Throne of Glass Ch. 1-2

Our new book this time around is a blast from Catherine's Past.

I'm talking about THRONE OF GLASS.

First things first, I'm pretty sure the cover artist was all like "Huh.. we need a pretty blonde chick as a model for this...

"The author is a pretty blonde chick...

"let's give her gross eyebrows and call it a day!"

I'm not even kidding, take a look at the author's photo compared to this cover and be baffled with me.

As if we needed another reminder that the protagonist is a self-insert. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't see anything wrong with self-inserts as a rule. I myself write a ton of protagonists who are short, tiny people with long hair who like to sing, and most of them are girls! But the protag in this book, from what I've read in reviews, is the insufferable Mary Sue of the early 2000's.

I read this story on fictionpress waaaaaay back when the author first published it. I was probably around 15 (the author was 16) and I thought it was super cool except for the fact that the protagonist seemed kinda high school girly for a hardened assassin (and a couple years later then created one of my most badass characters who happened to be an assassin as well but who was significantly emotionally damaged by what she went through in her life). Apparently the author didn't take my tactic of 'BURY FREAKING EVERYTHING' from my high school writing years and didn't rewrite much of this book.

So this is going to be interesting.

Chapter One

The book opens with a map, and I'm kind of ambivalent about it since the entire first book pretty much takes place in the castle, but whatever. It's fantasy. You're going to get maps.

We find out in the first sentence that Celaena (I'm going to call her Cel probably from now one because I don't want to type out her name because I"m a lazy dork) has been a slave in the salt mines for a year. We also find out that she has an extra half-dozen guards because she's so dangerous.

Some dude in a black hood is taking her through a building (a shining building no less) in a very circuitous route supposedly so she wouldn't know her way around. Unless the building is like a maze I'm not sure how useful that is. Even just seeing a window should orient someone who knows what they're doing, as a trained assassin would be.

As if she'd lose her bearings that easily. She might have been insulted if he wasn't trying so hard.

By all means, woman, be insulted. The dude is an idiot.

The hooded dude who is an idiot is Chaol, Captain of the Royal Guard, and I remember rooting for him to get with Cel way back in the day. Now that I'm older and wiser I"m just like "what." I still have no idea how to pronounce his name, btw. I always wanted to say "Chole" with the ch like in nachos.

I love nachos.

But her ears had pricked when he'd introduced himself to her overseer as Chaol Westfall, Captain of the Royal Guard, a nd suddenly, the sky loomed, the mountains pushed from behind, and even the earth swelled toward her knees.

What the actual fuck is that supposed to mean.

Celaena examined the gloved hand holding her arm. The dark leather almost matched the dirt on her skin

What the hell, she wasn't coal mining. Sure she'd be dirty but not like, coated in mud dirty.

BTW this is what the wall of a salt mine looks like:

 She makes the comment to herself that she was frightfully pale beneath the dirt. You know, PALE LIKE THE SALT SHE'S MINING. Also that she used to be beautiful. Cool.

Also, Chaol has an amazingly dark hood because Cel can't see anything when she looks into it. Do you know how hard that is to do? Like, the Ringwraiths had the advantage that they were servants of the Dark Lord Sauron, but most of the time the hood just kind of droops in your face and you still get to see their chin and mouth like in Assasin's Creed or whatever.

"Nothing," she said, shrugging. He let out a low growl of annoyance.

Oh, it'd be nice to see his blood spill across the marble. She'd lost her temper once before . . .

She could disarm two of these guards in a heartbeat. 

Get used to that kind of talk because it happens a lot. To the point where you want to tell Cel to just get over herself already.

Anyway, Cel remarks in third person narration about how she could escape if she wanted to. She asks Chaol where they're going but he doesn't reply and she clenches her jaw. Because how dare he not tell her. I don't know.

Once again she thinks about how it's not a good time to attack him because the halls echoed too much, she didn't see where he put the key, and the 6 guards were nuisances. The shackles are an after thought. This kind of narration might be interesting if it didn't pop up three times on a page and she doesn't actually do anything. Once or twice in the first couple of chapters alone would suffice to get across that she's a talented assassin. Any more than that, without follow through, it's just painful bragging. This kind of thing works in movies like Sherlock Holmes. Because he carries through on it and it shows how his mind works, and we get the visuals of it actually happening. Just telling us only serves to irritate me.

