Throne Of Glass Series Review – Spoiler Free

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Today I’d like to do a Throne of Glass series review. Throne of Glass is written by Sarah J Maas. In previous reviews I have done spoiler free reviews of each book and then a full series review with spoilers.

I’m changing that up at this point for ease of writing when it comes to series reviews. It’s a lot easier for me to give a spoiler free review of the whole series than it is for me to give you a spoiler free review of each book.

Additionally, more so with this series, I find I would like to discuss some of the spoilers in each book. It’s also extremely hard to do reviews of each book in a series without spoiling anything in the previous book.  

Trigger Warnings

Since we don’t always get trigger warnings on books I like to give trigger warnings in my reviews. This can help people avoid certain triggers that could hurt their mental well being.

Possible Triggers in this series are:

• Assault
• Attempted Murder
• Blood
• Bones
• Death
• Decapitation
• Demons
• Depression
• Emotional Abuse
• Fire
• Fore
• Hallucinations
• Murder
• Physical Abuse
• Poisoning
• Prostitution
• Sexism
• Skeletons
• Slavery
• Spiders
• Torture
• Violence
• War

For a list of the triggers I look for you can check out this link here.

This is a 7 book series so while all these things are brought up in the series as a whole they are not all in every single book.  

Spoiler Free Overview of Throne of Glass

In Throne of Glass we are introduced to the Kingdom of Adarlan ruled by a tyrannical king that seems to relish slavery and murder. He’s conquered almost every single kingdom around Adarlan slaughtering royalty, the magical, and families.

Celaena Sardothian is one of the world’s greatest assassins that found herself enslaved in the salt mines of Endovier. It’s here that the Crowned Prince of Adarlan, Dorian, and the Captain of the Guard, Chaol, pull her from slavery in order to compete with some of Adarlans most vicious assassins and soldiers to become the King’s Assassin.

Throne of Glass Author and History

Sarah J Maas is an author who started writing at a very young age. At 16 years old she published chapters of Throne of Glass on a website. 11 years later a publisher picked up a two book deal on this series and Throne of Glass was published.

How I Found Throne of Glass

I had originally tried to read Throne of Glass a couple years ago and ended up not finishing it. To be honest, I felt the writing was bad. I, at the time, did not realize that the author had originally written this series when she was just 16.

For a few months, I had seen several reviews talking about Throne of Glass and how good it was. I seriously thought I was just weird for not liking it. Then I found out the history behind Throne of Glass and decided that maybe I should give it a try.

I am really glad I did because it has to be one of my favorite series of books.

How I Read The Series

Throne of Glass is 7 books and a book that has 5 novellas called Assassins Blade. There are spoilers to a small part of the story in Assassin’s Blade so I chose instead to read Assassin’s Blade as a one off later.

The book series order is:

1. Throne of Glass
2. Crown of Midnight
3. Heir of Fire
4. Queen of Shadows
5. Empire of Storms
6. Tower of Dawn
7. Kingdom of Ash

Assassin’s Blade is a prequel to the entire series. Some people have read it beforehand, others read it between the second and third book, other people wait till the end. Like I said there is a small spoiler in the book if you read it before the full series, it’s not that big of a deal.

My Reading Experience

The first and second books are not at all my favorites in the series, however they are necessary for the story telling of the series as a whole. Like I previously mentioned Sarah J Maas wrote the first book when she was 16 so it reads very young. 

In the second book she is coming back to characters and trying to find the groove of where this series is going to go. 

While both books are good, I did not enjoy the series until book 3, Heir of Fire. In this book we start actually seeing where this series is about to go and while we don’t know what is going to happen we know it’s going to be big and really good.

I love stories that deal in trauma and trauma healing and Heir of Fire really gives the start of that. Sarah J Maas just makes the entire series come to life in book 3 and you start riding this wave of emotional ups and downs all the way through Empire of Storms. 

