Reading With Tyler

Name: Throne of Glass
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Author: Sarah J Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Format: Kindle
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Noted Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Love Triangle
Steam or Spice: None

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Review:

This was part of x2 Challenges for 2025 – 12 Books to Read as well as the SJM Second Chance challenge (the second of which will go live on the blog in a week or so!). I will update the challenges accordingly! Onto the review…

I read Throne of Glass once before back in I think 2012 right around the time it was first published. I have very few memories of that first read through nor my thoughts on the book… but it stuck with me that I really enjoyed Throne of Glass. That was what made my giving up on this series all the more painful. I knew I’d enjoyed book 1 but book 2 wasn’t as good as then I could never get more than a few chapters into book 3… 2025 is the year I’m determined to read this series!

Let me begin with, I quickly got hooked in to Throne of Glass. First of all, it’s about a bunch of noble men / council members choosing champions to compete for the honour (?) of being the King’s Champion (the one who does the dirty work I suppose). The competition sounded wonderful! Not only that, but Maas quickly starts weaving plot hooks around and my ‘wannabe detective’ brain was starting to put red string between different things mentioned and shown and I was having a brilliant time while reading Throne of Glass. Truly.

I was buddy reading this with my fiancé and he mentioned that as he’s re-reading the book he’s spotting things he didn’t pay too much attention to the first time round, but is now as he has the knowledge of the rest of the series – this has me very excited! I’m looking forward to seeing which of the plots hooks I noticed stick around and become important later one!

I really liked Celaena, I liked her attitude and the history of hers we were being given – all of this leads me to believe she’s a badass and I’m excited for more of her. We’re missing a bit of the assassin fire I was hoping for, but I suppose all things considered she isn’t exactly being an assassin whilst competing to becomes the King’s Champion. We’re drop fed tidbits about Celaena throughout Throne of Glass that have me excited to see where Maas takes her – I think there is a lot of room for Character DEvelopment with her! She’s great.

I also loved Princess Nehemia (affectionatley called Nehemena because for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to say her name at first and now Nehemena is stuck in my head and so even though I know how to pronounce her name, she now has a forever nickname…). Without giving out spoilers, I love the different versions of her we see throughout just this one book! I really hope she’s a returning character and not just thrown away or forgotten because she’s brilliant.

Now let’s talk about the men… First up, because we meet him first, Captain Chaol… Damn I liked Chaol. I was on board with the idea of Celaena and Chaol right up until he sort of back tracked on everything he’d been saying and started getting anxious about Celaena one day maybe having her freedom. It felt weird and I didn’t very much like that. I’m pretty sure Chaol is a character that sticks around, and so I’m hoping he improves in the coming books!

Next is Prince Dorian and I loved him. He reminded me a lot of Maxon in The Selection mixed with another Prince character I couldn’t quite (and still can’t) identify – I have a feeling it’s the Prince in Cinder but I can’t quite remember (this tells me I need to re-read that series this year!). I really like Dorian and though I’m not exactly his biggest fan, I do love him and Celaena and think they are a great pair.

This love triangle was something I was excited for, but it doesn’t really ever feel like it took off properly. I thought on a few different occassions it was going to (and some of my favourite moments were these!), but ultimately I don’t feel like it ever did. That was a bit of a let down – but it is only book one in the series so I can forgive that! There are plenty more pages to be read.

Overall, I knew I enjoyed Throne of Glass the first time round. I did enjoy it the second time round. I only hope I can keep up this enjoyment and make it through the rest of the series! So far it has been a good time! I’m assured that I will continue to have a great time.

“…if they tried to take her from him, he’d rip the world apart with his bare hands. And for some reason, that didn’t terrify him.”