Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
I would describe this book as a perfect threesome of the Hunger Games competition conflict and female character, Game of Thrones world building, and Harry Potter's epic story nature. If I mention GoT, HP, and THG in one sentence describing your book, you're doing something so incredibly right I feel like giving you a trophy. And it's not even that this one book lives up on its own to these fantastic series, but I can feel in my book-loving guts that this is only just the start of an amazing epic fantasy evil king monster action adventure crazy party. And I want that. I want my queen of sass Celeana Sardothien to go do her sh!t in the evil empire and use fairy powers or something. (I obviously also could do with some more explanation about how this world works.)
Summary:
I can't do this without turning into an incomprehensible fangirl, so voilà the synopsis from Wikipedia:
Throne of Glass follows Celaena Sardothien, an 18-year-old assassin in the kingdom of Adarlan. Upon being imprisoned by the rulers, she accepts an offer to compete with other killers in a glass castle for a chance to serve the kingdom and be free after four years. This leads her to form unexpected bonds with Chaol, the captain of the guard, and Dorian, the crown prince of Adarlan. In time, Celaena is drawn into a conspiracy and a series of battles, leading to discoveries surrounding both the kingdom and herself.
Rating:
5 stars. I know this is only going to get better.
So sorry but I have to do a spoiler section, because of the world and the plot and the character development the completely rational fear that my ship won't be canon.
I was at first a bit hesitant to read this series, since there's so much hype surrounding it and I just didn't want to be THAT GIRL. Seriously though this series will be around for a while and then when the last two books were released and everyone was excited I would be the one sitting in the corner like,
And then when it get's turned into a movie franchise or TV show, I would still be the girl that's like,
(I'm saying 'when' and not 'if' because if entertainment companies have an eye for what attracts masses and is surrounded by hype, they will notice Throne of Glass.)
But luckily, that won't happen, because now I openly admit that I love it and ship it and will look up fan art as soon as I've caught up. Still, it was quite a rational fear, because looking at the Goodreads reviews, you either hate or love this book. Actually, it's more about whether you hate or love or can deal with Celeana.
Admittedly, she's the kind of person that I IRL wouldn't be able to spend 20 minutes with in the same room. She describes everyone focused mostly on how well they look. If this should appeal to young females, I am disgusted. The sass in her conversations is another thing: you can either like it or hate it. I honestly liked her most when she wasn't trying to be something, like when she's alone and walking under the castle or just thinking about something. And this might just make her a good and realistic character: she's a cool person when she's not paying so much attention to how she comes across.
I know we should talk about demons and deceased Fae queens and epic assassin contests first, but I can't help myself. Here's what I think about the ships.
I'm team Choal and there's no stopping me. Now no sarcastic hinty-hinty comments down below about what might or might not happen in the other books. I know this probably isn't a ship that's going to make it into Canon Haven. Let a girl dream. Anyway, if Celeana doesn't take him, I will be happy to replace her. He's just so sweet and overly serious and I like him because he actually helps her rather than jumping into the picture only when everyone's out of harm's way, Dorian! I'm sorry. I can live with him, I can understand him, but I cannot ship it. He's too much of a player and a prince. That most of all. I don't feel like jumping into another Girl-Falls-In-Love-With-Son-Of-Evil-King angle.
Side note: I need them to quit the Evil King altogether. No matter how many books I read, I still picture him like Disney. All fat with mustache with clueless alcoholic brain and a funny round face. That is not someone I can be scared of. This is why evil presidents work for me.
It's not like I can't see why Celeana would get together with Dorian. They're both kind of sassy and he's really funny and cute. Still, when Choal came up to her when she was fighting and almost dying and he held out his hand? The feels were there, burning me.
Not only our main character and potential suitors were good though, I felt the cast of side characters was pretty solid, and their number and narration gave the book an almost Game of Thrones-y feeling. Love how we have a good friendship between Celeana and What-Was-Her-Name-Again.
Magic and world-building were really good as well, but I'm mostly just craving for more. One thing about the plot that kind of let me down was this: In Harry Potter, we had these mysteries every single book, and Harry has all these ideas about who's behind the crazy shit that makes the school almost close and then we find out there's this ishefhjsbfvi8rea back story revelation and I just sit there staring at the book like
And here I felt we were building up to something similarly mind-blowing forever making me paranoid and then it turns out to be effing Cain, the most obviously evil guy possible! I loved the way it was Cain with the monsters and Wyrdmarks and What-Was-Her-Name-Again protecting us rather than trying to kill us, but it was a tiny bit of a let down. But the rest of it: quality plot right there. It creeped me out when it creeped Celeane out, the Wyrdmarks were fascinating, and the Queen mentoring her was just beautiful. I can't wait to pick up the second one.
No comments:
Post a Comment