Book Review: Throne of Glass

Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Romantasy

What It’s About:

She is taken around the administration building hallways of Endovier’s Salt Mines, by a hooded figure. The person is intending to confuse Celaena Sardothien, the famous Adarlan’s Assassin, as to where they are going; however, they do not know that she has been watching and noticing all of the entries and hallways—they’d passed that door and those stairs several times already. When the cloaked figure was ready, he took them to a room, where Celaena finds herself in front of the Crown Prince of Adarlan, Dorian Havillard. With him is Duke Perrington, and the cloaked figure shows himself to Celaena as none other than Chaol Westfall, the Captain of the Royal Guard. Dorian walks around Celaena Sardothien, and mentions that the scars could be covered up by dresses, the ones that she had received on her back. Dorian tells everyone to leave except for Chaol, whom he considers a close friend, and Celaena. The three of them talk, during which Celaena revealed that she had managed to touch the wall of the labor camp with her fingertip before she was knocked out—an escape attempt in which she had killed several guards, though they knew not to touch her as the King’s order was that she suffers in Endovier for her crimes. Dorian tells her that he has a proposition for her—his father is having a competition for someone to become his Champion, a killer that would solely work for the King, and for which Dorian wants to put Celaena as his champion. He tells her that it’s a six year contract, after which she is freed to do whatever it is that she wants—her record is cleared. Celaena manages to negotiate it down to four years, but they make the agreement. She is then placed in a room, and cleaned up from dirtiness of the salt mines.

The following day, the contingent leaves, with Celaena’s hands shackled in a long chain attached to Chaol’s saddle. As they ride, Celaena tries to speak to Chaol but he is a man of few words, and eventually she just falls into silence, wondering at the world around her. They ride through the Oswald Forest, a forest that is wild and that once used to be the home of fairies. They make camp nearby, and the next morning she finds flowers and little footsteps into and out of her tent. She hides the tracks and the flowers, before anyone discovers them, and this happens a couple of times during their two week journey to Rifthold. At the end of their journey, Dorian calls Chaol and Celaena over to him, and they ride to see the city from a hill. They make camp there that night, and then the next day, they ride into the city, where they dismount from their horses. Celaena reveals that she does not like the glass castle at all, and that it feels a bit scary to her to have glass everywhere, where you see through floors to the bottom; that it would take one person to just make the whole thing fall apart. Dorian tells her that it’s a good thing then that he put her into the portion of the stone castle that still remains as part of the new castle, and Chaol shows her to the new room.

Celaena spends some time in her rooms, and she watches as a group of women walk through the garden, and past her rooms, wondering aloud about who she is. She ends up throwing a pot of flowers at them for their conversations. One of those women is Kaltain Rompier, who has come to the castle at the invitation of Duke Perrington, and she wonders who this woman is that the Crown Prince had brought with him to the castle. She calls the woman a harlot. Later, Celaena is shown around the castle, where she runs into Kaltain and another woman—Nehemia, who is the princess of Ellywe. Celaena speaks to Nehemia in Ellywe, surprising Chaol that she speaks the languages, and introduces herself as Lillian Gordainia—a jewel thief from Bellhaven, which is the cover that she had been given by Chaol and Dorian for the competition. The two women start to talk in Ellywe, and Nehemia tells Celaena that she tires of Kaltain, so they dismiss the girl, and walk the remainder of the tour together. Over time, they become friends.

Celaena has her first meeting with the Weapons Master—after their meeting with the King had happened, where he told them what he expected, but that he will be traveling. During this meeting with the Weapons Master, they are introduced to the other Champions, and their specialties, which includes a couple of soldiers, assassins and at least one poisons master. They begin their training and elimination Tests with a Run. Chaol had told her to stay in the middle of the pack so that she does not become a target, and Celaena sticks with this plan, though she hates it as she struggles to be a loser—she was always taught by Arobynn to be the best. After the run, she walks into the woods and vomits. They then have their weapons sparring sessions, where they try different weapons, and at first Celaena uses a sword to spar with Chaol. Then she switches up into daggers.

Their first Test involves archery and everyone does pretty well, though some of the Champions struggle to get one of the last targets anywhere near the bullseye. Celaena does stay in the middle of the pack by not hitting the bullseye but coming close enough. In a different Test, Celaena decides to go a different path up to the flag, but then Nox—one of the assassins she had gotten friendly with—starts to fall, and she saves him from certain death, leaving her to be in 18th spot up to the flag and back down.

