Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas {Thoughts On}

Title: Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)
Author: Sarah J. Maas (website)(Twitter)
Pages: 406 pages 
Source: library
Publication Date: March 30, 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Rating: 4 of 5....excellent!

Summary from Goodreads:

Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?
*****

This is a perfect example of a book that I'd pick up because of a good cover. The first one isn't something that I'd think I'd like but the second one...yes please! I'm glad I got this one for my Kindle because I didn't want to put it down and I was able to read it way longer into the night on there. 

Celaena is an awesome badass character and I loved that. Her wit was awesome. She went through terrible things in her short life but she made such an effort to keep living and being happy. That was great. So many times books don't allow the character to still be happy.

I enjoyed the scenes where the Champions were training for the big to-the-death match. It was my favorite part of the book. I could completely picture her training with the different weapons in my mind. 

I'm not sure how I feel about the romance because it seemed a bit all over the place and I couldn't decide just who I was rooting for. It was sort of a triangle but not really and I was just confused. I'm looking forward to how the characters interact in the next book.

The world building was wonderful. I love being able to feel like I'm actually there and Maas did an outstanding job with that. From the flashback scenes in Endovier to the scenes around the castle, it was well developed and awesome.

The only issue I had was that the ending felt a bit rushed. After spending so much time in that world, it seemed to end awfully fast. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in Crown of Midnight.