Throne of Glass (Books #1 - 3) Review

Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas is a six book YA fantasy series about a young assassin named Celaena Sardothian, who is fighting for her survival in a world in which she's considered notorious. So far, the series is made up of Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, and Heir of Fire, with the fourth book set to be released near the end of this year.

If you don't already know, Throne of Glass is set in the Fantasy land of Erilea, where Celaena Sordothian, a known and feared assassin, has been captured and is working as a slave in Endovier's Salt Mines. When Captain Westfall arrives with a special deal for her, Celaena is reluctant at first, but soon finds herself representing the Crown Prince in a to-the-death fight for the position as the King's assassin. Live or die, she will be free, but will her assassin's heart be melted..?

From the second I opened this book, I knew it was set out for big things. Why? It had a map on the very first page! A map that was really cool to look at and was actually quite detailed (for the first book in a series). It's a well-known fact that every book with a map inside is setting itself out to be incredible, so I was really excited!
No time was wasted setting up a big premise for the story, the book quickly jumped into a fast-paced plot which was really intriguing to read about.
I found the book so hard to put down! I kept telling myself 'Just one more chapter' when I attempted to finish that night's reading! I really love it when a book does that!

I really, really, really loved the characters in this book. I'm pretty sure that this is the first book for which I've loved all of the heroine's love interests, and while I think I would like Celaena to end up with Dorian at the end of this series, I don't think I would hate Sarah J. Maas if Celaena got together with somebody else.
My favourite character, of course, is Celaena. I wasn't sure if I'd like her at first, with her being an assassin I expected that she would be purely stubborn and wouldn't be likeable, and even though she had these traits, they weren't excessively prominent and there was so much more to her than that! I loved how, even though she's a notorious killer, she still loves pretty dresses and seems to have an obsession with sugary porridge! I also thought it was really funny that, despite all of this, she was still insistent that she was a scary killer, and was insulted when Dorian made up that she was such a petty thing as a jewel thief! I admired her from the first page, which is why I'm sure she will live amongst my absolute favourite heroes and heroines of all time by the time this series has ended!

Immediately, I thought Throne of Glass would be a cross between Poison Study, by Maria V. Snyder, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, and Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi. And while the first book and a few of the characters had the same feel to these other books, by Crown of Midnight it was clear that this series was its own category. I've never read anything like it!

**Spoiler Alert!**

Spoilers from this point onwards!

For me, Throne of Glass was the best book of the series so far. However, this didn't stop me from loving Crown of Midnight, the second book, almost as much.

Now that Celaena has passed through the trials and has become the King of Adarlan's private assassin, she's ordered and sent to do his dirty work, getting rid of the people he doesn't like. However, being an assassin is harder than Celaena remembered- she cannot bear to kill for the crown. But every death she fakes means the ones she loves are put in even more danger. How far will she go to protect what she believes in?

The ending of this book was absolutely amazing! It was left at such a cliffhanger... Chaol had sent Celaena to Wendlyn and he discovered that she was actually Aerila, the heir to the Fae throne! I really didn't see that coming, so it made me really excited to find out about it, and it made me really want to pick up the next book.
However, as I've already said, I didn't quite enjoy this book as much as Throne of Glass, since I did think that the middle was a little slow and slightly confusing. I wasn't as engrossed in this as I had been, but I'm not completely certain as to why this was. I really did like the faerie aspect of it, and I loved learning more about the wyrds and wyrdkeys, but to be perfectly honest, I found this aspect confusing at times. There was a lot of terminology used, and if you didn't keep up with it or pay complete attention, it was a little hard to follow.

Even though I'd already began to love Celaena Sardothian, I admired her even more in this book. I loved her attitude to the King of Adarlan and how she refused to kill her victims, setting them free instead. However I really loved how she reacted to Archer near the end of his book, and I felt she was justified with what she did.

From the first book, I was wary of Nehemia, so while I was still shocked by her abrupt ending, it didn't come as a huge surprise. I was, however, really shocked to read about how Celaena dealt with it, and what she did to Chaol as a result! I didn't expect that to happen at all, and I was so, so glad that Dorian stopped her with his magical powers. I don't think I quite had realised how much Celaena depended on Nehemia's friendship and how traumatised it would make Celaena to not have her around. I did think that it was a brave thing for Sarah J. Maas to put into the book because if it had been written differently I think it would have portrayed Celaena as a different figure and certainly lowered my feelings for her.

As I've already said, I loved the ending to this book and had to pick up Heir of Fire immediately! I loved how we discovered about Celaena's true identity, and how Chaol had given her an escape route of sorts. It really tied Crown of Midnight up nicely but still left me longing to find out what would happen next.