During this time, strange things start happening in the castle. One of the Champions had been shredded by a beast or animal in the castle. Nehemia and Celaena had walked around the grounds, coming across the odd clock tower all in black. At this tower Celaena notices odd marks, which Nehemia tells her are Wyrdmarks, and to not bother looking into them further as they are an old magic that can cause problems. Nehemia looks at Celaena and tells her she is keeping secrets. One night during a ball for Samhuuin that she wasn’t invited to, Celaena finds a secret door in her room that leads her to different archways—clearly this door has not been used in a very long time by any servants—and she explores the archways. In one shoot off, she finds herself in a dead end but overlooking the great hall where the ball is happening, and she sees Cain and Nox there, which makes her angry that she is not being trusted by Chaol and Dorian to come to the event. Then she discovers the tombs of Elena and Gavin—the first queen and king of Adarlan. Elena was half-fae and came from Terrasen. She makes her way back to the room, and falls asleep. Then she dreams that she is back at the tombstone—having followed the smell of roses—and she talks to Elena. She discovers Damaris, the sword that Gavin used to destroy Erawan in the tombstone, and Elena tells her that she needs to become the King’s Champion and fight off this evil that is in the castle. Elena also gives her necklace, which later turns out to be a protection against evil. Celaena is then woken up by Chaol demanding to know where she had been, only to find out that there has been a murder that same night—another one of their champions had been killed. Another night, Dorian comes into her rooms, and finds her playing the pianoforte—a beautiful melody that she had started playing. They talk, and she does reveal that she had someone she loved—Sam.

Nehemia and Celaena spend time together in the evenings, where Celaena teaches Nehemia how to read in their common tongue and speak in their common tongue, while Nehemia also teaches her Ellywe—though she does make mention that the way intonation that Celaena uses is of the peasants. Celaena continues to research wyrdmarks and wyrdgates, but does not see anything or find any information at all on them. One night, she’s not able to sleep so she goes to the royal library, where she finds Nehemia, who speaks with a perfect accent in the common tongue, and was reading a book that was a much higher reading level than Celaena had seen her or taught her at. IT makes her worry that there is something else about Nehemia.

A couple of nights before another Test, Celaena dreams and speaks to Elena, who tells her to look to the right. The day of the Test, Celaena struggles in figuring out what poisons were in the wine and drinks. Then she looks to the right, and sees the poisons master place the last two goblets—one containing clear water, and another containing red wine—with the goblet containing the water being the closest to the most dangerous potions, while the wine is going into the least poisonous sections. She follows his approach, and she is the first of the two to get it right. She thanks him for helping.

She suspects that Nehemiah has something to do with the death of the champions, and she warns Nox to get out of the castle, especially if since he can get out and isn’t going to a labor camp. Through her conversation with him, she reveals that she is Celaena Sardothien, and he tells her thanks, before getting out of the castle that night. Since Celaena believes that Nehemia is behind the killings of the Champions, based off of the information that Nehemia told her, she decides to make her way into the Yulemas ball that she wasn’t invited to. Chaol is mad at her for that, but eventually Dorian dances with her, and he realizes that he has to do something about it because he cares for her—he does not want to marry another woman as per his mother’s request, for the sake of marriage, but he wants to marry Celaena for love. She returns that night to her rooms, realizing that Nehemia is not the person who has been killing the champions. Celaena decides to go through the tunnels again—something calls her to them—where she finds Cain doing some kind of ritual, which in turn brings in the ridderak—a creature that she had read about in one of her books about wyrd symbols that could call one of them to kill someone. The person who called it then would be the one who gains strength and power of those he killed. It suddenly makes sense to her why Cain was looking bigger every time she saw him, especially after the other champions were getting killed. He locks her with the Ridderak, telling her that it wasn’t her night but that he might as well take advantage of it—he had revealed to her earlier that he knows who she is, in front of Nehemia—and have her killed. Celaena saves herself by having the ridderak break the door that Cain locked, and then runs to the tombs, where she finds Damaris. She plunges Damaris into the head of the Ridderak, only for its teeth to embed themselves into her arms. Having killed it, she returns to her room, feeling unwell. There, someone comes in—and she recognizes Nehemia, who helps save her somehow by cleaning her in the bath. When she wakes up three hours later, Nehemia assures her that she’s fine and safe.

Kaltain is pissed off that Dorian had danced with Celaena the whole time in the ball room, and she speaks with Perrington, who seems to be interested in her, about it and he tells her who Lillian Gordaina truly is. He advises her that she should put some poison into the wine at the last Test in front of the king, which she will give to Celaena so that she does not win and that way they will save Dorian from her clutches. Since Kaltain really wants to be the queen, and have Dorian for herself, she agrees though she shudders at the fact that Celaena is so strong that she might be able to defeat Cain easily.

