The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass #0.1-0.5) Review
14:00
By Sarah J. Maas
Source: Personal purchase, paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy,
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
Wow. My breathing is still so uneven after this book. Sarah J Maas’ writing is so vivid, it really hits me so hard. My emotions are really wild after this book, and - to be honest - only Queen of Shadows can fill the Celaena shaped hole in my heart. I just know I am going to have a massive book hangover after this!
Because it’s split up into 5 novellas/ short stories, I thought I wasn’t going to enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the others, but in actual fact, I enjoyed it much more than Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight. The individual stories followed so well together, it didn’t feel at all disjointed. It was really smooth, and was just like reading one long book, not 5 short ones.
The Assassin and the Pirate Lord - 5/5 ~ This was a great way to open the book. I loved all the action, and it was amazing to see Celaena be as badass as usual. I also really enjoyed seeing Celaena and Sam’s relationship change. We saw much more development in this book, and I really enjoyed it.
The Assassin and the Healer - 4/5 ~ This novella was much more slow-moving at the start, so I didn’t begin to enjoy it as much. Though, it did soon pick up, and once it did, Celaena was being as great as usual. It was a lot shorter than all of the others, so I read it quite quickly. It didn’t really make a difference to the overall story, but I still enjoyed it a lot.
The Assassin and the Desert - 4.5/5 ~ I really enjoyed this story. We saw a different side to Celaena - which I loved - and it was really exciting and fast paced too. It had lots of plot twists which I didn’t see coming, and I was hooked throughout.
The Assassin and the Underworld - 5/5 ~ This one was so cute! In this novella, we saw much more of Sam (which I loved!), and how his relationship with Celaena developed. They’re so cute together, I need all the Sam + Celaena (what’s their ship name?) I can get! It was really fun to read
The Assassin and the Empire - 5/5 ~ I loved the romance in this one (Team Sam forever!), along with everything else in it. One of my favourite aspects was that the sad part wasn’t dragged out. I knew what was coming from reading Throne of Glass before hand, so it would have just annoyed me if it was just trying to make us cry. Also, Celaena was still really badass, even though she was dealing with a lot, and I really liked that aspect.
Overall, this was an amazing book. I love the series so much more now, which I didn’t even know was possible! If you’re thinking of starting the Throne of Glass series, I would recommend reading this first - I think you will definitely enjoy the others more if you do. I just need Queen of Shadows now!
My reaction:
My rating:
Hello! I'm D - a dog-loving feminist from the UK. You'll probably find me with my nose in a book or playing my clarinet
2 comments
Queen of Shadows can't come soon enough, honestly. This collection of novellas was so good too and I feel like the worst/best is that we knew what was going to happen beforehand and that just made everything that much more painful.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it really was! I do wish I'd read this before Throne of Glass (because this was published when I read ToG) as then I wouldn't have known what was going to happen. Hurry up September for Queen of Shadows! :)
DeleteThanks for the comment too
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