Thrones of Glass

After serving out a year of hard labour 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 four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. 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.

A very interesting novel by Sarah J. Maas. People are inclined to route solely for the love triangle or love angle, depending on how you view it. As I was reading this, it had a very Hunger Games/Triwizard tournament feel to it. A competition where the candidates have to be put through tasks, or 'tests' as they call it in Throne of Glass, to earn the ultimate prize in the end. For the Hunger Games, the prize was survival. In the Triwizard tournament from Harry Potter, it was the Triwizard cup. But in this competition, it's to become the King's Champion for the next four years until Celaena is finally free. The plot is a great one for young teenagers who aren't sick to death of YA novels yet. I know I can keep reading YA novels, as cliche as they get, but I still allow myself to enjoy them. Unfortunetly, I let the romance  part of it dominate my overall mood and opinion of it. That is one of the disadvantages of thinking like a fangirl. But because I love both the Hunger Games and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire so much, I was going to love this too. On the cover, it presents a very dangerous looking assassin. And with people's hype and reviews, they said she was one badass character. I was eager to see her talents as a ghostly killer, but I was disappointed. I did not see her perform the great deadly tasks her title as 'assassin' should have offered be whilst reading. Instead, I saw the very opposite of a strong, female and deadly character. I pictured Celaena as some sort of fairy-tale princess, just a little stronger maybe. She put on pretty gowns and was all swoooooon at the handsome young prince. That does not sound unlike a typical fairy-tale princess. So Celaena's character did not impress me as I thought she would.

Then there's young Dorian, who asked her to be his champion to become his father's champion. He never intended to like her in such a way that could get his head cut off, but he does, of course. I find this character rather pompous and arrogant and jealous and just a 'pretty boy'. He is drawn to her and we encounter a number of flirtatious conversations between him and Celaena. I felt as if Dorian was only involved in the story to be a 'love interest' for the protagonist. It was not very involved with the main plot. And if the main plot turned out to be the romance aspect, then I would be very disappointed by it. Authors try so hard to make it as sub-plottish as possible, but sometimes the story gets dominated by the romance. I would blame that partly (sometimes mostly, depending on what book) on us, the fangirls. I found myself much more interested in the love angle/triangle. And I did not ship Celaena with Dorian...

That brings us onto the attractiveness that is Chaol Westfall, the solemn Captain of the Guard. He is very stern and loyal to the realm. He lives to serve the realm and the King. And if I could describe him to an existing character out there, I would say he's the Bash of the Throne of Glass world. Bash as in 'Sebastian' from the TV show 'Reign', the bastard of King Henry - King of France. Do watch the show, most of season 1 replicates the love triangle in Throne of Glass. Back to Chaol, he is soooo lovable.  He spends a great deal with Celaena as he escorts her everywhere, trains with her and guards her from the other competitors and of course from any form of escape. He grows to become fond of her, and the Chaol and Celaena moments are so real and heartwarming that I find myself weeping for this ship to sail in the open sun. I ship them harder than I've shipped anyone before. Do I daresay that I ship them harder than Peeta and Katniss? I don't know yet, we'll wait until I've read Crown of Midnight, second book of the series. I was expecting them to kiss, but the only kissing Celaena does it with Dorian. The closest intimate feeling Chaol has Celaena is holding her hand, and almost dancing with her, until Dorian's big head got involved. And of course, the close embrace at the very end, when she won the competition.

The tests in this novel were excellent. Climbing the wall of the clock tower, ordering poison from harmless to deadliest, the whole competition was fun to read about really. And then there were these eliminations and dead compeitors that ended up dead outside the competition. The whole mystery as to who was behind the murders. I thought it was Cain (a fellow, brutal champion) but then I thought it was too obvious. So then, I went on to think the worst and suspected Chaol, a good plot twist, but then again, an obvious plot twist. Perhaps Kaltain too, but another obvious one. After all fiction has done, every character behind something evil. becomes the obvious culprit. That adds to mystery and the uncertantly and we're back to, Who? Who? Whooooo? Turns out it was Cain in the end, but the magic involved was cool.

So the last test, the closing part of the competition was cool. This is the only part where Celaena kicked ass, but it didn't last. After she took out her first opponent, she was battling Cain. And Kaltain the bitch, drugged Celaena so that she became weak in her fighting. She was losing her shit, and well Cain and his next level magic, ganged up on her. So Celaena was getting her ass kicked. But these demons that Cain unleashed on her, only Celaena could see and Nehemia. Chaol was desperately trying to help her, although he couldn't touch her. He was outside the line of the ring,  telling her to 'get up'. I thought that was sweet. The moment both their fingers reached out to each other, but the white chalk line separated them. I thought it was symbolism for the line Chaol drew between him and her, knowing in his heart, they could never be together. And then, Queen Elena saved Celaena and Cain tried to kill Celaena. But Chaol plunged a sword in him before he ever got the chance. That last test was satisfying for me and it urged me to pick up Crown of Midnight.