Throne of Glass Series: Review.

Hulu is set to develop Queen of Shadows based on Sarah J. Maas’ Throne of Glass series. I have conflicted feelings about the news. I am worried that they would make a huge mess of the entire series and destroy it. But I am also a little bit happy because FINALLY more people will hear about this series and read the books … so I will have more people to talk to about Throne of Glass. (I somewhat feel like I am the only member of ToG Fandom in Kota Kinabalu and I am this close to shoving the books down my reader friends’s throats~!)

Throne of Glass is a massive series. It took me over a year to finish the entire series well partly because of the last one was just released last month. Once I started the first book, I couldn’t stop until I finished the fifth book. It was that good. I have never been so enamoured with a series I actually joined a fansite (or rather an FB group) just so I could talk about the books with other people (that I don’t know). Okay, I lied. I am also a massive Game of Thrones nerd but that is another story.

This series has seven books in total, this includes the prequel which you can read at any point after reading the first book :

0. The Assassin’s Blade – A collection of prequel stories, including four novellas: The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, The Assassin and the Healer, The Assassin and the Desert, The Assassin and the Underworld, The Assassin and the Empire.
1. Throne of Glass
2. Crown of Midnight
3. Queen of Shadows
4. Empire of Storms
5. Tower of Dawn
6. Kingdom of Ash

The book follows Celaena Sardothien, a teenage assassin who was sent to serve a sentence in the terrible salt mines of Endovier alongside a large population of Eyllwe rebels, where she wasted away into madness. Stripped of her hair and clothes, she is chained and whipped with the others, although special care was taken to ensure her wounds never closed as salt was rubbed into her lashes. The Eyllwe prisoners took turns every night to clean her back along with the other wounded. Celaena snapped on the anniversary of her parents’ murder and killed the four Overseers in addition to twenty others in the Salt Mines. She later revealed that it was a suicide attempt. Following that event, upon figuring out how deadly she can be even when she was chained and did not have any weapon on her, she was offered freedom in return for four years in the service of the malicious King of Adarlan, Celaena accepted right away. In the beginning, seemingly, her only obstacle was to prove that she was worthy of becoming the King’s Assassin (which she did by the way) but there was more to the story than what it appeared to be at first.

I love how writers could build an entire new world in a book and somehow made their readers care about this world and the people around it. The first book was just a story about an assassin going against an evil king… and it grew from there. More characters were added and more secrets and stories began to unfold. In the end, it can be a series that can rival the even the complexity of Game of Thrones (Okay, maybe not GoT but close). The details and planning were amazing and it made me wonder about the mind behind these books.. how she was able to weave intricate details into the story and then unravel these details bit by bit – it’s pretty mind-blowing! Sarah J. Maas is a master at dropping subtle little hints at the beginning of her series and then revealing how things are connected several books later! It was crazy to think of all the planning that went into this massive series… and to make it even more impressive, she even wrote other series in between of publishing ToG books (GRRM, please take note). Like I said, crazy!

I think this series did not get the reviews it deserves. This is the main reason why I wanted to write this review in the first place. I think this book series have received quite a number of unfair reviews over the years because most of the reviews are based on the first book (Throne of Glass) and people were commenting about how juvenile it was and was comparing it to Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse books! But let me tell you this, they judged the series way to fast and they should’ve given it a chance. Bear in mind Sarah J. Maas was only 16 when she first wrote the first book and I promise you… the series sort of grew with her.

The series have a rather small fan base. Expect it to get bigger if they managed to pull off the TV Adaptation. The Mark Gordon Co’s Mark Gordon and Nick Pepper will executive produce with Snyder and Foerster. I don’t want to get my hopes up but Snyder’s writing credits include on of my favourite book adaptation, The Handmaid’s Tale, so I guess Queen of Shadows is in good hands.

But forget about the TV Series, these are the reasons why LOVE the series:

• Strong badass female protagonist!
• It’s seven books long and in a good way. Reading the entire series was like going to another universe!
• Long series, therefore you have plenty of time to get to know all the characters and connect with them emotionally. Remember how you felt when you read Harry Potter… kind of like that.
• Believable and memorable characters.
• Celaena is the most anti-hero hero I’ve ever met in a book. I have a feeling that I will not like her in real life. She’s as flawed as a human can be but I simply love her in the books.
• One of the most detailed fantasy world ever built in a book (dragons, fae warriors, small folks, realms, khaganate, ruks, wyverns, witches, ancient curse)
• Cameos from SJM’s other series.

I am really sad that the series is over. Nursing a serious Maas Hangover! But I guess all good stories must come to an end. I am looking forward to read Maas’ future works. In the meantime, I guess I’ll find new books to obsess about…. Do you have a cure for a massive book series hangover? Care to share them with me?