Book Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Date Started: July 15th 2013
Date Completed: July 17th 2013
Genres: Mystery, Action, Adventure, Romance, Fantasy, Thriller
Rating: Five stars
Review:
Oh the epicness of Sarah J. Maas. I was worried, after reading the prequel novellas, that the hype I had created in my own mind was be just too hard to achieve, but, once again, I was staggered by the awesomeness that is the Throne of Glass novels.
Throne of Glass is set in the fantasy world of Erilea, and begins in the death camp of The Salt Mines of Endovier. Celaena Sardothien has been imprisoned for a year after getting caught on one of her missions as Adarlan's Assassin. But when the Crown Prince turns up offering her freedom after four years in service to his father, Celaena finds it hard to turn him down - even the challenge of competing for the position doesn't put her off. Until she arrives in Rifthold, and realises that it is not only the training sessions, heart-melting allies and violent kingdom battles raging for the power of the Glass Throne.
Sarah J. Maas is one of the best Young Adult writers out there, not just for her stories, but also her writing. It flows perfectly and everything connects to each other:
The description is lovely, but not too overpowering.
Emotions are really well presented, so that we can tell what the characters are thinking and sympathise - even empathise - with them without the author having to tell us exactly what's going through their minds.
The action is flawless; I can picture everything that's happening and I'm amazed by it without even having to see it in real life. It's so detailed, yet really easy to understand.
Maas really knows how to think like an assassin too (which may or may not be worrying) so that her characters are incredibly real to me and I feel like I really grew attached to them whilst reading the novel.
Oh my god, the story. I never thought a plot could have so many twists and turns and different genres and everything else.
The start of the story seems pretty simple: the protagonist has to complete a quest-type challenge in order to win her freedom and get the love interest. But then you start to see the opposing sides of the boys that surround her. And then there's the subplot of the courting lady wanting to marry the prince, who's caught up in someone else. And then there's the story about trying to get rid of Celaena so she can have the prince. And then Maas blows everything out of the water by adding the magical inclusion of a ghost queen and her quest for Celaena to save the world from a terrible darkness.
There's so much mystery in it too: what's going on with the murdered Champions? What happened in Celaena's past? Who can we trust? Do these characters really like each other? Is Celaena going to win? Is the bad guy going to turn out to be good or is he going to kill someone? My mind would not shut up with these questions throughout the whole thing. They're not even stopping now.
Thank god for writers who can include romance a lot and still not let it interfere with the main plot too much. There's just the right amount to make it one of the main themes, but still different enough to let other genres have their own spotlight too.
Mystery. Action. Thriller. Romance. Fantasy. There's everything, written wonderfully, with the most intriguing characters. What more could you possibly want?
Some of the best characters ever - and although at first glance it may be your typical set-up of a story, each person has their own individual twist that sets them out from the others and their origins.
Celaena Sardothien is my favourite female protagonist of all time. She's sarky, arrogant and frankly rude - and not in the nice, joking way. Looking over it, she's actually not a very nice person at all. Yet that's exactly what her characters need to be. And it just goes to show that even though some people may seem horrible and tough on the outside, the inside holds a lot more secrets than you might think. Plus, she's a very interesting person: amazingly talented, but with a shadowed background. And we STILL know hardly anything about her and her past. That's the exciting bit.
I've never been really drawn in by love triangles before - but this isn't really the typical fighting over a girl that I'm frankly just bored of. This is proper not wanting to hurt other people's feelings, but not being able to stop that selfish desire that you just can't help:
I love Dorian. He's a very good prince. The right sort of character that you'd expect: elevated language, pride, but also a softer side that does feel a lot. The thing I liked was that he wasn't made out to be one thing and then shown as another. He was always mentioned as quite a mellow person. He also worked well with Celeana since they were able to bounce off what each other was saying in such a way that it was really engaging for the reader to experience - which I think is sometimes lost. I thought it was going to be really hard for me to like any other male characters after falling in love with Sam from Maas' novellas, but actually I still love these male interests (but Sam will always be mine and he will never be replaced - never).
But I also really love Chaol. His and Dorian's relationship was a great idea - because it made their emotions real and different to what you'd usually see in a love triangle. The other thing I really like about Chaol was that we were told he wanted to hide his feelings, and he did that for the entire book (e.g. we weren't told he was one way, and then he acted another - which always pisses me off in novels). This also worked very well since it allowed most of the drama to be focused around Celaena's quest etc, rather than the 'Twilight' affect of the plot being lost within a frankly monotonous cycle of stereotypical romances.
Nehemia grew on me. At first I really didn't like her and, honestly, found her very annoying and irrelevant to the story. But actually, I started liking her character by the end and I understand her role was actually vitally important to the plot. I take my first judgements back.
