Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Throne of Glass is my first Sarah J. Maas novel, and I don’t understand the hype. Warning: extremely sarcastic book review coming up!
Celaena Sardothien is the world’s most famous assassin. However, she has been captured and is doing hard labor in a mine. Today is her lucky day though. The kind and absolutely dashing Prince Dorian arrives to save the day! Celaena can enter a competition to be the King’s Champion. If she wins the competition, she then has to serve four years of service under the king, and then she is free! Yippie!
The concepts in Throne of Glass sound right up my alley. Female characters? Yes. However, my gosh, this is probably the most unlikeable character that I have ever endured. I was hoping that someone would finish her off.
Celaena is one of the least humble characters ever written. She is the female version of Gaston from Beauty and The Beast but worse. So much of Throne of Glass is about, “Oh, I could take this guy down with one bat of an eye.” Give me a break. When she finally arrives for the competition, she does not seem to do any training other than what is forced on her by Prince Dorian or Chaol. If you want to be the best at something, you usually have a routine. Each day, you know exactly what to do to train and prepare.
Celaena likes to sleep in and dream of kissing. I really wish that I was still producing Booktube videos because this book would make a great spoof video. I will just have to do my best to state the overexaggerated nature of Celaena.
If Celaena was a book influencer, she started reading when she was three-months old. She has read a book in every state and country. She has read every book on every checklist, and she has a photographic memory. When she gets ready for a book quiz, she doesn’t even open the book to refresh her memory. And she giggles and dreams of boys kissing her. Tee-hee!
Throne of Glass is so boring. The King’s Champion has various stages to the competition. Because of the writing style, the suspense did not build. There is a stage of the competition, and it is described in a paragraph or one page. And people die in this book. However, our “world-famous” assassin Celaena does very little about it. Sucks to be them I guess. She is too busy thinking about kisses. The characters aren’t developed enough so when they die off, no one cares.
Throne of Glass completely lacks the strong female characters that I love. This is a love-sick assassin who doesn’t really show her full capabilities. It is really hard to take her seriously when she spends more time pouting about festivals and dreaming of kisses than preparing to win the championship.
Also, anyone who has less than perfect skin is “bad” in this book. I have a real problem with this. Beauty is only skin deep, and I would rather have a partnership with someone with bad skin and has a bit of sense than someone who is “gorgeous” and can’t hold up their end of a conversation. But personal preference.
Overall, the concept of a strong female assassin in a slightly fantasy setting sounds appealing; however, Sarah J. Maas did not execute it properly in Throne of Glass. If you really want a strong female character in a fantasy setting, I highly suggest The Golden Compass or Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Lyra beats Celaena every single day of the week.
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