I make it a point to read books that my students recommend to me. Overall, I’m grateful. Because of my students, I have read (and enjoyed) Wild and Room, as well as a smattering of other books. I had a rocky start with an online class at the beginning of the semester, but there was a major reconciliation that helped it continue smoothly, and one thing that happened was that a student mentioned that she was a major fan of Sarah J. Maas. I saw an opening and asked for a recommendation. She suggested I start with Throne of Glass. And so I did.
Celaena Sardothien is the world’s most feared assassin as a teenaged girl until she is captured and sent to a cruel salt mine as punishment. The king recants this punishment, however, when he seeks a champion. His son, Prince Dorian, hunts down Celaena and convinces her to try out to become the King’s Champion in a competition of 24 individuals. Reluctantly, she agrees. And in the midst of the competition, she stumbles into a dangerous and scary mystery that threatens her life, and the entire kingdom’s future.
At first, I was highly skeptical of the book. It sort of felt like Mary-Sue-meets-The Hunger Games, and the writing was fairly meh at first. But then, I got sucked into the story as the competitors started dying off in strange ways. Once Maas found her story, she really grew into her writing. She left off some of the clichés and descripty bits that didn’t add up to much and grew more focused on just telling us what was happening. I’m still a little skeptical about Celaena as a protagonist. But, um, I’m embarrassingly on Team Dorian in a way that I did not expect. I suspect there are shades of Veronica Mars’s Logan Echolls about him, and we all know I am about that man, for good or for bad. So, I’ll probably read Book 2 in 2018, is what I’m saying. This wasn’t my favorite thing that I read, but it was certainly entertaining, and there is something to be said for that.
Cross-posted to my blog.
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