Kaltain was the typical 'popular' girl that just makes trouble because of her jealously. Usually I would object to an appearance of such a character in this type of story, since it generally isn't need. But I admit that her part was quite important to the story, and also she wasn't completely and utterly unbearable, although I do understand why everyone hates her.
If I ever get another dog I'm calling it Fleetfoot.
The mentions of Sam killed me. Literally broke my heart and threw it into the wind.
We're thrown right into the story from the start, and it never stops. There's plenty of tension from the very first sentence, and the audience is left puzzling over what's happened, and what's going to happen.
Even throughout the journey and when they reach Rifthold, there's tension everywhere, and drama is around every corner. But the best thing is it doesn't get boring - and nothing is light and, frankly, stupid. Everything has a point and refined quality that makes it believable and truly adds to the story.
It's clear what parts are the climaxes, and they're definitely different from the other parts, whilst still letting everything have it's own worth and effect. I honestly felt my heart leap into my throat for the first time in a long time in the final climax of the book - which is very impressive since action/fight scenes rarely get that sort of reaction from me.
Admittedly, the last few chapters slowed the whole thing down, but that's only to be expected. I would have liked a little more of a cliffhanger, although there's still plenty for me to worry about for what's going to happen in the sequel.
The one downside I have about the entire book - and literally the only reason this is not now my favourite book - if that generally the basic story was fairly old. However the countless new twists on it made it amazing still.
Sarah J. Maas has said in plenty of interviews how Throne of Glass is inspired from Cinderella. 'I ended up thinking that the music [of Cinderella] would be better suited to the plot if Cinerella had done something truly bad [...] what id she tried to kill the Prince?'
You can definitely see elements of Cinderella in Maas' story - particularly in the masked ball scenes.
Yet what's so different about this 'alternative' fairytale is that the story is completely new and original and unique. I feel that a lot of authors try to retell classic stories because they don't have to put much effort into the stories, since they're only there, so they can focus more on background etc. But Maas has really taken time to look at all aspects of her world and make sure everything fits and works and is both beautiful and magical, yet believable and realistic - which is something that will always impress me about authors that bother to do this.
I would recommend this book to everyone, since it is definitely one of my favourite books of all time. It has action, romance, mystery, thrills, fantasy - literally everything. The writing is fabulous, and the story is unique and always engaging and interesting.
You can read the novellas first if you like - I did - but it might make you suffer emotionally at certain parts of the book.
I need the next one. Now.
Image Source: http://www.sassisamblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Throne_of_Glass.jpg
Oh the epicness of Sarah J. Maas. I was worried, after reading the prequel novellas, that the hype I had created in my own mind was be just too hard to achieve, but, once again, I was staggered by the awesomeness that is the Throne of Glass novels.
Throne of Glass is set in the fantasy world of Erilea, and begins in the death camp of The Salt Mines of Endovier. Celaena Sardothien has been imprisoned for a year after getting caught on one of her missions as Adarlan's Assassin. But when the Crown Prince turns up offering her freedom after four years in service to his father, Celaena finds it hard to turn him down - even the challenge of competing for the position doesn't put her off. Until she arrives in Rifthold, and realises that it is not only the training sessions, heart-melting allies and violent kingdom battles raging for the power of the Glass Throne.
Sarah J. Maas is one of the best Young Adult writers out there, not just for her stories, but also her writing. It flows perfectly and everything connects to each other:
The description is lovely, but not too overpowering.
Emotions are really well presented, so that we can tell what the characters are thinking and sympathise - even empathise - with them without the author having to tell us exactly what's going through their minds.
The action is flawless; I can picture everything that's happening and I'm amazed by it without even having to see it in real life. It's so detailed, yet really easy to understand.
Maas really knows how to think like an assassin too (which may or may not be worrying) so that her characters are incredibly real to me and I feel like I really grew attached to them whilst reading the novel.
Oh my god, the story. I never thought a plot could have so many twists and turns and different genres and everything else.
The start of the story seems pretty simple: the protagonist has to complete a quest-type challenge in order to win her freedom and get the love interest. But then you start to see the opposing sides of the boys that surround her. And then there's the subplot of the courting lady wanting to marry the prince, who's caught up in someone else. And then there's the story about trying to get rid of Celaena so she can have the prince. And then Maas blows everything out of the water by adding the magical inclusion of a ghost queen and her quest for Celaena to save the world from a terrible darkness.
There's so much mystery in it too: what's going on with the murdered Champions? What happened in Celaena's past? Who can we trust? Do these characters really like each other? Is Celaena going to win? Is the bad guy going to turn out to be good or is he going to kill someone? My mind would not shut up with these questions throughout the whole thing. They're not even stopping now.
Thank god for writers who can include romance a lot and still not let it interfere with the main plot too much. There's just the right amount to make it one of the main themes, but still different enough to let other genres have their own spotlight too.