Heir of Fire is the third and latest book in the series to be released.
In this instalment, Celaena has been sent to Wendlyn and is set on avenging the death of her dearest friend. Despite being under his command, Celaena wants to make the King of Adarlan pay for Nehemia's brutal death. Under the guidance of new-found trainer Rowan, Celaena must overcome her boundaries and push her powers to the breaking point to learn of her new destiny and fight the battles that approach...

For me, this seemed a long book. It was only 560 pages, but despite me thoroughly enjoying the other books in the series, it took me quite a long time to get into. We were introduced to a lot of new characters in this book, including Celaena's cousin, Aedion, a new possible love-interest for Celaena in the form of a strict trainer, and a whole population of Fae including Manon Blackbeak.
I did find this book hard to follow for quite a lot of the time. The split narration was a good idea, since it meant that other character's stories could be followed, but I found myself really having to think hard about that had happened previously in a certain character's storyline, since other characters had been explored since we last heard from them.
The parts with Manon really confused me. I didn't quite understand her as a character, but she was still quite cool. I am looking forward to learning more about her in the next few books because I want to know more about her. In this book, though, I wasn't too captivated by her. 

I felt so bad for Dorian in this book. While I was a little angry with him for kissing another girl in Celaena's absence, Celaena had essentially written him off and said that she didn't want anything to do with him - the silly girl!! Even though I was a little angry at Dorian, I did really like Sorscha. She seemed so lovely from what we heard about her, and even though I think I would like Celaena to end up with Dorian, Sorscha and Dorian did make a really cute couple!! I couldn't help but compare their relationship to that of Arthur and Gwen (from BBC's Merlin). This actually made me more interested in Dorian's part of the story than the other parts. I had expected something bad to happen - maybe they would be separated if Dorian's father found out, but then I thought that they'd later get back together.
I did not expect her to die!!! That part really just broke my heart! I couldn't believe that would happen. It made me so upset, for her and for Dorian. I hope his story gets a bit better in the next few books!!


After reading Heir of Fire, I went on to read the collection of novellas in The Assassin's Blade, which is set before Throne of Glass and is about how Celaena started as an assassin and got caught.
It also centres around Celaena's relationship with Sam.
In the Throne of Glass series, part of the information from this book is revealed, such as the fact that Sam is killed, and Celaena is imprisoned at the end. This made it quite strange to read because I already knew what was going to happen. Nevertheless, I had completely fallen for Sam - he's such a darling and a gentleman, even if he's a notorious assassin - so there was a small part of me which doubted that he would actually die. This part of me then proceeded in being crushed like a bug and stamped all over.
The Assassin's Blade made me admire and connect even more with Celaena because I could see where she came from and what she'd been through.
However, after reading this book, my brain hasn't been able to stop whirring around and I have come up with a few theories...


Theories for the next books...

I kind of have the feeling that Celaena will only be able to be with either Chaol or Dorian if one of them does something really horrible to her or ends up betraying her trust in some way. I have the same sort of feeling with this series as I did with The Infernal Devices trilogy, by Cassandra Clare, and while I'm not going to spoil that, people who have read the trilogy will most likely know what I mean. I think that because Dorian and Chaol are both really good friends, Celaena would feel guilty to be the person who broke up their friendship, so I think that something (probably something bad) will have to happen to one of them. Unless, that is, somebody else steps into the love triangle, which leads me onto my next theory...

I think that Sam is actually still alive. When Celaena sees his body at the end of The Assassin's Blade, his eyes had been removed, so that she couldn't recognise him, and he didn't have the right smell.

 "There was a strange, musky scent all over him—a smell that was so distinctly not Sam that she almost vomited again”

Yes, it was clear that 'Sam' had been through a lot of torture by a sadistic psychopath, but I feel like those two pieces of vital information - the lack of his eyes and his strange smell - were included for a reason. How hard would it have been for Arobyn to just find a body of someone roughly the same size and build as Sam, or even just murder somebody who looks a little like him? If he didn't have eyes and his body had been mutilated, how could you really tell?
If Sam was still actually alive, how would Celaena have found out if she's been in Endovier for so long?
I believe that in the later books, Celaena will find Sam, even if it's accidentally, and will then find Arobyn has been lying to her for all these years. After all, Arobyn was angry that Celaena had left his business to be with Sam. He may have wanted to get back at her and knew that Sam was her weakness...


I cannot wait to find out what will happen in the next three books and I'm excited to see if my theories are true. Has anybody else read the series and come to the same conclusion?

Overall, while a few parts were a little dull, I loved this series so much! I gave Heir of Fire 4 stars and the rest of the series 5! It really is a rare occasion in which I mark books that highly!
I would recommend this series to everybody! It really was a great read!

That's all for this review, I'll be back with another one soon!


Charlotte xxx