Everyone I know that reads books raved about this one and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read it. One day, I found it at Half Price Books and started reading it. By the time I had to go home, I was pretty far into the book. So, I decided to buy it: Throne of Glass, the first book in the “Throne of Glass” series from author Sarah J. Mass.
When I first started reading Throne of Glass, I thought the main female character’s name, Celaena, was normal. It was different, sure, but it didn’t give me any associations to anything. Another character’s name was Dorian. His name, on the other hand, reminded me of Dorian from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and not only did the first name remind me of that, but his last name, too. It was like Maas took two main characters from Wilde’s novel and put their names together to create a character.
Other than the strange names, the plot was a little weird. So much was happening all at once. The main girl was trying to do these tests that were procured by the King with the other assassins, meanwhile some creature was killing the assassins one by one. There was a weird ghost lady that was the deceased queen or something. Then there was also a love triangle going on that started within the first two or three chapters. There was just so much in such a short book. Okay, in all fairness, the book wasn’t that short, but it did seem short due to all the content Maas was trying to throw in, all in just the first book.
Despite that, the character development was done well. At the beginning, the way Celaenawas portrayed, it didn’t seem like she had a heart, or even cared about anything other than getting her freedom. I pictured this cold, ruthless person but it turns out she’s only 18 years old with past struggles, kills and hardships. There were two other women who played big roles in the book, both of which you believe to be good at first, but then as the story progresses, you notice the micro expressions. In this case, the subtle hints Maas throws in about these characters get you second guessing yourself.
As always, there are plot twists. But in this book, they weren’t as big as I thought they were going to be. However, the author managed to keep me glued to the book, and at times, especially towards the end with the fight sequences, I didn’t want to put the book down.
Though I liked the book and definitely want to read the rest of the series, the book wasn’t written very well in the sense that the writing style could have been better. There were no real tough words, the reading level was low for someone like me who’s 19 and reads a heck of a lot. The reading wasn’t challenging and the way the chapters were broken up was a little bothersome to me. When there was something super important, the chapter would be maybe a maximum of four pages, but when it wasn’t that important, it would tend to be longer. There were scenes in the book that could have been really drawn out, but instead Maas shortens them up quickly, not letting the readers really absorb it. By the time the reader processes what had happened, a new scene would emerge and you’d be like “Wait, how did that go from this to that in like two minutes”.
Would I read this book again? Probably not. But I definitely do want to finish the series just to see why everyone was raving about this book. I would give this book a 5.5 out of 10 stars simply due to its flaws.