The last Test comes in front of the King, and the King tells them all that they are only to defeat their opponents in a sparring match, only showing that they will be able to kill them, but not actually going through with it. Cain squares off against one of his opponents, and Celaena squares off against a different opponent. When her time comes to fight, Chaol offers her his own sword, while Nehemia comes to her with her staff. Celaena takes the staff, and beats her opponent in two minutes—which was a minute less than Cain’s battle that took 3 minutes. Before the next fight, with her against Cain, Kaltain comes around to give them the wine, and Celaena drinks hers. Shortly thereafter her vision starts to go woozy and hazy around the edges. Cain and Celaena square off in battle, but she is clearly at a disadvantage having been drugged. She starts to see demons in the battle, and Cain looks like a demon himself with red eyes. Both Chaol and Dorian realize that something is wrong, that Celaena is seeing things, but they know that they cannot step in to save her because otherwise she will be disqualified. So they let her fight, but she is getting beaten bloody and getting broken. Nehemia steps in and starts making symbols with her hands, while Chaol tries to talk to Celaena when she’s near his side of the ring. Suddenly, Elena shows up and tells Celaena that she will remove the poison from her body—belladonna—and that she will have to fight them. Celaena starts to see Cain back as himself, and Elena holds all of the evil off from Celaena, then tells her to get up once the poison is out of her system. Celaena ends up defeating Cain with a broken shoulder and a cut on the thigh. Once he was defeated, Celaena goes up to Chaol and Dorian, where they check in on her and call for healers. Suddenly, Cain goes to stab her in the back after sharing a look with the King, and Chaol is the only one who notices the movement, so he stabs his sword through the chest of Cain.

Dorian has Celaena moved to her rooms, and healers sent; then he visits his father, who tells him that nothing will befall Chaol at all for killing one of the champions, and that he will consider the contract for Celaena. Dorian thanks him, and leaves, but his father wonders what the wyrdmark on Celaena’s forehead is—he is well versed in Wyrdmarks, but this is one unlike those he has ever seen. Kaltain had been taken to the dungeons, as Perrington tells her that he had no idea what she was talking about when she accused him of not giving her enough poison for Celaena, and then accuses her of poisoning the competition. The King and Perrington talk, and they reveal that their plan has gone successfully according to plan to some extent.

Nehemia visits Celaena and she learns who she is—that she had spent time in the mines of Endovier, where a lot of Ellywe slaves have been sent, hence Celaena’s peasant intonation of the language. Nehemia reveals that she has always been able to speak the common tongue, and that her inability to speak it was a ruse for her to come to Rifthold and learn of the King’s plans as well as work against him for her people. She tells Celaena that she has a wyrdmark on her forehead, and that she is well versed in Wyrdmarks because it’s a practice that her people keep through the royal line, so she can read them as well as use them which is what enabled her to save Celaena when she was bitten by the ridderak, and it was her who had been putting the wyrdmarks under Celaena’s bed for protection. She explains how wyrdgates and portals work, and tells her that that Celaena is meant for great things to happen. She hopes that they can remain friends, and Celaena does agree to it. Celaena visits the tomb of Elena and sees her, to which Elena tells her that she’s glad she followed through, and that the world needs her; that she is going to be even greater than Elena herself if only she wishes to look further.

The King does call for her and give her the four year contract after which Celaena will be free. He tells her that if she does get caught, she will deny any connection with him, but that if she doesn’t follow his orders, he will have Chaol and Nehemia harmed. She agrees to his terms, acting demurely, and later when she is alone with Dorian in her room, she ends their budding relationship. Chaol visits later, and she tells him as well that things ended with Dorian of her own accord as it wouldn’t look right if she was in a relationship with the Crown Prince as the King’s Champion.

My Thoughts:

This is my second re-read of this book, and I enjoyed the story.I am not exactly sure if I like the third person view that Sarah J Maas uses in this book, especially with how she switches between the character’s points of views and their thoughts. But she does a wonderful job of bringing Celaena’s personality out, and yet I still feel like the relationship between Celaena and either Dorian or Chaol is wrong—this was the same feeling that I had about them since the beginning; they’re not a good match for her. Still, this book feels a bit fast paced for my liking, and a bit disjointed as if the storytelling is not fully fleshed out yet. And yet, it feels a lot more mature than the ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas. The writing and the voice of the third person story teller is a lot more adult than the ACOTAR series, which sounded like a teenager’s diary. This is extremely disorienting as Celaena is only barely 18, and sounds a lot wiser and older than Feyre. Perhaps it is something to do with who she is at her core, which Feyre never has been until after she had been saved by Rhys in ACOTAR. Only time will tell. That said I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.