Throne of Glass: A Review

Oh dear… this is going to be fun.

Throne of Glass is the first book in the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. A series that is surprisingly quite popular, actually.

We first begin with Celaena (our protagonist) being taken away from her prison and brought to the castle. We find out she is an extremely deadly assassin. One would not think that, though, as she is–still–a beautiful young woman of only seventeen.

This story is simply cliches upon cliches, buried under even more cliches. Celaena has no flaws besides being annoying. She’s amazing at whatever she does, even somehow overcoming her fear of heights by chapter seven. Of course, no explanation is given, even after she literally jumps off of a building to save someone.

On that note, yes, she saves people. People who are her competition! She rescues a puppy too. For the land’s most notorious killer, she kills absolutely nothing the entire book, except for maybe my interest.

There were a few positives in this story, those being in the form of two people called Nehemia and Nox. Both are unique and hilarious and I love them. I desperately wished they had been given more development.

Also, it was refreshing to see the stigma around periods being lifted, even if only slightly. Seeing how a young woman had to deal with her cycle on top of everything else was most definitely a positive.

But, the positives ended there. The main focus of the plot–or what we thought it was going to be–was overshadowed by a mysterious evil and Celaena’s plight of deciding which she likes more: Hot Guy Number One or Hot Guy Number Two.

At best, this story was somewhat amusing with a few OK characters. At worst, it was a horrible mash-up of cliches with a half-baked plot that barely came to fruition. I’ll be reading the second book, but only because this series desperately needs to be redeemed. Perhaps I’ll grow to enjoy the rest of the series, but I seriously doubt it. You can find my more rantish review here.

2/5 Stars