 |
| Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas |
Summary from Goodreads:
"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?"
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?"
Rating:
Throne of Glass introduces us to Celaena Sardothien, the deadliest assassin in all of Adarlan. At long last, she comes across the chance to taste freedom again. After spending a year in the salt mines of Endovier as her punishment for the crimes she has committed, she finds herself being offered a clean slate in exchange of becoming the young Prince Dorian’s champion in a fight-to-the-death tournament hosted by the King of Adarlan, and Captian Chaol Westfall is to help her train and prepare for it. Even though being a little out of shape from spending a huge amount of time slaving amongst the mines, she is determined to come out of the tournament victorious. But it seems the tournament isn’t the only thing Celaena needs to worry about...
Finally! A fantasy novel that satisfies me. I’m not afraid to admit that I am an absolute Fantasy-junkie (YA books of course but I am exploring the Adult’s section too), and recently, there aren’t many books [in this genre] that has left me satisfied as much as Throne of Glass did. Thank you, Ms. Maas!
Throne of Glass is the first of this series by Sarah J. Maas. Although, it has four (4) novellas published electronically, namely: The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, the Assassin and the Desert, the Assassin and the Underworld, and the Assassin and the Empire, respectively. These novellas give readers a little background on the life of Celaena Sardothien.
I think it helped me a lot to have read the novellas first before I read Throne of Glass. One, it helped me get to know Celaena better. She’s definitely not your everyday kind of heroine. In fact she’s more of the villain type: she’s spoiled, arrogant, and hot-tempered – not to mention flirtatious. Yet I find myself liking her. I don’t know if it’s because her personality is something new to me (not the typical meek and shy kind of heroine) so I welcome the change whole-heartedly, or it’s just that I know there’s more to Celaena that meets the eye; probably both or something deeper. Two, I got to see what she does as an assassin, which I don’t think was shown that much with Throne of Glass, which is totally understandable considering certain circumstances. And three, it got me ready for the kind of plot and writing style I’d be encountering once I read the actual novel. So, yeah, I think it was a good move for me.
In the novellas, there was Sam... *sob* I still shed tears every time I remember him, there’s no competition there... Well, there may have been a little bit (theoretically two guys) but that one was just a short time thing (I’m not saying who that was), nothing really actually happened, and also the other one hasn’t been dealt with yet (I’m not saying who and what that is either). But with Throne of Glass, Celaena has two “potential” love interests, emphasis on POTENTIAL since I don’t think I’ve seen the last of these two guys here. I have to say they are both dreamy to me. *giggle* I love Dorian because he brings out the quirky and sentimental side of Celaena, I love Chaol because he brings out a more valiant and wiser side of Celaena. I got to admit these two kind of gives balance to Celaena’s personality. I think I need more time to decide on who I’d root for here. But right now, for me, it’s a tie.
The plot of this book stayed true to the synopsis they provided (I’m saying this because some books tend to get off track sometimes), but also seems to open readers to an even deeper story that has yet to come. It’s a little less action-packed than I thought it would be but I didn’t mind (it’s the first of the series so that’s forgivable). As always, I’ve got a lot of questions to ask, but I’ll save them for later. I can’t wait to read the next book... and the one after that... and so on. Love it! Truly I do!
