Series: Throne of Glass #0.1-0.5
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: Hardcover, 435 pages
Goodreads Summary
Contains all five novellas.Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan's most feared assassin. As part of the Assassin's Guild, her allegiance is to her master, Arobynn Hamel, yet Celaena listens to no one and trusts only her fellow killer-for-hire, Sam. In these action-packed novellas - together in one edition for the first time - Celaena embarks on five daring missions. They take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, where she fights to liberate slaves and seeks to avenge the tyrannous. But she is acting against Arobynn's orders and could suffer an unimaginable punishment for such treachery. Will Celaena ever be truly free? Explore the dark underworld of this kick-ass heroine to find out
It is no secret that I love this series! I think its a beautifully crafted fantasy world with outstanding characters along with a attention gripping plot. I just love this series so much. So, it should be no surprise to anyone that I read this book as soon as it came out (Pssst, this is a really late review). I loved this collection of novellas! It was amazing!
One thing that surprised me very much when I went into this was how this novel flowed like a book, even though it technically has five short stories in it. Each story relates to one another. The past one effects the events happening in the one you are reading. So, each novella connects to one another, making it read like a full book, not a collection of novellas. I loved this, because it made it feel like one big story instead of five smaller ones.
The novellas themselves where also wonderful! While they worked beautifully as a unit, if you look at the individually each one has its own plot. Even though each one continued Celaena's story where the others left off at they still felt like their own story. I really appreciated this because then if you just read them separately on an e-reader out of order, you would still get a full story.
What I loved most about this was the information we get. We get to see events played out that were only briefly mentioned in the first two books; events that shaped Celaena to be the person we see in those two books. This was both wonderful and heartbreak to read about. We get to see important parts of Celaena's past, which is wonderful because it allows us as readers to know Celaena better and it gave her more depth. However, it is also heartbreaking because we know how it ends and we can't stop it. We also get to see characters that are kind of huge in the first two books but are never shown. Like Sam and Arobynn. It was really interesting to read this characters.
Besides all of the depth that is given to Celaena's characters, it was just plain cool to see how her life was before the salt mines. In the other books all that is told about her life before the prison is that she was one of the greatest assassin's and she worked in Arobynn's guild. But with these stories we really get to see how her life was, which was amazing!!
So, this is a wonderful collection of the Throne of Glass Novellas!! All the stories flowed together as a unit and still retained their own plots. The characters were, as usual, were fantastically written. Each had so much depth and felt so real. I loved this book so much, not only because of all the information we get on Celaena, but also because I was able to go back into this world. I would recommend to any lover of this series.
Side Note: I would suggest reading the first two books before reading these novellas. This book just gives so much background info and depth to the characters that I don't think a reader would fully appropriate unless they read the first two books.
This book got...
4.5 Butterflies
Beautiful, this is a great book!
Happy reading
Interesting, I've had people suggest reading the novellas before the books so that you are convinced of Celaena's kick-butt nature since the books don't emphasize that as much. I enjoyed Throne of Glass but had some trouble believing Celaena was really the best assassin ever ya know? I haven't read the second book yet and was thinking of reading these between. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the novellas. I don't read novellas that often and most times they are hit or miss for me. But this is a series that I've been wanting to read for quite some time. Great review :)
ReplyDeleteJanina @ Synchronized Reading
I can understand that, it's the same way for me. Sometimes novellas are just to short and not enough is said or they aren't written well. So far me I either really love a novella or really dislike it.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't read this one I would highly encourage you to pick up this series soon! Or maybe wait a bit closer to the Heir of Fire release date because the second one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.
Thank you :D
I can see what you mean, the novellas do really enforce her kick-buttness. However, the novellas aren't focused solely on that. They also give a lot of background info on Celaena and her life before Throne of Glass. Which is why I suggested reading this after at least book one, because for me reading background info that adds depth to a character is so much more rewarding when you have the character already in your mind. But that's just me.
ReplyDeleteAs for reading this before book two, it would kind of be a coin toss. This does add a lot of reinforcement to her amazing assassin skills, but so does book two. There's a scene in the middle of book two when she takes out at least 15-20 armed guards without breaking a sweat. But my opinion is, if your doubting her fighting skills I would suggest reading this one, or at least The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, before book two because it does kind of take a while to get to the kick-butt scene in Crown of Midnight.