Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Published: August 2nd, 2012 (Bloomsbury)
Pages: 404
Source: bought
Series: Throne of Glass, #1
Buy the book: Bookdepository
Rating: ★★★☆☆


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?

Let me start off by saying that this is a terribly hard review to write. Throne of Glass was hyped so much that I felt I should share in the awesomeness in this book and I ordered both the first and the second book, Crown of Midnight (which happened to be very cheap, and ya'll know I can't resist a good deal). And after reading Throne of Glass, I'm starting to wonder if that was a good decision for me. Bear with me while I share my thoughts. Also, please don't kill me for not loving it lol.

First up, the good: the writing was good and really managed to suck me in. The story flows and seems to progress fluently throughout the pages. The characters are well developed, each with their own personality and quirks. Even the minor characters were executed really well, which I really appreciated. The banter between the characters was awesome and yes, there is a lot of chemistry. I can't even count the amount of times where the characters in a book had no chemistry whatsoever yet they somehow had to stick together, or get together. But here, there was no such thing. I would go as far as to say that the characters and their way of interacting is the best thing about this book.

My main problem with Throne of Glass was that ever since the introduction of the tournament, I couldn't stop comparing the book to The Hunger Games. Sure, there were plenty of differences. But somehow it wormed its way into my head and I was unable to shake it. There she is, our fierce female main character, awesome with a bow, with two guys pretty much fighting over her while she is stuck in a tournament in which she is expected to fight to the death in order to win the thing. Can you really blame me for drawing that parallel?

I think that was the main reason I didn't love Throne of Glass. There is plenty of potential and I can honestly say that I understand why it's getting rave reviews everywhere. Perhaps it's more of a "It's not you, it's me"-thing. I don't know. I do know that since finishing it, I'm unsure if I want to start Crown of Midnight. Pretty much everyone I tell this, tell me that book 2 is "even better" than book 1. But I'm torn. Because I was also promised to love the first book, and I found it to be just okay. But hey, I already own it, so maybe when I'm feeling adventurous, I'll pull if off its shelf, dust it off, and give it a shot anyway.