BOOK REVIEW – Throne of Glass

Throne of Glass by: Sarah J. Maas- #1 in the Throne of Glass series!

AGE GROUP: 14 and up// GENRE: Fantasy fiction// AMOUNT OF PAGES: 404// RATING: 3.75/5

YA BOOK

summary

Celaena Sardothien is an 18-year-old assassin who was famous in the kingdom of Adarlan. She was imprisoned by the king for a year but after being approached by the son of the King she was granted an opportunity that could change her life and give her the one thing she wanted most: freedom. The king’s son offered her a spot to compete with other assassins and theives to become the king’s champion, by which she would gain freedom after four years of serving him.

review

Throne of Glass is a highly adored book by many and I have nothing against it, but I do have a few objections.

I know I’m late to the party of Sarah J. Maas’s very much praised Throne of Glass series but it’s fine… Anyway, I usually read books like five years later after everyone has already read them (it’s quite sad, really).

PLOT

The plot of this book was literally everything! I loved it so much because everything made sense and it was really well crafted. I could tell that Maas really took time to place little clues in the book to hint at certain aspects of the plot. I felt like the plot was really well thought out and it had the right amount of action and mystery type thing. However, I kind of felt like I could predict some things and since this review includes no spoilers I won’t give any examples but if you read a lot of fantasy books like me then I think you too would get what I’m talking about. I know that this plot is original and all but at the same time it’s not something hugely special. Maas wrote an incredibly creative book with a very clever plot and I know that, but there is still something to it that I can’t seem to put my finger on which makes aspects to the plot a little predictable and I absolutely hate it when I’m able to predict something in a book. It wasn’t the case where I was like: ‘Oh this is going to happen, then this person is going to die…’, no, it was more a scenario that looked a little like this: ‘That person is definitely not trustworthy; I think they have something to do with it…’. Of course most of the time my predictions were wrong but I guessed at least a couple of times right and most of my guesses were on the right track anyway.

Toward the end of the book the plot started to lose my interest and I don’t know exactly why. I loved the beginning and middle and then around page 300 the plot didn’t excite me a whole lot anymore. Some things about it felt hurried and others were just too slow. You could describe the whole purpose of the book in a few sentences proving it’s not very complicated and it just got boring for me after a while. The suspense really wasn’t working for me because with only a hundred pages left there was no suspense (in my opinion). It was a well articulated plot but I would’ve enjoyed it more if it were more complex and engaging.

CHARACTERS

I really loved the main character from the start because she was just so cool! However, as for the other characters, I didn’t feel attached to any of them. The main men did not struck me as anything I haven’t read about before. They didn’t feel very original for Sarah J. Maas. At parts and with certain things said I loved the guys, but then they’d say something or do something and it would just annoy me. It wasn’t only how they acted but more of their personalities that bothered me because they didn’t exist. Maas didn’t dig deep into their personalities in this book so I hope in the second book I get to know them better. Aside from their personalities there was the whole romance aspect that played quite a part toward the end of the book. The main character had just met the men and after around only 300 pages she was ‘wanting to know what his lips felt like’ and it irritated me! The romance felt rushed and I could tell it wasn’t going to last because one minute the two character’s were teasing each other and the next they were locking lips. It was unneeded and hurried. Nonetheless, I’m reading the second book right now and I’ve come to actually quite like Chaol (one of the men) so I think my opinions on some of the characters will start to change. The last character I’m going to mention is the female friend of the main character. I have no clue why but she drives me crazy! I usually like the female friends in my books but she just annoys me. I know my opinion of these characters and book in general is a minority because so many people LOVE this book and I do love it, but I’m still trying to fully warm up to this series. For now, I like the A Court of Thorns and Roses series better but maybe that’ll change once I’m farther into this series.

OVERALL

One last thing that I wanted to add was: the use of exclamation marks at the beginning of this book was so excessive, it was crazy and it really bothered me. I know I gave Throne of Glass a really odd rating because I knew this book was more than a 3.5 but only a little bit less than a 4. I said a lot of things I didn’t like but trust me, as soon as I started reading Throne of Glass I was hooked and couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next. Maas had the right amount of descriptions and the right amount of dialogue that it kept me absorbed. I enjoyed this book a lot and I can’t wait to continue on with the series!

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