Review- Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

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? - From Goodreads When people talk about this book, and Celaena they mention that she is beautiful, arrogant and girly. Not usually traits I particularly like my female protagonists to have, yet Celaena pulled it off incredibly well. I was terrified that this girl would end up like whatshername from Paranormalcy, girly and arrogant to the point of stupidity, but no. Celaena has her reasons to be arrogant. She's good at what she does and she is deadly beautiful.
You really feel for this character. Orphaned at a young age, trained in sometimes dreadful ways and then betrayed and left to rot as a slave for a year in a place most people only last a month. She has been beaten and broken and yet she remains a fighter. I expected this to be a decent book about palace politics and a female assassin fighting for freedom, but it was so much more. It was a book about friendships, love, magic and not letting the world break you. I never expected so much depth, or magic. The relationships between people are perfectly built. If Celaena doesn’t like someone your skin crawls as well. If she befriends them you feel yourself growing attached. The relationships never feel forced, or at least they don’t till right at the end. And while there is a love triangle it doesn’t take president over the story itself it just develops naturally throughout. The magic element is never really mentioned in reviews so when it became a big part of the plot I was incredibly happy and surprised. What’s a good fantasy without magic? The magic here makes you feel like something bigger is going on, that Celaena has a destiny that is only hinted at throughout the book bot not revealed. This aspect will certainly make me want to read the next book. Overall though this review isn’t particularly good, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually done a written one, I’d say the book it’s self is good. It’s not written in a way that makes you want to tattoo the whole thing over your body but the world building is superb, the characters are well fleshed out and the plot all but simple. I think this book definitely deserves the reviews it has gotten. I received this book in ebook form from Netgalley for review. The formatting was terrible on kindle, but the book itself was excellent. Title:  Throne of Glass  Publisher:  Bloomsbury UK & ANZ Pub Date:  August 02, 2012 ISBN:  9781408832332   Author:  Sarah J. Maas  Category:  FICTION - JUVENILE: Action & Adventure (incl. Interactive Adventures): Action & Adventure
-Iona