Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas Series: Throne of Glass #1
Published by A&C Black ISBN: 9781408832349
on August 2, 2012
Genres: Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Epic, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 432
Read it as: eBook
Source: Purchased
My rating:
Check it out in Goodreads
Synopsis
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?
This was actually a reread. I read this book back in 2012. I did finish it then. But I never read the rest of the books. To be honest, I lost all interest in whatever would happen next and completely disconnected from the story. Over the years the series has become crazy popular and I told myself maybe one day I’d give it a shot again.
I think I became serious about giving the series an opportunity when Ashley, from Nosegraze commented somewhere that Throne of Glass was better the second time around, and that this time her interest was piqued. That was about a year or two ago. So yes, I’ve procrastinating on these books. Come on, why are there so many?!
Through controversy, and problems and so much craziness, it has finally ended. And I decided I’d read the whole thing. If I can handle it.
Turns out, I wasn’t able to handle the first one. I swear I went in with an open mind.
[alert type=”info” close=”false”]Full disclosure: At the moment of writing this review, I have already finished reading the second one. I know what comes next and that has helped me understand what my problem with this one was.[/alert]
The competition to become the King’s Champion is utterly pointless
This. This was why I just couldn’t finish this book a second time around. I knew this series later expands to so much more. I know there will be epic battles and a larger than life conflict. So when I began this book, all this about Celaena competing against some riffraff felt so utterly pointless. I knew this was a first step that would put things into motion, but in the big picture, it’s so much filler.
The are only hints of the real plot, and it doesn’t really start until later in the book. I didn’t get there. Maybe I was just too impatient. But I knew all the court antics and the onter competitors would be of no consequence later, so why bother?
So, if this book was basically about who becomes the King’s Champion, then it’s safe to say this book is a filler, which is an odd thing to say about the first book in a series. I genuinely think Book 1 and Book 2 could have been merged into a more efficient first book, even if it was a little longer.
The characters don’t manage to make me the least bit interested in what happens to them
You might be wondering if that’s the case then why on earth would I read the next one. I’d been putting my faith on the fandom’s love for this material. I was willing to say ‘okay, I tried this one because I don’t really remember everything, but if the second one doesn’t get any better, it’s goodbye’.
Anyway, Celaena, Chaol, Dorian, neither of them really struck me as characters who had any sort of compelling arc. Sure, Dorian and Chaol had the beginnings of ‘good boys realize their loyalties are misplaced and rebel against authority figure’ trope, and Celaena is clearly going to be the all-powerful heroine. It’s something. But not enough to make me care for them, for their well-being and relationships with other characters and each other. I was getting worried.
[divider]
I ended up finding an online recap of the first book so I could move on to the next one. Thank you, next.
I actually already bought the second book, but I just never felt any interest in reading it that I never continued. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I will ever continue/finish this series either. I’m just not interested in the direction the series is going :/
Tasya @ The Literary Huntress recently posted this awesome thing…Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia // Mayan mythology sets in the roaring 20s
Lol, totally understandable. I felt like that for the longest time. It felt like the right time now, so I’m just taking it easy and binge reading it to see where it goes
I have always had such mixed feelings about this series. On one hand, I find it fun to read and very entertaining. But on the other hand, it is so frustrating and I agree that the first book’s plot is basically pointless filler. I mean, if you compare the latter half of the series to the first few books, it is like night and day. I am not a fan of the main cast of characters in the first few books, but a lot of major characters that are introduced later I really like. I sometimes wonder why this series is so insanely popular.
Erin Tweed recently posted this awesome thing…5 Books I Hate
Hahaha! Right? I did some speed reading with the second one, actually, and now that I’m reading the third one, I mostly just skim Chaol’s POV chapters. Manon is starting to grow on me though!