Mini-review: ‘Throne of Glass’ by Sarah J. Maas

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?

I’m coming to this series pretty late — I bought it a while ago because the cover was just that awesome, but it took a while to filter to the top of my tbr (and I actually ended up listening to it on audiobook, so the paperback never even got opened — oops).

I found the story engrossing enough, though the main character is nowhere near as tough as I thought she’d be, given that whole “best assassin in the land” thing. She talks the talk, but we rarely see her walk the walk. I mean, she has all of the thief skills associated with your typical assassin, and is good with poisons, but she isn’t cut-throat by any stretch of the imagination. I struggle to imagine her actually killing someone for money.

She also likes pretty dresses and parties. I actually like this about her, because I don’t think a character has to be unfeminine to be tough. But I can see that she gets a lot of hate from that, and it definitely distracts her at times when she should be focused on the competition.

I liked how bad the bad guys were, and the way that the fantastical elements were woven through. (There’s also a love triangle, which I didn’t mind — though I never really had a preference between the blokes in question — but others might find trope-y.) I’ll definitely download the sequel when I get my next Audible credit. But if you’re looking for a more-gritty story about an assassin, then I’d recommend Nevernight by Jay Kristoff over Throne of Glass.