Oooh we get a little backstory next.

While some of the prisoners were people accused of attempting to practice magic-not that they could, given that magic had vanished from the kingdom-these days, more and more rebels arrived at Endovier. Most were from Eyllwe, one of the last countries still fighting Adarlan's rule.

WHERE HAS ALL THE MAGIC GONE.

Anyway, Cel thinks about the rebels and how it might have been better for them to have been executed, and also wonders if she's finally going to be executed (why would the Captain of the Guard execute her, I mean, most places have executioners. Or Ned Stark if you're in Winterfell).

The captain's grip tightened until it hurt. He yanked Celaena closer, but her feet seemed made of lead and she pulled against him. "You'd rather stay in the mines?" he asked, sounding faintly amused.

 I have no idea what's going on.

Anyway, Chaol tells her that she'll find out what's going on soon enough, and she assumes SHE GON' DIE.

There's a lot of glass work mentioned in this book, and I actually like it. It shows that the country is partial to glass decoration and artisan crafts, which goes along with the title.

Chaol shoves her a bit, and Celaena stumbles and sees another 6 guards. She realizes that they're all wearing the royal emblem on their uniforms and understands that they're members of the Royal Family's personal guard. how she realizes this is unclear; after all Chaol has the royal crest which means nothing as he's the Captain of the Guard. She doesn't mention that the royal emblem is ONLY worn by members of the personal guard... unless Chaol is the Captain of the PERSONAL guard, which isn't mentioned.

Pretty much it doesn't make any sense but of course Cel is correct. The person she was taken to is none other than the Crown Prince of Adarlan.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two opens with Chaol removing his hood to reveal he has chestnut hair and that he's super young.

Captain Westfall was not excessively handsome, but she couldn't help finding the ruggedness of his face and the clarity of his golden-brown eyes rather appealing. She cocked her head, now keenly aware of her wretched dirtiness.

Yes, because I tend to ogle at people holding me captive.

So anywho, Cel refuses to bow before the prince because she has no desire to grovel in submission. Fair enough, yes? But some random dude comes from behind her, grabs her by the neck, and she is thrown to the floor.

World-class assassin who would have no problem escaping even with shackles, eh?

The assassin hissed (C: thanks for reminding me she's an assassin because I honestly would have no idea with the action going on, HONESTLY), baring her teeth as she twisted her head to look at the kneeling bastard. He was almost as large as her overseer, clothed in reds and oranges that matched his thinning hair.

BTW, this is how I picture this dude's hair:

Cel thinks about how she could grab his sword, but of course doesn't do it because when has she ever carried through.

The prince then proves himself to be on Cel's side by saying he doesn't understand why someone is forced to bow when it's supposed to show respect. His tone is "coated with glorious boredom" which just makes me sigh. The book is trying really hard for me to be on Cel's side, and it's super annoying.

"It's clear that you respect me, Duke Perrington, but it's a bit unnecessary to put such effort into forcing Celaena Sardothien to have the same opinion. You and I know very well she has no love for my family. So perhaps your intent is to humiliate her."

And why not? I'm being serious. You're the crown prince of an empire. This chick is (supposedly) the MOST feared assassin in Adarlan. She was caught a year ago, forced to work in a mine. Forcing her to bow isn't really much in the grand scheme of things. Why not remind her of her place, that the king was the one who finally caught her? How many people has she killed? Some of them are probably this duke's friends or even family. You don't pay the most feared assassin to kill a fishmonger. You pay them to kill politicians and people in power.

Okay I'm thinking way more about this than the author ever did so I'll stop.

The prince dismisses Duke Perrington and Cel muses that if she escapes she'll pay him a visit. I'm shaking in my boots. Cel leaves a dirt imprint on the floor.

But she'd been trained to be an assassin since the age of eight, since the day the King of the Assassins found her half-dead on the banks of a frozen river and brought her to his keep. She wouldn't be humiliated by anything, least of all being dirty.

Maybe not, but you're certainly OBSESSED with the fact that you're dirty.

