Book: Throne of Glass by Sarah J Mass

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Summary (Including Spoilers):

Celaena Sardothien is a highly respected and powerful 18 year old assassin that was captured by the King of Adarlan and forced into the Endovier salt mines to work as a slave. A year later, the crown prince of Adarlan, Dorian Havilliard (19) and his bestfriend - also known as the captain of the guard - Chaol (22) - offers her a deal. She needs to work as the King's assassin for four years and thereafter receive her freedom; but there's a catch. She first needs to compete in a competition against 24 other people; be it assassins, thieves or even murders; and win in order to gain access to the position of the Kings assassin. Celeana, much to her dismay, agrees.

During the competition; Chaol and Dorian decide that its best that Celaena hide her identity to protect herself as well as in the hopes that the other competitors will undermine her and not look at her as a threat and all the while she trains with Chaol in order to gain back her strength.

We're introduced to a princess - Nehemia - who is rumored to be a rebel sympathizer. (She's hella badass and strong and beautiful). Nehemia and Celaena become really good friends, they also tutor one another in each others languages and its such a cute friendship. We also meet one of the competitors, Nox - a handsome thief - who becomes an ally.

Regardless of all of the drama going on, Celaena and Dorian become really good friends and we see Dorian catching feelings very early in the book. Their friendship is very cute because they get along so so well and its never awkward or uncomfortable when they're together. Their book sharing scenes are so cute. Lowkey shipped them in the beginning.

But I also really enjoyed Dorians character as a whole. He's so different compared to everyone else in the court and he has a very gentle and calming aura but it fits to more of a best friend role than anything. I hope that he can overtake his father and lead the people of Adarlan in the right way and right all of the wrongs that his father committed. Also it would be very cute is he and Nehemiah get together, they'd be such a power couple.

Throughout the competitions many of the competitors are found dead, either before or after, in the most horrible, gruesome ways. Celaena eventually finds out that one of the competitors - Cain, summoned a ridderak - whose master takes on the strength of all of those that it kills. Cain orders it to kill Celaena but she ends up killing it somehow and ends up with a really bad injury and is then found unconscious by Nehemia - who heals her back to health with the help of Wyrdmarks. Eventually, Nehemia reveals that she's a spy for the rebels and knows how to read Wyrdmarks and that she's also been protecting Celaena with them.

Other than literally ALL of that, Celaena finds a secret door in her room that leads to an underground tunnel. One night she has a dream about Queen Elena (Fae) that gifts her with a necklace, claiming that it will protect her. She tells Celaena to become the kings champion and to destroy the 'evil that was lurking the castle' (that could literally mean anything so thanks for the useless advice miss Elena). But regardless, Celaena wakes up with the necklace, confused as hell.

Throughout the story we see Celaena's' relationship with both Dorian and Chaol improving. You can tell that Celaena feels an attraction for both of them and they feel the same way for her but Chaol is too closed off to admit to anything. So Dorian and Celaena have a few moments with one another but nothing really definite, he also gifts her a puppy - Fleefoot - whose absolutely adorable but by the end of the book they break things off when she's appointed as the Kings assassin.

SO Dorian and Celaena feel an attraction to one another BUT Chaol also likes her and I feel like she likes him as well but doesn't realize it as yet. This drama is not okay because Chaol and Dorian are besties and I don't like besties up against one another. Chaol and Celaena's relationship is also very cute because they're training together and they're sort of friends but its all very frustrating.

Thoughts:

Regarding the love interest:

Chaol is someone that I definitely ship with Celaena. Their relationship is very new and things are still really fragile and its fun to watch (or read) because they both obviously like one another but neither would admit that to themselves, let alone to anyone else. Chaol is the type of person that would notice every detail about a person without them realizing it and he falls in love with those small things and I love that. He's so much fun to tease and I just KNOW that he blushes for the smallest of things and its honestly adorable. I just have NO IDEA HOW TO PRONOUNCE HIS NAME!!!

DORIAN IS SO CUTE AND SOFT AND GENTEL AND I JUST WANNA HUG HIM!! Dorian wears his heart out on his sleeve and that's something that I, personally, really admire about him. Because his father is a literal tyrant and his brother also seems really sus and horrible, I love that he's so much different compared to them. He's screaming at someone to see him for who he really is without saying anything at all but everyone only sees him as his fathers son or as the prince. I feel like there's just so much more to him than what we've seen in this book.

I really really liked Dorian's and Celaena's friendship, it was so beautiful and cute and precious and maybe that's why I initially wanted them together but I feel like they would rather make really good friends and that it should stay that way. I know that Dorian really likes her but, honestly, Celaena seems like the kind of person that is very easy to love and so is Dorian. That's probably why they make such good friends. I kind of REALLLY REALLY hope that Dorian over throws his father and rights all of his wrongs and just makes Adarlan better but I'm honestly really concerned regarding him because there's six other books and I know getting my hopes up like this is dangerous. Also, it'd be really nice to see Dorian and Nehemia get together and become badass ,cute, strong and beautiful rulers. But again, my imagination is just running wild.

Also to add onto why Celaena and Dorian are probably not going to happen again; the writing regarding Dorians importance sort of faded out throughout the book. In the beginning, he was written as someone that we all thought would be the main male protagonist but then that focus slowly shifted towards Chaol. I'm not sure where or when the shift happened or if it was just how I went about reading it, but it was very noticeable.

Regarding the plot:

I really enjoyed the book as a whole but I feel like too much happened all at once. We were bombarded with so much information and we needed time to process what was actually happening.

Celaena is such a beautiful and complex character. She's literally JUST a child and she's already been through so much. I feel like we don't know enough about her as yet because we were placed right in the middle of her story and her recovery and we only got a snippet of her past but regardless of all of that her spirit and her entire being is what drew me in. At the moment her emotions are all over the place because there's also so much happening to her all at once and she's also trying to fight and gain her freedom so I'm glad that the romance was kept to a minimum in this book - even though I basically live on romance. What's the most important is her recovery and I want her to just be able to deal with her own emotions before someone else barging into her life and demanding anything else from her. She deserves so much more than that. Also SHE MIGHT BE FAE!!! So that's really exciting and I cannot wait for all of that to play into everything else. I cannot wait to learn more about her and her life and just see how everything turns out.