Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Synopsis (From Goodreads)

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.

First thing I have to say is the Australian/UK/New Zealand (on the left) cover to this book is amazing! For once, it is so much better than the American cover (on the right). This wasn't the reason why I bought the book though. I bought it because the blurb intrigued me and it looked like it could be a really interesting book. It lived up to, and beat, all the expectations I had for this book. 

I read this book in 2 days because it was just so addictive! It was one of the best books I have read this year.

The things I liked about this book are:

- The world building. Sarah J. Maas build this fantasy world so well and so descriptively without slowing down the pace of the book and without taking away from the characters.

- The character building. You watch the main character Celaena,who is an assassin, open up and trust other people and learn about her history. It is also really fascinating to see how the other characters change in regards to how they feel about Celaena, particularly Captain Westfall.

- I also loved the balance of action and romance. There was plenty of action in the book which was fast paced and very entertaining but it was tempered with a little romance which worked really well.

- The character relationships were also really good.

The only thing that I didn't really like about the book was the few switches of perspective because it got a little confusing. The first time we saw something from another persons perspective I was a little confused because it was so unexpected. However these still really built on the story, it just took a minute to figure out who's perspective it was being told from.

Overall, I really loved this book. I was surprised by how much I could relate to Celaena and how I really worried about the events. This was one of the main characters that I haven't been annoyed with unlike some of the other books I have read recently.

I would give it 4.5/5 stars.

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