The prince's name is Dorian and I'm pretty sure his parents were smoking crack to give him such a pronounceable name.

Sprawled across the throne, he had his chin propped by a hand, his golden crown glinting in the soft light.

Why is there a throne in some random overseer's building at a salt mine? No really, I want to know.

He's not just handsome, but he's achingly handsome, and also pretty young.

Princes are not supposed to be handsome! They're sniveling, stupid, repulsive creatures! This one ... this ... How unfair of him to be royal and beautiful.

I call your weirdly biased inner monologue and raise you the entirety of Disney Canon.


Dorian is also obsessed with dirt and tells Chaol that Cel was supposed to be cleaned. Remember just a bit ago when she said dirt wouldn't humiliate her?

She looked at her rags and stained skin, and she couldn't suppress the twinge of shame. What a miserable state for a girl of former beauty!

Shut up, Cel. You've been slaving in a horrible salt mine for a year. At this point you'd just be glad you weren't dehydrating to death and you get to stand in a nice room for a few moments.

We get some description of Cel, and it's very Mary Sue-ish. Also, somehow, her hair is still sort of pretty and I call shenanigans. Working in a salt mine would DESTROY your hair,e specially if you couldn't care for it.

In short, Celaena Sardothien was blessed with a handful of attractive features that compensated for the majority of average ones; and, by early adolescence, she'd discovered that with the help of cosmetics, these average features could easily match the extraordinary assets.

I don't think that sentence could have gotten any longer. You lie, third person narration.

Moving along, introductions are made. Well, mostly Dorian just talks at her.

 "After a year, you seem to be more or less alive. I wonder how that's possible when the average life expectancy in these mines is a month."

Oh lord in heaven, I have to once again call shenanigans. Life expectancy in salt mines, pre-Industrial Revolution, was incredibly short. Like, age 35 short, not one month after being put to work short. Unless the salt mines are meant to be pretty much just a drawn-out execution, this is an EXTREMELY inefficient form of slave labor. Slaves who die after a few weeks are pointless and you can't sustain it unless you plan on killing an entire country for a couple of years worth of salt.

Once again, I'm putting more thought into this than the author ever did. The point is to either show that Cel is a badass or that she was left alive for some reason.

There's a lot of banter between these characters and it's so pointless I'm skipping most of it.

We hear Cel tried to escape four months after she arrived in the salt mine. And that it was pretty much a suicide attempt.

"She killed her overseer and twenty-three sentries before they caught her. She was a finger's tip from the wall before the guards knocked her unconscious."

So, these guards who are trained to be able to shoot a squirrel from two hundred paces away couldn't disable her until she killed two dozen of them. Durzo Blint is not impressed (you want a freaking BADASS assassin who actually does shit, read the Night Angel Trilogy NOW). These are just arbitrary numbers. It means nothing to me.

Also, it becomes pretty obvious that the only reason Cel wasn't killed was because Dorian's daddy wanted her alive. So her escape attempt is less impressive and more "lol you're bragging about this thing that isn't all that impressive?" Except for the random twenty-four people she killed. Like wtf.

The prince then asks if she has many scars, because that's the perfect conversational topic.

Dirt is mentioned again, and the fact that Cel stinks. Because how the fuck did you expect her to smell, Dorian.

Cel once again thinks about how she could kill the prince with her shackles. But doesn't.

Also, Cel only has 3 scars from her YEAR LONG STINT in a mine that routinely KILLS PEOPLE AFTER A MONTH.

She'd get more scars just from swinging a pickaxe every day. Hell, I have more scars and I work in a bakery (ovens are hot, yo).

Dorian grinned. "What remarkable eyes you have! And how angry you are!"

Dorian is little red riding hood.

Dorian mentions dresses will cover her scars, and Cel is understandably all like 'wtf you talking about'. Chaol tells her to be quiet or he'll throw her in the minds again. Cel is like "there's something you want from me, so you won't do that."

No shit, sherlock. No one in this book is as smart as they think they are.

Dorian says that he has a proposition for her, and she thinks about killing him YET FREAKING AGAIN, decides she should listen to him because it gives her an opportunity to escape, and we don't get to hear the proposition until chapter 3.