Throne of Glass by J.J Mass Book Review

Summary:

Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young 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?

My rating: One and a half worms!

Man, this was a major disappointment.

 If you have been in Tumblr and stalk follow book-related blogs, it’s virtually impossible you haven’t heard about the“Throne of Glass” series featuring the deadliest assassin, Celaena Sardotien in her multiple adventures in the kingdom of Erilea.

So I read it. At first it was good, Celaena is confident (why wouldn’t she, she’s thegreatest assassin!) and then this happens:

“She loved clothes—loved the feeling of silk, of velvet, of satin, of suede and chiffon—and was fascinated by the grace of seams, the intricate perfection of an embossed surface. And when she won this ridiculous competition, when she was free …she could buy all the clothes she wanted.”

This was the moment I said YES YES YES, I’M GOING TO LOVE THIS MOTHERFUCKING BOOK. THIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may wonder, “Good heavens Cami! Why did this simple passage managed to get you in such a state of mind?” And I will answer dear reader, that it doesn’t take much for my state of mind to be altered, HOWEVER and most importantly because I’m sick and tired of “badass” female characters to be portrayed as “typically masculine” and by that I mean that a woman tends to be cool if she acts like boys do. Usually this implies hating everything “girly” or feminine, and mocking girls who do. It’s the common “Not like other girls crap” complex, when a character thinks she’s better because she doesn’t like dresses and stuff.

And that is why when I knew that Celaena liked “girly” things I thought I was going to love this book. However that did not happen, for several reasons. 

Here is the overall plot:

The King of Erilea decided to vanish magic (for some unexplained reason) and so he started campaigns that began to destroy any magical knowledge as well as magical creatures. The people who held and practiced said magic, instead of fighting for survival, they simply died, vanished or gave up (for some unexplained reason).

Years later the King decides he wants a champion, somebody to do all of his dirty work for him and be loyal to death, following his every command blindly. So he organizes a contest to find the greatest champion and (for some unexplained reason) every nobleman chooses a petty criminal to become that loyal champion. Dorian, the crown prince with daddy issues, chooses Celaena Sardotien, who is (for some unexplained reason) the best assassin in the entire kingdom at the tender age of 16 (that’s when she was captured, now she’s 18). However, when the competition begins the trails are (for some unexplained reason) really simple and easy, and would in no way help to determine who would be the most loyal thug.

But wait! Suddenly the champions are starting to get killed, and it’s up to Celaenanot to give a single fuck because she’s too busy sleeping, reading, complaining because the prince won’t talk to her, whining because she-the deadliest assassin- is somehow denied attendance to georgeous parties she is too good for anyway, and labeling any female that is near Dorian as a dumb cunt.

Now that the plot is settled, I’ll get on with the characters:

First, Celaena Sardotien who is a major Mary Sue:

Warrior!Sues: The Warrior!Sue is usually loud, obnoxious and (of course) an amazing warrior. She’ll usually have some tragic past that led her to become a warrior, and she’ll upstage all of the Canonical characters with her mad Sueish powerz.

Remember that confidence I loved so much? Turns out it wasn’t confidence but rather delusional thinking, for there is no logical way that Celaena is the best assassin in the kingdom.

She’s completely undisciplined, so much so that despite the fact that she spent the last year in a salt mine, where she was regularly beaten, starved (her period stopped coming, that doesn’t happen when you skip a few meals!) and worked to death, Celaena doesn’t want to train because- And get ready for this since you’ll hear it repeated over and over again.- She is the best assassin in Erilea! Even though she could barely stand when they left the mines.

It had been three days since the first Test, ten since her arrival in Rifthold, and she was still horribly out of shape.

And yet, whenever Chaol, the guard set to keep her from escaping and killing people, wanted her to train she would cry out and complain because he was annoying her.

She groaned and slumped back onto her bed. “Don’t you ever sleep?” she grumbled, pulling the covers over herself.

“ ’Wake up.’ Not surprisingly, it was Chaol.- “It’s cold,” she moaned, holding her knees to her body.”

