Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (Book Review)

Throne of Glass
By Sarah J. Maas
Published by Bloomsbury, 2012
Print : $10.99
E-Book: $5.99

Celaena Sardothian, the greatest assassin in Ardalan, has been in the Salt Mines of Endovier doing hard labor for a year and has somehow survived. The place isn't so much a prison as a concentration camp where the worst of the worst are sent to die. So she's more than eager to get out when the Crown Prince of the country, Dorian Havilliard, shows up to offer her a deal to gain her freedom.

There is a tournament to become the King's Champion and Dorian wants to sponsor her for the competition. What exactly is the King's Champion's job? To do the dirty work of the king...in effect to become the OFFICIAL state assassin and to apply the muscle to those who do not want to cooperate with the king's plans. Namely, to conquer the whole world. He's already taken over a good bit of it and one of his first acts was to outlaw magic. Those who refused to stop practicing it were killed in one or another brutal way or at the least, imprisoned. The current king is akin to a Hitler-like figure.

There are 24 entrants in the King's Champion tournament, each of which are sponsored by a noble or other notable of the king's court. The deal Dorian makes with Celaena is that she must win first of all. Then she must serve his father for 4 years, and be paid well at that, and then she is a free woman. She has two problems. First, if she loses, it's back to the Salt Mines for her, so failure is not an option. Secondly, Celaena HATES the king, who is responsible for raping and pillaging her homeland. Even if she wins, how can she bring herself to serve and protect the man that has killed and subjugated her people? But it's the only deal she has so she takes it.

I had always seen this series in the book stores and always thought the covers looked really cool and that with so many books, it MUST be good. Problem is the cover is VERY deceiving. From the looks of Throne of Glass, Celaena looks like a sexy and dangerous dark elf who is very pissed and would kill you rather than look at you. Maybe the first few pages of the book set the tone for that kind of character but I knew it was going south when Celaena is first brought before Prince Dorian at the Salt Mines.

So just think, Celaena has been in the Salt Mines for a YEAR, not fed very well, working in the mines from before dawn to after sunset, and at some points is tortured. It really is a concentration camp type setup to be worked to death. So imagine my surprise when Celaena's first impression of
Dorian is how hot he is and how she must look so unglamorous with her unkempt hair and dirty skin! I mean do you think anyone in that environment for a year is gonna be in the mood for love?

More awful moments like that pop up through the book. Celaena likes good clothes and likes good food and reading. In fact, she seems more worried about what she will be wearing at the palace and what books they have in their library instead of honing her mind for combat and training her body after a year's neglect. In fact, more of the novel is spent on the love triangle between Celaena, Dorian, and Captain Chaol of the Royal Guard than the nuts and bolts of the King's Champion tournament.

Celaena looks NOTHING like she does on the cover. She has blonde hair! And yes, I'm sure she was pale from working in the minds, but not like a freakin cave fish or dark elf. She never really comes off as badass as she appears on the cover either. In fact, she seems naive and squeamish and way too happy to have been an assassin most of her life. She gets grossed out by dead bodies of all things! SHE'S AN ASSASSIN! HOW IS SHE GROSSED OUT BY DEAD BODIES?? So her entire character just seemed so uneven and constructed more by events around her than being the instigator of the action.

The romance aspects of the book are crummy. I don't know how many times Celaena "batted her eyelashes" but it happened a lot. This was the original cover for the book:

That cover is a much more realistic representation of the character and what kind of novel this is. I get it, bad ass girls are selling right now, so make the girl LOOK as badass on the cover as you can, but don't LIE! I will say that when the insipid romance were not on the scene, the action sequences were well written. But why should I have to endure the dumber aspects of the book to get to those? I have read that the series does get better so I'm going to give book 2 a chance because overall I enjoyed this book more than I disliked it. It was just too inconsistent.

My Grade: B-