Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Book Title: Throne of Glass

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Genres: Fantasy (YA)

My Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Goodreads, Amazon UK

Goodreads Summary: 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?

What did I think? Sarah J. Maas has been on my radar for a while now, but I don't like having to wait for too long for the next book in a series, so I stayed away. Especially A Court of Thorns and Roses sounds amazing. Kind of silly really, because I tend to start a whole bunch of series at the same time anyway instead of sticking with the ones I started. I compulsively jump onto new books; I can't help it.

I've noticed that the last Throne of Glass book will be out soon-ish, so I thought it's time to dive in. To sum it up: boy, was this great!

I have some beef with it, of course. LOVE TRIANGLE. Why must thou follow me into every YA book? I can't stand love triangles, but at least this one is done reasonably well and I would actually be happy if the protagonist ended up with either of them.

The other thing? Uhm, if Celaena would spend less time obsessing about clothes, looks, reputation and whether or not the prince finds her hot, I might actually believe she's a deadly assassin? And the very best? Because so far, I'm not convinced.

Aside from these points I loved it. Throne of Glass has everything: fantasy (whilst it's technically high fantasy, it's definitely not for die-hard fantasy fans, because it's much more YA than fantasy), mystery, magic, humor and banter. I'm hoping the world will get fleshed out a bit more in the next few books. It's an intriguing set-up thus far but definitely needs more substance.

But, please, please, don't sell it as ASOIAF for women? This has nowhere near the complexity of Martin's world, at least not yet. And us women can take ASOIAF without needing a protagonist that obsesses over clothes.