Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas is a young adult fantasy novel about an 18-year old assassin named Celaena Sardothien who spent the last year in a hard labour camp in the salt mines in a place called Endovier. But she gets out because the prince wants to grant Celaena her freedom from Endovier, if she agrees to be his champion in a competition to determine who will be the King’s Royal Assassin. Everyone else in the king’s council also chose someone, like Celaena, to be there campion, main-thieves, assassins, and warriors from across the empire. If Celaena beats all of the other competitors in a series of challenges to test their skill. If she wins she then becomes the King’s Royal Assassin for 4 years and then she is free. But then one of the other competitors ends up brutally murdered right before the first challenge, and then another one turns up dead before the second challenge. Now Celaena is trying to figure out what’s going on while doing training for the competition, competing to earn her freedom and not end up dead herself.
I really enjoyed the book, right from the beginning I got pulled into the story with the badass, sarcastic, funny, main character who isn’t really your average hero that you read about. I absolutely loved the character Celaena, she’s strong, fierce, witty, a good fighter, skilled. I felt as though the book and the character was really great for representation of strong women in literature. I liked how Celaena was showing up all of the other men in the competition with her knowledge, strength, and fighting skills. I like how Sarah J. Maas wrote the story. She got right into the main idea of the book with great characters, very descriptive writing, written so you can actually see the story in your mind. I liked how Celaena wanted to free the other slaves in Endovier. It showed that she wasn’t just a ruthless assassin, but that she cares about others, especially the people in the mines because she knows what happens to people there. I like Dorian, the prince, he had faith in Celaena when no one else did and he trusted her. He isn’t anything like his father, he wants to help and do good in the world.
Some other things that I liked about the book was the friendship between Celaena and Nox, who is another competitor in the competition to become the King’s Royal Assassin. It allowed Celaena to have someone to confide with and train with when she wasn’t training with Chaol, the captain of the guards. I also liked the bond between Celaena and Nehamia because no one really understood either of them, no one connected with them as much as they did with each other. They were able to understand each other Celaena could communicate with Nehemia in her language, they could learn from each other. They bonded and connected with each other which I really liked. As well as liking Celaena and Nehemia’s bond, I really liked Nehemia as a character. I felt as though it was good representation of women, people of colour, and people of different religions and not having English as there first language. Another thing I liked about the book that may be an unpopular opinion but I actually kind of liked Kaltain. It wasn’t necessarily her choice to do the things she did and act the way she did.
Some of the things that I did not like about the book was the King, he is very arrogant, rude, doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and is only after power. I don’t like Cain, even before readers learn that he is working for the king. He is really full of himself and can’t really think for himself as well. I also had a lot of mixed feelings about Chaol, at some points in the book I liked him, and at other points I did not. He has good intentions sometimes and wants to help, but I have this feeling that he can be blinded by his orders sometimes, whether there right or wrong. I didn’t like the whole idea of killing off all of the competitors before each challenge. It seemed like it was just an attempt to make the story more grueling when they could have just eliminated them instead.
Overall, the book was very good, and usually I don’t read fantasy book, but I really like this one. However, Throne of Glass is just the first book in the series. There are 6 more books in the series, two of them are prequels to Throne of Glass. I would recommend this book to anyone, whether you like or don’t like fantasy novels I would still suggest giving it a try. Sarah J. Maas is a very good writer and is excellent at writing fantasy books and making up different worlds.