Book Review: Throne of Glass

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Book 1 of "Throne of Glass"

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.

Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.

Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Review:
Yes, I'm a little late to the party on this one.  When the publishing world freaks out over a book, I tend to be a little skeptical.  The benefit of living as a book pessimist is that you're always either pleasantly surprised or constantly being proved right.  In this case, I'm happy to be pleasantly surprised: the blogosphere hype seems dead-on.

There are readers who can cry "Mary Sue" about Celaena, our kickass heroine.  I can understand where the criticisms come from, especially if opinions are based almost solely on the first few chapters of the book, but all in all I found Celaena to be an engaging and root-worthy protagonist.  Is she the best assassin, like EVER, and is she gorgeous and does she make all the Boys Important To The Plot love her and does she have the prettiest eyes and is she physically tough as shoe leather?

Yes.

But she also is somewhat self-destructive.  She mistrusts just about everyone, for very good reason.  She withholds information that might be valuable to someone else - or potentially damaging to herself if revealed.  She falls for possibly inappropriate men.  Even though she's a reputedly legendary fighter, she nearly gets murdered or maimed a couple times.  A couple challenges prove too much for even her much-vaunted talents and she only gets by with help from other contestants.

There are levels of politics and magic here that make the world interesting and give the story some resonance and depth.  Through the cast of characters and their political goals, the world is revealed, layer by tantalizing layer.  Humor permeates the dialogue without ever cheapening the story.  While Celaena definitely seems to get some of the best lines, she isn't the only witty character in the kingdom, for which I'm grateful. 

The ending is very satisfactory, and while the larger outcome isn't exactly a surprise, there are enough moving parts in the the rest of the narrative to push the reader right into the sequel.

4.5 stars!  A terrific debut and a great book to read and reread!