Then she suddenly switches things up on you and throws you for an absolute loop in Tower of Dawn. Not only is there a perspective change that doesn’t really make a lot of sense at first from where she left off in Empire of Storms, but the story telling becomes elite.

Secrets come out, shocks, fear for our most beloved characters, history and the introduction of more amazing characters in Tower of Dawn really starts to bring the entire series together. You will likely find it extremely difficult to put down the series until it’s completed at this point.

It all comes together in the almost 1000 pages of Kingdom of Ash. In those 1000 pages you will ugly cry, laugh, cheer, shout, and ride the wave of action, drama, and horror through till the end of the book.

For a series that started off not great, it comes together in a way that just leaves you broken and in need of a break to just catch your breath on it.

Throne of Glass Series Review

The first two books of this series really set up the world, you don’t realize how needed they are until you start getting into this series. The first two books are made better by everything that follows.

The twists, character development and growth, the entire story is one that I highly recommend any fantasy fan read. While it’s classified as a young adult and that’s something I find myself moving away from more and more, it doesn’t feel that way so much at the end.

The Throne of Glass series will take you through an emotional roller coaster of trauma and healing. It makes you fall in love with characters, redeems characters, and makes you hate characters. 

Some authors build these grand worlds that are hard to keep track of. Sarah J Maas does it in a way that you can see the worlds and allows you to submerge yourself in the story entirely.

If you are looking for a series that will bring you into the world that is created to where you almost enter it through your mind then this is a series you want to read.

Star Ratings For Throne of Glass

I rate a series in several different areas before giving my full overview ranking. I feel in order to do books justice and in order to inform potential readers they need to know what different subjects are like.

World building gets a 5 out of 5. Even from the beginning the way Sarah J Maas describes the world in Throne of Glass is superb. She really knows how to pull the reader into the atmosphere around the locations the characters are in. 

Even with Throne of Glass being written 11 years before it was published and at 16 years old, Sarah J Maas really knew how to write a world that was interesting and visually appealing.

Character Development gets a 5 out of 5. In the entire series we see character growth that is powerful and moving. We see the main character come to terms with a past and face her future. We see her find her own strength while still learning to trust those around her when she’s known nothing but broken trust her entire life. We even see the growth of other characters in the story as they face their own traumas and come to realize who they are or want to be.

Plot gets a 4 out of 5. If the first two books were a bit different, more in line with what we were going to get with the rest of the series I would say the plot gets a 5 out of 5. However, the plots in the first two books are a bit predictable which lowers the overall plot ranking of the series. I would have liked to see more twists and growth in those first two books as well.

I gotta do a spice ranking in this series like I do all books I read. It gets a 2 out of 5. There are no explicit sex scenes, it’s kinda what you get in a drama romance movie. Everything is euphemisms to hide what’s going on. However, there is some spice that is very well written. Be aware the spice does not hit until Empire of Storms.

Overall ranking of Throne of Glass gets a 5 out of 5. Even with the first two books being slow, predictable, and young in writing, the whole series is a must read and gets a 5 out of 5 ranking from me. The twists, the emotions, and the growth is beautiful.

A series that leaves me ugly crying not once but several times in several books like this one did, I feel deserves a 5 out of 5. Make sure you have tissues, snack foods and sadness curing foods nearby when you read this series, you will need it.

Throne of Glass Series Review

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post I was going to do a spoiler free series review and then each book would get an actual review that contains spoilers. If you decide to read this series and want to join the discussion on each book I will link the reviews with small spoilers below.

• Throne of Glass Book Review 
• Crown of Midnight Book Review
• Heir of Fire Book Review
• Queen of Shadows Book Review
• Empire of Storms Book Review
• Tower of Dawn Book Review
• Kingdom of Ash Book Review

Have you read the Throne of Glass series? What are your spoiler free thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. Follow me on Pinterest for more like this and pin this to your favorite book boards.

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