A World of Reviews

Warning: This is the second book in a series and so there might be spoilers for the first book.

I was a big fan of the first book in the Throne of Glass series, and I was so excited for this book to come out. It did not disappoint and it was a great sequel to the first book. Every time I put the book down, I felt the need to pick it up again and carry on reading. I can’t wait for the next book in the series to come out.

Cover
UK cover

I do like the cover of this book, although I rather the US edition. I like the colour scheme and the flames behind Celaena are very cool and relevant to the story. Celaena looks awesome here with her swords and outfit, and this is pretty much how I imagined her through out the book. The font is really pretty and the general theme definitely matches the first book in the series.

Plot

The book revolves around Celaena Sardothien’s life as the King’s Champion, which is basically the posh name for the King’s assassin. She’s not comfortable with all the killing she has to do, and she doesn’t like the way Chaol or Dorian see her when they think of her as an assassin. As she struggles with the problems in her life, she uncovers plots and schemes to do with both the king and those who rebel against him, and plenty of questions are also raised about who Celaena really is.

The plot of this book never stops going and there is always something going on, whether it’s characters and relationship development or a huge plot twist. Talking of plot twists, there were so many of them. Towards the end of the book, there were plenty of surprises in store – most of which I had no idea about.

There was so much in the plot that I loved. For one thing, assassins. Celaena was awesome and deadly when she was doing her thing, and fights between assassins are really cool. The development of various relationships were great, and the climax of the book was very suprising. There were also lots of lovely scenes in the book, like the descriptions of the library and the greenhouse scene, which I loved.

Characters

Celaena, the main character, is awesome. She always tries to do the right thing, but she also has her faults – she isn’t ready to fight battles that she thinks are pointless and won’t help anyone. Celaena is also a very independent character, and she’s always ready to defend herself and seek out those who have done something against her. In the first book, she has two love interests (Dorian and Chaol) and I found it very hard to choose between the two, but the second book makes it clear who she’s likely to choose.

Chaol is a very strong character and he’s so protective of Celaena. He can’t bear the thought of her getting hurt, even though she pretty much has the most dangerous job in the kingdom. Chaol also has the best bromance with Dorian and, even though they don’t hang out as much together in this book, I still love their relationship. Dorian is also such a cute character. He’s so caring and lovely and I really love their character. He also has such a big love of books and it’s really nice the way he and Celaena occasionally bond over books. The other characters in this book, such as Nehemiah and Dorian’s cousin, were great too, although Dorian’s cousin (whose name escapes me right now) didn’t seem to appear much in the second half of the book.

The Little Things

One of things that did bug me in the book were some of things that Celaena was thinking, such as worrying about getting locked into a place which she’d just unlocked using Wyrdmarks. It seemed like needless worrying which made so sense. However, I was able to overlook these things and still enjoy the book.

The magic and the wyrdmarks did confuse me to start because they’re so different and the fact that magic works but wyrdmarks don’t. However, once I totally understood the stuff about magic, I thought the whole drawing runes thing was really cool and I liked the way that there were different types of magic.

I loved this book and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. I’d recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy, romance, assassins or magic.

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