THRONE OF GLASS by Sarah J. Maas (Review)

STATUS: First (of six) in the Throne of Glass series

AUTHOR: Sarah J. Maas

GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy, Cinderella Retelling, Action-Adventure (maybe)

PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury

LOVE TRIANGLE: Yes – albeit a vague, murky one (*see below for more details)

PAGES: 404

PLOT PREMISE: Celaena Sardothien, also known as Adarlan’s Assassin, has been unexpectedly and mysteriously freed from the labor camp of Endovier by Prince Dorian. He whisks her away back to the castle, telling her she can win her freedom if she serves as his Champion in a 4-month long series of tests to find “The King’s Champion.” Her companions are all relatively unsavory characters – ranging from soldiers to thieves to murderers – but when they start turning up dead, something larger and more sinister seems to be at work. Oh, and there’s also magic at work – which is odd, since the King had magic exiled from the kingdom in a very brutal and bloody way.

Over the summer, I taught a Fantasy Creative Writing Workshop for middle-school students. On the first day, we always discuss what their favorite works of fantasy are, and we make a list on the board of their favorite books and their favorite characters. This summer, “Celaena Sardothien” and the Throne of Glass series were a huge hit and they encouraged me to read the series. So, after spending a tremendous amount of time on the wait-list at the public library for the first book, I did.

And, much as I felt after reading A Court of Thorns and Roses (also by Maas), I was left feeling very disappointed. I could see why my middle-schoolers loved the book, but I just…couldn’t.

Part of this might be due to a “false advertising” situation. Here’s how the middle-schoolers described the book/series to me: “Imagine Cinderella, right? But instead of waiting around, being ordered by her awful family to clean and stuff, she’s a kick-ass assassin. And instead of going to the ball to find a husband, she has to sneak in to assassinate the prince!” Maybe this happens in later books (there are 4/6 published, and I only read the one). But it didn’t happen in the first one.

I went in expecting something along the lines of Cinder or Kristin Cashore’s Graceling series with a strong female protagonist and an intricately developed fantasy world.

Nope.

Ultimately, this is a “Cinderella” retelling and not an assassin story. (I’ll admit I don’t really know what an “assassin story” is, other than that there would be some assassinating going on, but I do know that this isn’t it.) It does take a while to realize that it’s a Cinderella variant (or maybe I was just being dense/in denial), but I think that’s ultimately what soured on me on the story: it’s not that it was bad, it’s just not what I was expecting and wanting.  

First and foremost—despite being referred to as “the assassin” and “Adarlan’s Assassin” repeatedly, there is very little in this book that indicates that Celaenda is anything but a spoiled, whiny, and vain girl. It was very hard for me to view her as not only a sympathetic character, but also as one who deserved the reputation that Maas worked so hard to ascribe to her. There are several prequel novellas which, based on their titles, seem to cover Celaena’s pre-prison years, but the reader isn’t offered any glimpse into Celaena’s past in this first book, so it’s quite difficult to view her as the hardened assassin she’s supposed to be. Which…if that information is revealed in novellas, so be it, but to not have any of that information in the first book seems a bit ineffective to me. It’s an egregious instance of “telling, not showing.” I don't see  Celaena as an assassin, I’m just told she is one.

This is also not helped by Celaena’s obsessive preoccupation with her appearance and fashion. For example:

“She’d forgotten there was anyone else in the room. She looked at her rags and stained skin, and she couldn’t suppress the twinge of shame. What a miserable stat  for a girl of former beauty!
At a passing glance, one might think her eyes blue or gray, perhaps even green, depending on the color of her clothing. Up close, though, these warring hues were offset by the brilliant ring of gold around her pupils. But it was her golden hair that caught the attention of most, hair that still maintained a glimmer of its glory. In short, Celaena Sardothien was blessed with a handful of attractive features that compensated for the majority of average ones; and by early adolescence, she’d discovered that with the help of cosmetics, these average features could easily match the extraordinary assets.” (8-9)

“She was cheerful—jubilant, really—and her mood improved when the servants coiled her hair onto the back of her head and dressed in a surprisingly fine riding habit that concealed her miserably thin form. She loved clothes, loved the feeling of silk, of velvet, of satin, of suede and chiffon—and was fascinated by the grace of seams, the intricate perfection of an embossed surface. And when she won this ridiculous competition, when she was free…she could buy all the clothes she wanted.”

“It had been a week since the duel. Philippa was already busy with the task of cleaning out Celaena’s closet to accommodate more clothing. All the clothing Celaena planned to buy when she was free to venture into Rifthold and do some shopping for herself, once she had her outrageous salary as King’s Champion.”

This is not to say that being a deadly assassin and having an interest in fashion are mutually exclusive: but, without any attention paid to Celaena’s more “active” skills, this focus on finery and fashion seems frivolous, and does little to endear her to me. Buying dresses is what’s she dreaming about when she gets her freedom?

MAYBE this would have been okay if there had been some focus on Celaena as the kick-ass-assassin—but there is very little of that. For one thing, all the tests and trials that the various champions must perform are tests of skills, not fights to the death. This means they’re largely “races to the finish” in which competitor is eliminated due to his below-average performance. Yes, some competitors do die during the tasks, but this is handled very summarily. And, on top of this, if Celaena’s true identity as “Adarlan’s Assassin” were known, she would become the focus of sabotage, and everyone would try to knock her out early (based solely on her reputation). So, Prince Dorian’s (brilliant and not-at-all-flimsy) solution is to introduce Celaena as a jewel thief under a false identity and have her perform okay throughout the competition and then WOW them all at the end. So, not only do magic and drugs intervene at the end to deny us that “Wow” moment, but we have a “barely competent” assassin for most of the novel.

Which is okay, because most of the tests are described in one or two lines and are glossed over in light of more “interesting” plot events (i.e., fashion and the Ball and romance). For example:

“It had been over three weeks since her last encounter with Elena, and she hadn’t seen or heard her at all, despite the three Tests she’d had, the most exciting of which being an obstacle course, which she passed with only a few minor scratches and bruises. Unfortunately, Pelor hadn’t done so well, and had been sent home at long last. But he’d been lucky: three other competitors had died. […] She shoved thoughts of the murders aside as they strode past a fountain and she caught Dorian giving her an admiring glance from the corner of his eye. Of course she hadn’t been thinking of Dorian when she chose such a fine lavender gown to wear tonight, or when she made sure her hair was so carefully arranged or that her white gloves were spotless.” (264-265) 

“Amidst her worrying, another Test passed without incident or embarrassment—though she couldn’t say the same for the soldier who’d been sent home—and she kept up her intense training with Choal and the other Champions. There were five of them left now.”

There are 16 or so trials (one a week for four months) and around 30 champions – why have that many, if you’re just going to gloss over them so quickly? You could easily decrease the number of tests as well as the number of competitors if you didn’t want to describe so many. After all, I would think that in a book about surviving tests and trials to win your freedom and become the King’s Champion, THAT would be the focus – but compare the one or two lines above to the paragraph spent describing Celaena’s dress for the ball:

“It was not pure white, but rather a grayish offset, and its wide skirts and bodice were encrusted with thousands of miniscule crystals that reminded Celaena of the surface of the sea. Swirls of silk thread on the bodice made rose-like designs that could have passed for a work by any master painter. A border of ermine lined the neck and provided slender sleeves that only covered her shoulders. Tiny diamond droplets fell from her ears, and her hair was curled and swept up onto her head, strands of pearls woven in. Her gray silk mask had been secured tightly against her face. It wasn’t fashioned after anything, but the delicate crystal and pearl whorls had been crafted by a skilled hand.” (285) 

All of this just makes me feel like this wasn’t meant to be a book about a strong assassin – indeed, there’s even some mention of how Celaena was forced into playing that role to survive, and it’s not a profession she chose willingly (but without more backstory, I can’t say – I can only wonder why it’s even necessary) – but rather a fluffy romance with more emphasis on a Cinderella plot than a well-constructed fantasy world.

First—yes, Maas is playing with the Cinderella story, and she even adds a love triangle, because all good YA stories must  have a love triangle. (No, they really don’t; it just seems that way.) Celaena garners the attention of both Prince Dorian and Captain Choal Westfall (I have no idea how to say his first name), but seems only mildly interested in either of them. To be fair, that’s appropriate: she’s supposed to be fighting for her freedom here. But, on the flip side, there is entirely too much textual space devoted to making googly eyes at the men, and dressing to impress and delight them, and lots of midnight rendezvous. (No, really. Dorian even teaches Celaena how to play pool, and stands seductively behind her and shows her how to hold the cue.) You would think that a girl who’s been imprisoned in a labor camp for a year would be devoted to training, honing her skills, and getting her strength back, not reading in the library, playing with puppies, and flirting.

[Disclaimer: I have nothing against reading in the library, playing with puppies, or flirting. But these are not how I would expect an assassin to be occupying her free time.]

Second—Maas clearly has the intentions of a larger story, which we get hints of throughout this first book. There’s Celaena’s backstory itself, only minimally revealed. There’s the evil King who’s worked to stamp magic out of his kingdoms and conquer the entire land. There’s the exotic and mysterious Princess Nehemia, a rebel sympathizer. There’s the allegedly-dead-but-maybe-not-quite ghostly Elena (who might have made a far more interesting protagonist) who visits Celaena and speaks to the mythology underpinning the work. There’s the also-evil Duke Perrington with his mysterious black ring and ability to (magically) control the physical and mental state of his victims.  There’s A LOT going on – and lot of interesting stuff going on. But way too much for one book – especially when there’s the love triangle and the trials and the ball. I understand setting up future books and the whole foreshadowing thing, but there was just so much going on that some things (e.g. magic, evil forces, fantasy world history ) just seemed haphazard and some other things just felt rushed through (e.g. the trials).

Having read two of Maas’ books this summer and not been enamored with either of them, I have to say that I’m perfectly content to leave the Throne of Glass series behind. While I know the story isn’t finished, and I might return to it at some point,  there are just too many other books on my TBR list that are calling out for my attention.