Book Review: Throne of Glass

Today I'm going to be reviewing a book that has been showing up in lots of places. Based on the original description, it looked like a book that would be right up my alley. I got a copy and dove right in. 


Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Publication Date: August 7, 2012
Genre: YA Fantasy
Purchase: Amazon

In Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, you follow Celaena Sardothien. A year  into serving her life sentence of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier, eighteen year old Celaena is paid a visit by Prince Dorian. Prince Dorian offers her a chance at freedom. All she has to do is agree to be his champion in a contest to find the new royal assassin, win, and sign a contract to be the royal assassin for four years. At the end of the four years, her record will be scrubbed clean and she will have her freedom. She agrees and is the only woman in the competition among thieves, assassins, and warriors, each sponsored by a different member of the King's council.

After arriving at court, an undernourished Celaena is trained by the captain of the guard, Chaol Westfall. She finds the training to be very exciting as she works her way back into shape for the contest. However, outside of training, things are a little boring as her life at court is very limiting. Things start to pick up as the Prince starts to show more interest in her. As well as after one of the contestants is found dead, followed by another. Who is killing off the contestants? Can Celaena figure it out before she becomes the next victim?

Like I previously stated, based on the description, this looked like a book I would love. However, it ended up taking me a few tries to really get into it. I read a little bit here and there until I got up to about Chapter 8, then I really got into the story. I read from Chapter 8 until Chapter 30 in one sitting. At that point I realized it was one in the morning and time to go to bed. I got up the next morning and finished the rest of the book.

I really like the story idea that the author came up with. I liked the world where it took place, although I did have some trouble picturing exactly what the glass castle looked liked. I liked the main character, Celaena even though she was apparently good at everything and liked to rub it in your face. I think part of that was just trying to survive and work extra hard to prove herself against men who think less of women. I like Prince Dorian, who was a nice guy trying to work around a bad father/King. He ends up being Celaena's main love interest in the story. I liked Captain Westfall, who also seemed like a good guy. There is suppose to be some sort of standard YA love triangle between the three. Although, it didn't really seem like there was much of Westfall as the book blurb would have you to believe. He felt more like a big brother to me in the story. The story has some interesting twist and turns along the way too. 

What I didn't care for was how the story was written. It's written in the third person, which normally isn't a problem for me, but with this story it just read weird. I had trouble figuring out exactly who I was following at times. The author had little dots and breaks when we were switching, but even with that it was hard. I found myself having to re-read parts to figure out who exactly I was following. To confuse things even more it seemed like we sometimes switched who we were following within the sections. Some of the characters personal thoughts even read strange. When I got to the end of the story I found out the author wrote her original first draft when she was sixteen. I think that might be the culprit. I finally figured out what was bothering me. The writing reminded me of high school writing, when you still don't know that there are other, possibly better ways to tell the story. Clearly the editor did not help the author as well as they could have.

Now, that not to say, that I won't be reading further into the story. I fully plan on checking out the next book in the series when it comes out later this year. I just hope that the writing/editing skills will have evolved some since the first book. If not, then I will not be picking up the third book in the series, no matter how interesting the story idea is. 

I'm looking forward to Crown of Midnight and seeing where the story takes Celaena. While the mystery of who is killing off contestants is solved by the end of the first book, there are still mysteries to be solved about Celaena herself and what her true purpose is. Overall, I think this is a good start to what could be a very interesting series.

If you like this book, you might like, The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson or Green Rider by Kristen Britain, both of which are 4 star reads in my book.
My Rating: