. Oh well.

As for this book, I'd heard some good things. Stef loves this author and her previous works, so I went into it with a bit of high hopes. Not too high, because, like I said, fantasy just isn't my thing. With that being said, I enjoyed this one. It's predictable in the sense that you know who's going to win the Champion competition from the beginning, but you don't know about the journey to get there. It's a little like the Hunger Games in that way, too. Not quite, but that's what I'd liken it to. There's a bit of a triangle going on, but that bugged me because stupid Celaena couldn't recognize it even though she knew how she was feeling and how the others were feeling (for the most part). Ugh. Overall, though, I did get into the story. I did root for Celaena. She's snarky, witty, brave, and tough. Gotta love those qualities!

I didn't really like it when the author would refer to a character in a descriptive way, without using a name, and then later on that person would have a name without the character description. Maybe I was reading too fast, but I thought this happened a couple times. I also don't think this story needed all of its details. There was a lot going on! Princess Nehemia, who we never knew if we could trust or not, was visiting to learn the ways of Adarlan or whatever. Kaltain was on drugs, cooking up some scheme to get the Crown Prince to be with her, using Perrington to get there. And some of the fantasy elements didn't really need to be there. Plus, what was the point of making up a name for her when no one knew Adarlan's Assassin's real identity? Gah, anyway. I hope everyone else enjoys this. Fantasy readers, let me know what you think!

Bottom line: Great for even non-fantasy readers!!

Rating:

3.5 / 5 book sharks