Mystery. Action. Thriller. Romance. Fantasy. There's everything, written wonderfully, with the most intriguing characters. What more could you possibly want?
Some of the best characters ever - and although at first glance it may be your typical set-up of a story, each person has their own individual twist that sets them out from the others and their origins.
Celaena Sardothien is my favourite female protagonist of all time. She's sarky, arrogant and frankly rude - and not in the nice, joking way. Looking over it, she's actually not a very nice person at all. Yet that's exactly what her characters need to be. And it just goes to show that even though some people may seem horrible and tough on the outside, the inside holds a lot more secrets than you might think. Plus, she's a very interesting person: amazingly talented, but with a shadowed background. And we STILL know hardly anything about her and her past. That's the exciting bit.
I've never been really drawn in by love triangles before - but this isn't really the typical fighting over a girl that I'm frankly just bored of. This is proper not wanting to hurt other people's feelings, but not being able to stop that selfish desire that you just can't help:
I love Dorian. He's a very good prince. The right sort of character that you'd expect: elevated language, pride, but also a softer side that does feel a lot. The thing I liked was that he wasn't made out to be one thing and then shown as another. He was always mentioned as quite a mellow person. He also worked well with Celeana since they were able to bounce off what each other was saying in such a way that it was really engaging for the reader to experience - which I think is sometimes lost. I thought it was going to be really hard for me to like any other male characters after falling in love with Sam from Maas' novellas, but actually I still love these male interests (but Sam will always be mine and he will never be replaced - never).
But I also really love Chaol. His and Dorian's relationship was a great idea - because it made their emotions real and different to what you'd usually see in a love triangle. The other thing I really like about Chaol was that we were told he wanted to hide his feelings, and he did that for the entire book (e.g. we weren't told he was one way, and then he acted another - which always pisses me off in novels). This also worked very well since it allowed most of the drama to be focused around Celaena's quest etc, rather than the 'Twilight' affect of the plot being lost within a frankly monotonous cycle of stereotypical romances.
Nehemia grew on me. At first I really didn't like her and, honestly, found her very annoying and irrelevant to the story. But actually, I started liking her character by the end and I understand her role was actually vitally important to the plot. I take my first judgements back.
Kaltain was the typical 'popular' girl that just makes trouble because of her jealously. Usually I would object to an appearance of such a character in this type of story, since it generally isn't need. But I admit that her part was quite important to the story, and also she wasn't completely and utterly unbearable, although I do understand why everyone hates her.
If I ever get another dog I'm calling it Fleetfoot.
The mentions of Sam killed me. Literally broke my heart and threw it into the wind.
We're thrown right into the story from the start, and it never stops. There's plenty of tension from the very first sentence, and the audience is left puzzling over what's happened, and what's going to happen.
Even throughout the journey and when they reach Rifthold, there's tension everywhere, and drama is around every corner. But the best thing is it doesn't get boring - and nothing is light and, frankly, stupid. Everything has a point and refined quality that makes it believable and truly adds to the story.
It's clear what parts are the climaxes, and they're definitely different from the other parts, whilst still letting everything have it's own worth and effect. I honestly felt my heart leap into my throat for the first time in a long time in the final climax of the book - which is very impressive since action/fight scenes rarely get that sort of reaction from me.
Admittedly, the last few chapters slowed the whole thing down, but that's only to be expected. I would have liked a little more of a cliffhanger, although there's still plenty for me to worry about for what's going to happen in the sequel.
The one downside I have about the entire book - and literally the only reason this is not now my favourite book - if that generally the basic story was fairly old. However the countless new twists on it made it amazing still.
Sarah J. Maas has said in plenty of interviews how Throne of Glass is inspired from Cinderella. 'I ended up thinking that the music [of Cinderella] would be better suited to the plot if Cinerella had done something truly bad [...] what id she tried to kill the Prince?'
You can definitely see elements of Cinderella in Maas' story - particularly in the masked ball scenes.
Yet what's so different about this 'alternative' fairytale is that the story is completely new and original and unique. I feel that a lot of authors try to retell classic stories because they don't have to put much effort into the stories, since they're only there, so they can focus more on background etc. But Maas has really taken time to look at all aspects of her world and make sure everything fits and works and is both beautiful and magical, yet believable and realistic - which is something that will always impress me about authors that bother to do this.
I would recommend this book to everyone, since it is definitely one of my favourite books of all time. It has action, romance, mystery, thrills, fantasy - literally everything. The writing is fabulous, and the story is unique and always engaging and interesting.
You can read the novellas first if you like - I did - but it might make you suffer emotionally at certain parts of the book.
I need the next one. Now.
Image Source: http://www.sassisamblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Throne_of_Glass.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment