Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

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I have had this book on my TBR for the longest time. I read Assassin's Blade a couple years ago but didn't get any further with the series until I joined a read along with Tandem Collective and Bloomsbury Books. I feel like at this point everyone has read this series. If you haven't, move forward with caution because there may be spoilers ahead.

We don't know much about Celeana's backstory. Throughout Throne of Glass, we are only given glimpses of her life prior to her meeting Arobynn Hamel, the leader of the assassin's guild. I totally get that because I have a feeling it is intended to build the anticipation for big reveals in future books. Do I know this for a fact? Nope, cause I haven't read any more books yet. It's just a guess.

"Guards are of no use in a library" Oh, how wrong he was! Libraries were full of ideas - perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.

Let's talk characters. I completely ignored the pronunciation guide because by the time I found it, my mind was already set in stone on how to pronounce names. Im looking at you 🥬. Dorian and Chaol were very wishy washy. Like they often forgot how they had treated Celeana in the previous scene and suddenly were back to being douchy boys. Because of that I had a hard time connecting with them. They obviously have a personality disorder (I mean who wouldn't growing up under the King) and you just never knew which one you were going to get.

Celeana....my girl Celeana....oof. She doesn't have the best critical thinking and problem solving skills does she? Like how did she survive as the worlds best assassin?!? There are so many times that I was yelling at my book "WHY ARE YOU SO DUMB?" Can the girl kick ass? Absofreakinglutely. Her lacking in the brains department made me wonder if the future books would be focused on her developing the skills she is so obviously lacking. I like my FMC's to be kick ass in all ways. They gotta have brains and brawn. How is she supposed to survive court intrigue and the king and his cronies political machinations if she can't see past her own nose? Without my girl Nehemia, she would not have survived. And Nehemia didn't owe her anything, after the way she treated her, but she still pulled through. I kind of with we had a novella about Nehemia because I loved her character the most out of the whole book.

The world building is incredible. I annotated while I was reading and there were so many beautiful and creepy descriptions that helped set the scene for each location. The clothes are given so much detail as well. I truly felt like I was enveloped in the world of Erilea. There were quite a few scenes that literally gave me goosebumps as I read because of how well paced they were and how well thought out the dialogue for that specific moment.

Would I recommend this? This is the first book in a series so you have to expect some hiccups as the author sets the stage for the readers. You also want something that leaves you wanting more, and makes you care for the characters. This book does all of those things. Having

Celeana start out just being this incredible great would leave no room for growth in the series at all. I think her lack of critical thinking was intentional and I have a feeling we are going to see her brain catch up with her fighting skills in the future books. This is one I will definitely recommend if you enjoy epic fantasies. Yes there is a little bit of romance mixed in there, but that is just for character connection, I don't feel like it will wind up being important in the future.