Throne of Glass Review

The Albatross
Jul 21
3 min read

“My name is Celaena Sardothien,” she whispered, “and I will not be afraid.”

Throne of Glass by Sarah. J. Maas

Rating:

Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Spice: 👼🏻

Tropes & themes: Games & trials, badass FMC, grief, prophecy, spoiled prince, stoic warrior, enemies to friends to lovers.

reference my rating system here

Genre: YA Fantasy

Series: Book 1 of Throne of Glass series

Plot: "In a land without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She has no love for the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass.

She has come to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three others in a competition, she will be released from prison to serve as the King's Champion."

Read if you like: Red Queen, ACOTAR, or From Blood and Ash.

The cover of throne of glass by Sarah J. Maas

The Vibe:

Badass FCM "prisoner" and assassin is forced into a competition to win her (sort of) freedom. There's potential love triangle and banter with the prince, and underlying secret in the castle and mini found family moments.

What I liked:

The competition pacing was well done and made sense within the timeline
FMC was the perfect blend of badass but also soft and personable (she adores books and the piano and pretty dresses but she also knows at least 10 ways to kill you with each of those things)
Both MMC's were perfect and a great contrast to each other, their relationship seemed genuine and their independent relationships with the FMC felt natural for the characters and progressed realistically
The world building seemed solid for the first book in a series and I adore the idea of a glass castle

What didn't work for me:

The underlying "mystery" of the castle was interesting yes but I found it hard to follow*
Had a hard time keeping the various names straight many felt similar with their characters also being quite similar.
The competition fell into the background a bit and I would have liked to see more of it.
I genuinely have no idea what the rest of the series could be about after finishing which feels weird? It just kind of tied up the conflicts then ended.

*This could be attributed to the fact that I was listening to the audiobook while working so some things were bound to get missed, but I followed the rest of the story pretty easily so I'm not sure.

Thoughts:

Ultimately I really enjoyed this book. Honestly with some minor adjustments it could have been a stand alone novel and been pretty good! The romance is definitely less of a "sub-plot" and more of a "thought passing in the wind" but the banter was good and the story isn't really centered on romance anyway.

LOVE the found family (ish) moments with Dorian and Nehemia and Celaena. The competition felt real but also kind of felt not fully fleshed out? I wish we had seen more of it since I loveeee anything "games and trials" but ultimately it was good.

I adore the idea of a glass castle and the world so far feels very fantasy very real and very dreamy. The world conflicts with the king & the magic seems pretty realistic and decently done. Celaena is one of my favorite FMC's ever (so far).

Knowing there are 8 more books ahead of us I genuinely cannot imagine what could possibly take that long, based on where we ended. That is kind of annoying as I feel like I should at least have a good indication of what the rest of the series has in store for me and I really just..don't.

Would I recommend it?

I can't say yet if I'd recommend the whole series (obvs) but I did really love the first book and as I said, with only a few adjustments it could almost be its own story so yes definitely recommend!

NO CONTEXT MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!