Everytime Chaol wants her to train, she’ll complain. How can she have become the greatest assassin if she didn’t have the discipline to train her way into it? If she had some kind of magical power I’d believe it, but Celaena started training when she was eight years old and by the age of sixteen she was already “The greatest assassin!”, how could this undisciplined child be better than people who have trained for decades?

But no, Celaena is the best assassin even though we don’t know why and she never kills. It’s kind of like a title that she walks around with “I’m the greatest assassin! The greatest!” but we never see her thoughts about it; does she like it? Hate it? We don’t know, it’s the same as saying she’s blonde, it does nothing for her.

Another thing, Celaena is unintelligent. 

• She would help her competitors improve their techniques, even though they were fighting against her. She even goes as far as to save another competitor’s life, risking her own (How the hell did she not die BTW?).

• She has several escape options and takes neither. This one time she found a small boat in the sewage, but she chooses against using it because she wants to gain her freedom “The honorable way”, how the hell is being the King’s thug and lap dog “The honorable way”? And then she says that if she gets tired she could always get the boat and leave, but it doesn’t occur to her that the King would be more hell bent in finding her and kill her after she became his champion and knew all of his secrets, rather than when she was just a thin little girl.

•  It never occurs to her that people may want to use her or manipulate her and she trust every one with a pretty face (unless they danced with the Prince, that is, then they are evil cunts.) In fact, we learn about Sam, her boyfriend that was killed when she was captured, and even though she misses him so much it hurts, she tells about him to Dorian, despite the fact that she talked to him three fucking times before. That’s all it takes for Celaena to expose her greatest weaknesses, three talks. Their previous talk had been her complaining how the Prince only talked to her once, and that he did not cared about whether she liked books.

• The greatest proof of stupidity I have read in a while was when Celaena was in the middle of the competition and people were dropping dead like flies. She goes into her room, finds a candy on her pillow, takes it to her mouth AND FUCKING EATS IT.

At some point I was afraid Celaena was some sort of lost fairy princess, I mean silver-like blonde hair? Strange eye color? Dead family? Looking for revenge? Destined for greatness? Magic burried deep in her blood?

Thankfully I underestimated the author.

I severely disliked Dorian, the crown prince. He confuses lust with love, believing to have an instant connection with Celaena even though he has talked to her three/four times. He also mocks her and completely underestimate her because she was a woman.

Granted, in this world Celaena would have died a long time ago, but in this book she is the greatest assassin in the kingdom. She is feared and her rap sheet is long with hideous crimes, however, because she’s a tiny girl with “enticing curves” he sees her as harmless, and even “cute” when she gets mad. If there is something I hate is when people think being mad is cute, especially if it’s a guy mocking a girl. It’s used as a way to minimize our anger, as if we have no real reason to be mad and it’s less.

 I would like for Dorian to go to Cain, watch him loose his shit, and laugh and think Cain is cute.

 He is nothing but a pompous idiot who uses women and then ignores them, fuck you Dorian.

Chaol was one of my favorites, the only one who had common sense for a while. It’s a shame his only duties were to babysit Celaena and Dorian. Although he too, for whatever reason, forms part of this love triangle.

Nehemia was Celaena’s only female friend and the worst diplomate ever. She is the princess of another Kingdom that is resisting the attacks of Erilea, unwilling to become subjects. Nehemia is supposed to be there to find a peaceful agreement between both parties while at the same time it is rumored that she helps rebels escape the grasps of the evil kingdom. 

The only problem is that Nehemia does nothing to start negotiations, she complains and mocks the Queen, King and Prince, their kingdom and costumes, and rather spend her time with a low-rank lady (Celaena) rather disliked in court than actually being an embassador for her kingdom. 

Still, with all the clichés and problems this book had I was truly afraid she would be killed off; she’s the only character of color in the book you see, and with her being Celaena’s friend I thought she would become her “woman in refrigerator”, which is when the death of a female character is used to cause development in a male character. In this case, and with Celaena’s immaturity, I thought they would kill Nehemia off to make Celaena grow and develop. That didn’t happen either, so cheers for that!

Overall a disappointing read, the characters hardly ever seemed to look past their childish behavior and grow up. Celaena was simply, the worst of all.