Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Throne of Glass

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Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

72 reviews

painausten314's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I wanted to read this book as I’ve never read any of Sarah J. Maas’s work and I was interested to see what the hype was all about. I was kindly gifted this series and A Court of Thorns and Roses by my parents. So I thought to start at the beginning.

This book follows eighteen-year-old Celaena Sardothien. She is beautiful and deadly and destined for greatness. In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, she is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake. She got caught. 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? She must now choose between dying in the salt mine or fighting for her freedom, which one will she choose? This is a new adult fantasy fictional novel.

I love Celaena – she has now joined the group of kick-ass women who could hit me and I would say thank you. I think she is so amazing and strong and brave. I loved reading this book from her point of view as well as Dorian’s and Chaol’s point of view. I loved seeing Celaena becoming this strong woman and not taking crap from any of the men in this tournament. My favourite chapter was seeing Celaena and Dorian bonding over random things like music and arts and watching them play pool together. It sort of shows that Dorian doesn’t see Celaena as just another pawn and that Celaena is more than a criminal. The book left you with enough drama that it didn’t feel rushed but also left you wanting more that it keeps you hook to read the next book. I don’t believe they isn’t any weakness to this book I just don’t think it’s going to be the best of the series and it took me a while to get into. I would recommend this to anyone who likes kick-ass girls, fantasy novel and dystopian novels.

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paperindy's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

As with most high fantasy worlds, this took me a little while to get into. But once I was in, it was so much fun.

Honestly, I don’t think Sarah J Maas is an incredible writer (and particularly in this first book! There were so many exclamation marks!) but the confidence she has in her stories is addictive. It is so easy to be swept away with her worlds, and there were a few really enjoyable developments in this first book that I didn’t see coming and some great characters.

As always she does an excellent job of balancing developing the romance elements with developing friendships, and having bigger goals beyond love. And I loved the mystery element in this! It was intriguing and helped lead into the more magical elements of this story really well.

I loved the structure of the competition, which reminded me slightly of The Hunger Games. The only thing I thought was strange was no one asking for the competition to be called off once everyone started dying? It felt really bizarre that no one was even discussing that as an option or explaining why it wasn’t. I also didn’t buy the Dorian romance for a second which made the love triangle parts a little less compelling.

This was a good start to the series but I have high hopes it will get better from here. It’s hard to avoid all the Throne of Glass references on Instagram so I feel like I still have many characters to meet and places to go, and I’m excited to start the next one.

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fishfinngers's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kylasmv15's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

“You could rattle the stars... You could do anything if you only dared.”

After reading Throne of Glass, I utterly regret that it took me so long to read my first Sarah J. Maas book! I don’t know why it took me eight years to find her work, but I’m SO glad that I finally found it!

To me, TOG felt like a combination of The Hunger Games meets Divergent (with the story taking place in a high fantasy world rather than a dystopian future) with a dash of Cinderella retelling thrown in.

The book was a bit hard for me to get into (that always tends to be the case for me though when I’m starting the first book in a new to me series), but the second characters started talking about their love for books, I became both hooked and totally invested!

Character wise, Celaena took a while to grow on me, but I ended up truly loving her. Lover of books, animal whisperer and all around badass, Celaena became the heroine I really wanted to see succeed. My love for Chaol and Dorian however, was there from the get-go. I was super fond of the two of them from the very beginning and adored their friendship. Between the two, I would say that Chaol is my favorite (did anyone else get total Four vibes from the Divergent series when reading about Chaol? Because I constantly felt like he was Four, just dropped into a fantasy novel). I’ll be absolutely devastated if he doesn’t get some kind of happy ending by the conclusion of the series.

I always find that when it comes to starting a new series, the first book is never my favorite. I liked TOG quite a bit, but I’m pretty certain it won’t be my favorite book of the series. I have a feeling that TOG simply set the stage for some seriously epic follow up books! I’m greatly looking forward to continuing the series and seeing how everything plays out!

Read this book if you liked Eragon, Divergent or The Hunger Games. This high fantasy story of mystery, adventure and love, will keep readers extremely entertained until its final page.

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