Review ~ Throne of Glass ~ Sarah J. Maas

3 stars

Title:Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Published by: Bloomsbury
Date: August 2012

goodreads says:

Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?

Opening line: After a year of slavery in the Salt Mines of Endovier, Celaena Sardothien was accustomed to being escorted everywhere in shackles and at sword-point.

Closing line: "Tell me tomorrow."

Every so often a book comes along that has massive hype surrounding it and Throne of Glass is one of those books! I had seen it everywhere before I received my proof copy and I had heard amazing things. This was a book that was right up my street. And then I read it and I was disappointed! I know, shock-horror!! So many of my blogger friends love it and I've seen lots of 4 and 5 star ratings but the story was just lacking for me. Actually it wasn't the story that was lacking it was Celaenas character.

We are introduced to Celaena, Adarlan's greatest assassin, who has been forced to work in the mines as a slave after she is caught. While in the mines she manages to stay alive and keep her wits about her by not only killing several guards but trying to escape just for the heck of it to see how far she gets. So for me I'm thinking so far so good because we have a spunky kick ass female lead who is going to stop at nothing to get what she wants.

She is pulled form the mines to represent the Prince in a to-the-death tournament. You might be thinking Hunger Games here but it's not that kind of tournament. I loved the idea of this tournament and the reasons for the Prince picking her, ultimately so he can annoy his farther, and we are promised great things but I just don't think Maas delivers.

To me Celaena is a weak person who allows her emotions to get the better of her, is that anyway an assassin should act!? She changes her mind to often about her toughs and feelings. And the pretty men don't help, both the Prince and Chaol capture her attention. If I was her I'd be plotting my revenge and looking for ways to escape. She is the most feared person in the whole of the Kingdom yet she is left alone in a room of luxury, she is left with the Prince only shackled, I'd have had those chains around his next quicker than he could have said my name! What happened to the fighting spirit, she killed 24 guards or so just trying to escape the mines!

Ok, that little rant is over now. I really liked the Prince and Chaols characters, Chaols more so and if anything would make me read more it would be him. I liked how we got to see their points of view throughout the story as I felt they were needed.
There were also several secondary characters which were ok, I liked and Nox, he was an interesting one and proved to be an excellent ally for Celaena. And there are of course the characters that you love to hate which I think Maas wrote well enough.

I really enjoyed the training sessions between Celaena and Chaol and seeing Celaena physically get fitter and stronger. It was also really nice to see their relationship grow and that I could read more of. Celaena relationship with the Prince was also interesting to read about and as already mentioned, it was great reading every ones point of view.

So over all I was as impressed as I thought I was going to be with Throne of Glass which is a shame as I had such high hopes. I gave 3 stars to this story because as you can see there were things I like and things I was disappointed with.