Book Review: Throne of Glass

Title:  Throne of Glass
Author:  Sarah J Maas
Where I got it:  From NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review

Amazon Summary:

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

My Thoughts:
Just looking at the cover of this book, I really wasn’t expecting it to the the action and snarked pack delight that it ended up being, and I’m really happy that I listened to all the hype in this case and bumped this one up on my TBR pile – assassins rock!

Celeana is a fantastic heroine – she’s smart, witty, strong, and independent.  I adored her within seconds of starting the book, and completely knew I would never, ever want to end up on her bad side if she walked off the pages and into my life.  Not kidding, this chick is impressive. 

Anyway, she’s pulled out of the labor camp to play champion to the Crown Prince in a huge competition for her freedom.  What choice does she have but to play along and kick some competitor butt, right?  But as the competition goes on, she realizes that there’s more to the castle than meets the eye, and something strange and deadly is lurking.

My only complaint about this book is that I can be a little vicious at times, and I really wanted in on more of the competitor action.  As the plot thickened, we saw a lot more character development, and the action scenes decreased a bit, which made me sad.  I wanted to know more about awesome bad-ass assassin moves.  Other than that, there is absolutely nothing to be complained about in this book, and I am dancing around with my fingers crossed hoping for a sequel.