Book Series Review: Throne of Glass & Crown of Midnight
Hello readers!
Today's post is a continuation of my review of the Throne of Glass series. Since the story is so long, I chose to divide the series into two books per post so that way it's not a wall of text for you readers.
Today I will be tackling Throne of Glass & Crown of Midnight.
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| Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas |
Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Published: First published in 2012, re-published in 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy
Synopsis:
In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king's champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.
The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass--and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.
Review*:
The events in this book put up a year after Celaena was sentenced to Endovier. Dorian, Chaol, and Duke Perrington go to the slave camp to pick up Celaena to bring her back to compete for the chance to be the King of Adarlan's Champion. Obviously she's a bit worse for wear, having been reduced to mining salt for a year but we quickly learn the spark never left and Celaena actually tried escaping from the slave camp. With introductions and "Omg, you're an 18 year old girl?" out of the way, they spend two weeks traveling back to Rifthold.
What I appreciate about describing Celaena's recovering from the salt mines, is Sarah puts in accurate detailing. During their travel back to the capital, Celaena has a hard time eating a lot of food because of the starvation that racked her body. She also mentions her training being difficult, but not too difficult because although she was a malnourished slave, slinging a pick-axe takes some muscle. My favorite part though, was the presence of her monthly cycle coming back. Partially because she mentions the plight of women, but it's also a detail that I think gets looked over within fantasy novels.
Celaena still has a little head-bloat over her reputation and ego, not entirely excited about having to use an alias during the competition. Fortunately Chaol, being the stubborn bastard he is, explains to her why it's smart and how she has no say in the matter because it's either do it his way or go back to slavery.
Speaking of dear Chaol, at this point in the series, which is obviously very early considering it's book 1, I like Chaol. Spoiler alert, but throughout the rest of the series I do not care for him. I think what I like most about his character is his un-yielding personality to those he is loyal to and cares for. He will protect Dorian at all costs, it's what he lives and breathes. He is also pretty smart, referring back to the alias and also the way he interacts with Celaena throughout the competition. He underestimated her, but I also think Celaena underestimated him.
I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I thought that Duke Perrington, Kaltain, and Nahemia were sort of meh characters. There is some popularity with Nahemia and although she does help Celaena in the competition and become her friend, I never quite felt a connection to her character. Kaltain I thought was super blah, having been portrayed as someone fairly stereotypical by being a rich, snob. Duke I kind of forgot about through this book and definitely as we get farther into the series.
Now poor baby Dorian. Although he is a womanizer by reputation, I love his character. He's a flirt with Celaena and yeah their relationship forming was kind of typical, but he's also very kind-hearted for someone in his position. I was glad that Celaena and him called off building a romantic relationship not because I hate them together, but Celaena had more to focus on being the King's Champion and also trying to assist Elena with her wyrdmarks.
Which leads us into the entire sub-plot which will eventually become our entire plot of figuring out what Wyrdmarks mean, why they are in a castle ruled by a man who banish magic, and why a spirit of Adarlan's first Queen is visiting Celaena. We get to find out a little bit about the history of Erilea and previous people who were key in shaping the continent, but at the same time there so much more to explore.
Outside of Elena's purpose in this book, I feel like this book was written well to be a stand-alone. The main plot of becoming the King's Champion was creative and arced really nicely. When I originally read this book I thought about just stopping here because I liked this first book so much and I was a little intimidated by the fact that the series was so long. I'm glad I decided to re-read Throne of Glass because I do really love it in this series and is one of my favorite parts of Celaena's journey.
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| Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas |
❤❤❤❤❤
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Published: 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy
Synopsis:
"A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.
It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend."
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.
Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.
Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie... and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.
It puts this entire castle in jeopardy—and the life of your friend."
From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.
Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.
Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie... and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.
Review*:
Having this read through be my second time reading the book, I feel like I appreciate the events a little more than the first time I read it. It's still not my favorite book in the series but the events make a little more sense now that I know how they fall into place later.
First and foremost, I think the reason why this book falls a little flat for me is that the plot isn't very steady. There are important events that happen throughout the book, rather than a solid climax towards the end of the novel that have me checking how much farther I have to go.
For example, Chaol's betrayal and Nehemia's death I thought was the climax of the book, and from memory I thought it was much later than halfway through the book. Having that emotional event in the middle just made the ending seem choppy. The back and forth with the under-ground as well came off awkward and I think is what made the ending not so strong for me. Celaena and Dorian have two traumatic events happen in a very similar location back to back, so although opening the portal and finding out Celaena was fae didn't seem to have as much impact for me.
Another aspect that was prominent in this book that annoyed me was the amount of drama that felt built into everything. Dorian had fallen completely in love with Celaena after two months of building a friendship and trust, which of course meant he had to cope with losing her even though not much really happened. Chaol in general is a dramatic person, and I think it's stemmed because of his stubborn-ness that I found more endearing in ToG. Did he really think leaving out the information he had about Nehemia and the plot against her was 1. never going to be found out and 2. Celaena wouldn't be pissed when shit hit the fan? Like dude, you were clever in the first book but you let that blonde hair cloud your already iffy judgement.
What I did enjoy a lot of in the book was the knowledge we gained about Wyrd-marks, Wyrd-keys, and magic in general. The information is married well with the following book, since Crown of Midnight is more of a knowledge dump and, although this is a little early, Heir of Fire was more of the aftermath of the knowledge dump. I remember the first time reading CoM, I was pausing and re-reading/listening quite a few times to make sure I got all the details because there is a lot happening or if stuff was completely explained.
Other than that, we just needed more Dorian.
First and foremost, I think the reason why this book falls a little flat for me is that the plot isn't very steady. There are important events that happen throughout the book, rather than a solid climax towards the end of the novel that have me checking how much farther I have to go.
For example, Chaol's betrayal and Nehemia's death I thought was the climax of the book, and from memory I thought it was much later than halfway through the book. Having that emotional event in the middle just made the ending seem choppy. The back and forth with the under-ground as well came off awkward and I think is what made the ending not so strong for me. Celaena and Dorian have two traumatic events happen in a very similar location back to back, so although opening the portal and finding out Celaena was fae didn't seem to have as much impact for me.
Another aspect that was prominent in this book that annoyed me was the amount of drama that felt built into everything. Dorian had fallen completely in love with Celaena after two months of building a friendship and trust, which of course meant he had to cope with losing her even though not much really happened. Chaol in general is a dramatic person, and I think it's stemmed because of his stubborn-ness that I found more endearing in ToG. Did he really think leaving out the information he had about Nehemia and the plot against her was 1. never going to be found out and 2. Celaena wouldn't be pissed when shit hit the fan? Like dude, you were clever in the first book but you let that blonde hair cloud your already iffy judgement.
What I did enjoy a lot of in the book was the knowledge we gained about Wyrd-marks, Wyrd-keys, and magic in general. The information is married well with the following book, since Crown of Midnight is more of a knowledge dump and, although this is a little early, Heir of Fire was more of the aftermath of the knowledge dump. I remember the first time reading CoM, I was pausing and re-reading/listening quite a few times to make sure I got all the details because there is a lot happening or if stuff was completely explained.
Other than that, we just needed more Dorian.
I know this is a wall of text, but there is a lot of stuff in this series to sift through than ACOTAR. A lot of foreshadowing and characters that play specific parts in the books. It's also the series that I didn't instantly love as much, so I am a little more critical.
Let me know what you thought of these books below!
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