Re-Read – Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Title Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)

Author Sarah J. Maas

Description from Amazon

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.

Initial Thoughts

As some of you may already know, I read the entire Throne of Glass series last September. Yep, you read that right, I binged a four thousand plus page series in under one month. It was that good. Anyway, I gave my mom a Kindle Paperwhite for her birthday / Mother’s Day because she wanted to get into reading again and loaded it with the first three books of this series. She started on Friday (yes, Friday, May 8, 2020) and is already half-way through Queen of Shadows. It’s no wonder where I get my reading ability from 🤔😂. After seeing her texts on Friday, I decided that I would re-read the entire series with her. Therefore, I wanted to re-review it with my new thoughts.

Some Things I Liked

• Foreshadowing and hidden clues. Sarah J. Maas’s writing style is filled with subtle clues and Easter egg hints that connect to events revealed later in the story. I absolutely love that. I’m a classic over-thinker and SJM is basically giving me all the ammo I need to create infinite conspiracy theories about the world of Erilea.
• Celaena as an imperfect hero. Celaena has her moments where she is a total selfless hero (saving Knox from falling, for example) and I am not discounting those. But, she also has these very real “oh shit” moments where she’s just a regular person who doesn’t want to be an assassin or responsible for so much. I loved that she was a flawed MC and it made her character growth so much richer.
• The unknown villain. Yes, the King, AKA Dorian’s dad is the villain you know, but he’s relatively ambiguous in this book. Duke Perrington and Kaltain are also villainous but, I loved that this book set up the idea of a larger nefarious plot without giving too much away. I know what said plot is (because I’ve already read this series), but I never would have been able to guess it from this part of the story. I liked that this first book kept the evil ambiguous while still being very compelling.

One Thing I Wasn’t Crazy About

• Originally, I said I didn’t love the love triangle. I have since revised that. However, there is one thing I’m not crazy about. Between extremely intricately woven plot, the lengthy names, and the Easter egg clues, there are SO MANY NAMES. It’s easy to get lost when reading this for the first time and I’ll be completely honest, I missed a lot the first time around. I eventually figured it out, but the second read gave me a whole new clarity.

Series Value

Clearly, I think this series has super high series value. I have already read the whole thing once and plan on re-reading it many more times. Each book leaves you desperate for more and the first, Throne of Glass is no exception.

Furthermore, this series has incredibly high re-read value. You can read, re-read, and re-read again and probably not know every single nuance and small clue SJM has provided. The mark of a really good book or series is wanting to dive back in and dig for more.

Final Thoughts

This is the part of the review where I gush about how much I loved this book. Again, it’s probably very obvious how much I love it. I think this series has it all and it looks like I’m on pace to beat my previous time for reading this series. Last time: Started on 9/5 ended on 9/29 (that’s 24 days). I’m already halfway done with Queen of Shadows and we’re on day 6 right now… so, yeah.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Recommendations for Further Reading

• Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas – if you liked this book even a little, you absolutely must read the next book in the series. I am OBSESSED. Crown of Midnight might even be better than Throne of Glass (I can’t believe I just said that 😱)
• Caraval by Stephanie Garber – while these stories don’t have too much in common, I loved the energy and the settings in both. If you liked the atmosphere and the competition setting, give the Caraval series a try.
• The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala – if you liked all of the moving parts and secrets between characters in Throne of Glass, give this trilogy by Swati Teerdhala a try.