|Review| "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass | Sara J. Maas | Bloomsbury | Englisch | eBooks | 1,04 € | Kaufen?

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

 The original version was to dominant to listen to it while reading. So I chooses this version and I think it's as amazing as the original one, don't you think?

I feel like I really enjoyed Sarah J. Maas’ kind of writing. It was very fast and full of actions, but she never forgets to write some emotional scenarios. After the first ten pages I truly fall into the world and the story. You can imagine it so great, you can almost see the salt mines, the glass castle and the whole world of Elirea. I loved this high fantasy world and the detailed writing style, because you feel like walking side by side with Calaena in this hilarious world. 

I’m really sure I’m one of the very few people who haven’t read the “throne of glass” Series yet. I never felt in the mood for this book or this world, even if I didn’t really know what it was about. But since I’ve been watching BookTube, a lot of people highly recommended this series to me, and they all were so exciting for the next book to come out. So I also ordered “Heir of Fire”, the third book in the series. But then I realized that I neither have read the first one nor I owned it. That was pretty worse.

But then I bought this book for 1 € on my Kindle and started reading it in the middle of the night. And, oh my goodness, it was gorgeous! 

It’s about this girl named Caleana. Caleana is a assassin, who has killed a lot of people since she started her training at the age of eight. But then she was caught and locked in the salt mines, a sort of prison, where you’ve to reduce salt. There she was tortured and starved nearly to death, but she survived. One day, the crown prince of Elirea come to her, to offer her an tempting offer: The king’s looking for a kind of “royal assassin”. To make the best choice, he wants to start a competition, in which some royal or nearly royal people can sign in a personal “Champion”, which is taking part in this competition. The winner of the competition will be the new royal assassin. And so the prince wants to get a champion, and asks Caleana. Because before she was locked, she was one of the most deadly and dangerous assassin in the world. But who wants to take part in a competition, where you can die an awful dead? Caleana is going to, because the gain is her freedom.

I thinks that sounds a lot like Divergent and the Hunger Games, but you’ll be surprised. Because even if there were some similar things, “Throne of Glass” follows an own and different story. It’s not all about the competition. When we follow Caleanas story, the main part takes places at her character development. We can see how she change, how things change and how she discover a completely different live. There’s also a little romance, of course. But this romance doesn’t plays such an important role, but it’s really cute, and what really impressed me, is the fact, that there’s a love triangle who doesn’t bother me. It kind of belongs to the story and to Caleana. But there’s also a very thrilling and breathtaking story. Because there’s the competition on the one hand, where Champions die or have to leave the competition, on the other hand there’s a riddle Caleana had to solve. But the part I liked most was discovering the world. Currently I’m totally addicted to high fantasy, dystopian or paranormal worlds, and, obviously, “throne of glass” takes places I such a world. I can’t help it, but don’t you think it’s amazing to see how all the things in this world works? What sort of history they have? What laws, policy and bans? What magic sort of creatures, which kind of landscape, which languages? I think this is something incredible interesting! 

So, as you can see, I was really amazed by the world Sara J. Maas created. And the story was very breathtaking, I can’t turn the pages fast enough to continue reading.

But I also very liked the characters. All of them were very near to my heart, because the story I told from different perspectives, so you can see the thoughts of every single character.
 

Caleana was a great protagonist. At the beginning she was a very difficult character, like there wasn’t sympathy from the first view, we didn’t click, but after a little period of time, I started liking her. She was such an interesting character with a incredible hard and sad childhood and training, but she was so strong and fighting. It was so impressing to meet a female character, who wasn’t crying the whole time and depressive. It was great to meet a character like her, someone who wants to survive and to fight for her dreams, no matter she sometimes was kind of “Oh-I-can-do-everything”. She was a kick-ass character who has to learn to show feelings and to let feelings be. So she wasn’t perfect. You just had to like her. I’m really looking forward to go on with the series, because I enjoyed her company and her story so much.

I also very liked the both male protagonists, Chaol and Dorian.
It’s a bit difficult to get Dorian, because he is the crown prince. He’s kind of this standard character. He has to be ready for the throne, he isn’t allowed to choose his wife and, of course, he has a creepy and scary father. Nevertheless, I liked him. He was just adorable and sweet and the way he and Caleana teased each other, it was just cute.

But who I absolutely loved was Chaol. He was just such a interesting character. I mean, you just didn’t get him from the first moment. He has his secrets, he isn’t so intrusive,  it wasn’t like he always had to say something or do something. He was just so calm, but when he starts talking or when we read his thoughts, you can’t help but falling in love with I’m. I was amazed, because he is so lovely and the way he likes and behave to Caleana…it is just awesome.
Added to that I really enjoyed his back round story and his ideas and roles in this book.  You just have to meet him.

About the bad characters I don’t want to say much, also about the other characters in this book. You’ve to discover by yourself on which side they stand. But let me know you: You won’t be sure until the last pages of the book who you can trust. There are amazing, cute, acceptable, but also very bad and creepy character.

Yeah, I’m so happy that I’ve decided to get into this book now. It was a gorgeous  trip into a amazing world. I loved the character, at most Caleana, because I was so interested in her story and her thoughts, but also Chaol stoles my heart with his calm and restrained type. And the world, my goodness, the world was just amazing! I feel like I have traveled by myself to the salt mines, the glass castle, like I have fought Caleanas fights and like I was intended to solve the riddle around the story.

Although there were some little faults in this book, like similar things to other famous books and some predictably things, I would like to give this book 4,5 at a 5 stars, because, even if this book was totally entertaining and I enjoyed every single page, it is the first book in a series and I think there has to be some space for the next books. But all in all I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves fantasy books, or who enjoy thrilling and breathtaking stories told by sympathy characters.

This was the first post for the "Blogging in Englisch"-Challenge. I hope you liked it and that my English didn't disturbed you. I know its pretty bad, but: "I don't care, I love it!"