by Sarah J. Maas
Release Date: August 7, 2012
Num Pages: 404
Links: Goodreads/Purchase
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?
OH. MY. GOD. My life has been changed upon reading this book!!
I love the idea that Sarah J. Maas can weave together a story that involves a lot of fighting and a kick-ass heroine, but make it nothing like the Hunger Games or any book surrounding that premise! It was just amazing. Celaena is one of the best characters I've read about in a long time. She was so hilarious; she never failed to make me smile. As you probably know, I love girl heroines that represent us girls in the right way: We're strong, able, and totally awesome-- and Celaena represented ALL of those qualities. She was brave, daring, and bad-ass. Oooh! And she was blond. It seems like every cool heroine I've read about is brunette (with the exception of Tris). Yay Celaena for representing blonde girls! Gaaahhh! I JUST LOVED IT.
Coming into this book, I was a little nervous it would be too much like The Hunger Games. The whole fighting competition thing sounded similar. I don't like books to be copies of other books. To my surprise, it was absolutely nothing like it! While the premise is similar in a way, the authors carried the subject out in completely different ways.
I expected this book to have a love triangle--which it did, but it was a little different- OK, a lot different-- than any love triangle I've read about. Dorian and Chaol are the supposed love interests, but she only really expresses love for Dorian until the end of the book, and even then, she's not really seeming to be in love with Chaol. I, for one, liked Chaol better! I love the "I-am-pretending-to-hate-you-but-I-secretly-love-you" tactic, even though it might annoy some people. I feel like sarcasm and teasing are cute ways of showing someone that you like them. Although, Celaena didn't really take the hint. Poor guy! I hope there's more between Celaena and Chaol in the next book, because they're adorable. (If they were to get together...)
I seriously could not put down this book. It's not a short book and I finished it just a couple of hours ago, I started it on Monday. And hey! I've been in school this whole week. I'm a busy girl ;) Yet I managed to finish this!
The one complaint I do have about this book is that it was very predictable, almost so predictable it was UNPREDICTABLE! If that makes any sort of sense, which it probably does not. :P I totally expected what was going to happen. But I'm only subtracting half a star for that, and my rating still remains rounded up to 5 stars.
So, PLEASE. Read this book!!! It is absolutely amazing. I know this is a crappy review, but I can only talk so much about how i love a book, you know?? ;P
4.5/5 stars
I read this awhile back and I remember liking it but I didn't think it was amazing mostly because of how predictable it was! I know what you mean about it being almost unpredictable since it was so predictable. At one point I thought that it couldn't possibly be that obvious. I loved Chaol more too (mostly because I don't know when she stopped hating Dorian or how. It just sorta happened)!
ReplyDeleteExactly! I was like, "Wait... no... that would be TOO obvious!" but then it was what I thought it was! Yeah, it was weird how she suddenly stopped hating Dorian. Chaol was adorable :P
DeleteThanks for commenting :)
Wow, I think you might be one of the few people who have read this and actually loved it. XD Sorry, but I'm still very iffy though I really want to see how the love-triangle angle works out. XD
ReplyDeleteGreat review, Annie!
I think so too! i read mixed reviews and i was actually really surprised at how much i liked it since, i had heard some bad stuff about it. i think you would like it if you liked the Hunger Games, Divergent, Graceling... (I don't know if you've read those?)
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