Throne of Glass
There is a book that is longing to be read. It lies untouched by those who have no knowledge of it. It is filled with adventure, magic, and competition. It has lands that reek of legends and monsters and creatures that have yet to be discovered. This book is home to princes and princesses, kings and queens, assassins and captains, and monsters and spells. This book is called The Throne of Glass.
The Throne of Glass is a book about an assassin named Celaena Sardothien. She is one of the most feared assassins in all of Adarlan and with that, is titled Adarlan’s Assassin. She was captured a year ago and was put into the salt mines of Endovier, where she was forced to work as a slave and mine for rock salt. The slaves are forced to work and move while shackled and at sword-point. Celaena, under the conditions of the treacherous place she was kept, had become weak and bore scars from her experience, both on her body and in her soul.
There is to be a competition held by the King of Adarlan to determine who of many criminals is worthy enough to be the King’s Champion and serve his needs. Celaena is taken out of the salt mines and is put into the competition by the Crown Prince of Adarlan who believes that she has a very likely chance of winning. During the competition, murders take place within the castle walls that are targeted towards many of the other competitors. It is Celaena’s job to juggle the tasks of winning the competition for her freedom and finding the evil that dwells in the castle and stop it before all hell breaks loose.
The main characters of this book include Celaena Sardothien- Adarlan’s Assassin, Dorian Havilliard- the Crown Prince, Chaol Westfall- Captain of the Guard, and Nehemia Ytger- Princess of Ellywe. Other characters that don’t necessarily have as much significance as the other characters are the King of Adarlan, Duke Perrington, Kaltain Rompier, and the other competitors in the competition.
In the story, Celaena competes in the competition to become the King’s Champion by training and competing against the other competitors in tests. Dorian struggles to not have feelings toward Celaena and has a hard time in getting his father to understand him or agree to his opinions. Chaol is Celaena’s “watcher”, and makes sure that she doesn’t do anything to endanger other people. He trains with her and eventually becomes her friend. The King of Adarlan focuses on conquering the other countries of Erilea to become the most powerful ruler. Princess Nehemia is the Princess of Ellywe, and has come to Adarlan seeking information on the King of Adarlan’s choices involving the slaves in Endovier and Calaculla. Nehemia meets Celaena and they become very good friends. Kaltain Rompier is a lady of the court and is very much interested in the Crown Prince. Her main goal is to somehow get Dorian to love her whatever means necessary.
Throughout the book, the main characters are faced with many problems. Many of the problems faced in the book may at first be seen as pretty miniscule until later in the book when they resurface as major situations that affect all other characters.
All of the main characters are very well developed. They are all relatable to one another even though they are all so different in many ways. My favorite character of this book is Celaena Sardothien. She is my favorite character because she is clever, sarcastic, smart, aggressive, strong-minded, adventurous, vigilant, deadly, and she’s really just a hands down bad ass. Though, throughout her life she has endured many struggles and pain, Celaena has always fought to stay alive. She learns many things about herself that become very important, and can help her while people are being hunted so she can stay alive.
I loved the book. It had such amazing writing in it that I never wanted to stop reading, and I got annoyed for any reason I had to put it down. I was so determined to find out what would happen next. The characters were very connected to one another which allowed them to form and build relationships that would keep the reader on their toes. Kristi Mallett, a reader of the Throne of Glass series states that, “The author is a master. She hooks you right from the beginning. The characters are well developed. They are multidimensional and they grow and evolve as the story progresses. There is a great amount of detail, both in the characters and the story, but it is not burdensome. Every detail --carefully layered into the plot-- matters and leaves you wanting more. And just when you think you have it all figured out, or that you know where the story is heading...WHAM...you realize that you don’t. This is the kind of book that makes one abandon the TV and video games, and put the cell phone away, in search of a quiet corner to delve into the adventure.”
One of my favorite parts of the book is when they’re having their first test to decide who will be eliminated and who will move forward. Celaena is the only girl in the competition, and she has to keep her identity secret. Her alias is Lillian Gordaina and her story is that she is just a mere jewel thief from the land of Bellhaven. Since none of the men know her as who she really is, they believe that she can easily be beaten. Their first test is archery. There are five targets varying from length away from the shooting point. The time when it is Celaena’s turn is one of my favorite parts because she makes every single target right around or on the bullseye. The crowd grows quiet as she just walks away. I like this part because it shows that she will not act weaker than her opponents and she will fight for her place in this competition so she can win.
Without trying to spoil anything, my least favorite part in the book is when Celaena doesn’t know if she can trust Nehemia or not. Something happens in the book that leads to Celaena becoming suspicious of Nehemia because she thinks she is keeping secrets from her and that she is not her friend or isn’t on her side anymore. I believed that she wasn’t trustworthy and that she was a bad character in the story.
If given the choice to change anything in the book, I don’t think I would change anything. The book was well orchestrated and flowed with every word, sentnce, paragraph, and chapter. It was beautifully written and had an immense aount of flawlessness to it.
I wolud most definitely recommend the book and series to another person who was interested in reading about magic, other lands, adventures, suspense, etc.. I believe many people will like this book because I think that it is good for any person to read no matter what genre they like due to it having more than just one genre incorporated, and can be seen as having a mish mosh of everything in it.
If you are truly interested in reading this book, I definitely recommend going to a bookstore the next time you have time. You will be very excited to read the book and you will want nothing more than to sit for hours rn end reading the book until you finish. It will most certainly become an addicting series that will leave you asking multiple questions and running to get the next book.
Happy reading.
