Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

oooh pretty :3

3.5 stars

Now I found that there is some little novellas before and in between the series of this book, you don't HAVE to read them, but I found that at least the first four give more rounding to Celaena as a character, compared to just reading this book alone.

To start off in high praises, Celaena is the perfect girl power model. She is the best assassin known in their country, she doesn't take shit from anyone, and she is defiant, strong, clever, and sometimes wise. Depending on the situation. But in basics, girl's got street smarts.

What bothered me about her omnipotent epicness was that for a good portion of the beginning, that's all we hear about. How Celaena could easily kill that man with two moves, she could splatter that man against a wall, and how she was fast enough to do this and that...it finally eased up when more characters were introduced and more action came into play and then I breathed a sigh of relief from all the self praising.

In honesty, I have such mixed feelings for this book. 

It was good, and it could've been better. The action was fantastic, the mystery of finding out who was killing the Champions was intense considering whoever was committing the crime was mangling their bodies, and the characters were really interesting for the most part. 

Nehemia, who you'll meet not too much later in the book, was such a serious bad ass she was one of my favorites in this book. I adored and loved her. The perfect friend to Celaena's intense personality. I didn't care much for Kaltain as an evil character not because she was evil, but she was so...typical.
She was gorgeous, she wanted Dorian more than anything, and she had the generic bad attitude and snottiness as most antagonists in stories.  

In short, she bored me.

The writing was a bit cheesy at times, too. For example, the dialogue between Dorian and Celaena, or her actions in general around him. 

Another example, when she is trying to figure out how to play pool, and she just could not for the life of her, do it right. And she starts throwing a tantrum and biting the cue stick. Really? Really? I mean this is world's top assassin who can throw daggers, hit the ultimate point in a target from extreme distances, can fight with almost any weapon, but she can't play pool. Not to mention she's biting the cue stick like a rabid dog, and then this highly immature moment is attempted to be played off humorously by the entrance of Dorian looking "oh-so-dreamy," and then him saying he should get a picture painted of that moment.
Ahahaha...no...it's not funny. Sorry. 

Now that I've mentioned Dorian, we must come to the dreadful love triangle. 

So all readers immediately know that this love triangle will be Dorian, the typical handsome, blue eyed, womanizer (Did I mention he's a Prince?! Omg. *flails hands*) and Chaol the strict,  also handsome in a soldier way, Captain of the Guard, vying for her attention. Everything just seemed so wrong...Dorian seemed to be chasing after Celaena's heels like she was a dog in heat, lusting after her then discovering that he had feelings because she was different.
*eyeroll*

 
 Dorian could have any girl he wanted, Lord knows they practically threw themselves at his feet and offered to be his human red carpet to walk on, and yet he had to have the one girl he knew Big Bad Daddy wouldn't let him have. And it was only with her that he felt he could be a man, that he could be King. Pfft.

I was rooting for Chaol for the whole entire book. He seemed to be the lesser of two evils since Chaol was the wiser more cautious and mature one. His connection with her was yes, a little insta-romance, but it felt more natural since it grew into trust and a bond of  mutual understanding. 

Celaena's little heart fluttering moments seemed far more sincere and deep for Chaol than for Dorian since usually it was because Dorian was so handsome, he said something naughty, or the physical closeness of him was just too much! 

When her heart fluttered for Chaol it was because he smiled, or she saw something warm and comforting in his eyes, or she realized she could trust him and depend on him. He got up every morning to train her, and he took care of her.

Despite my frustrations, I still flew through this book in a day because the action was intense, it was interesting to see Celaena compete, and there was some interesting ghosts and magic! I'm hoping the sequel surpasses the first, but we'll see. :) 

See my review of Crown of Midnight here!