Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read a lot of books and write a lot of reviews, and sometimes books provoke such strong emotions in me that I either write one long, gushing review about how awesome it is or one long, ranting review about how terrible I thought it was. I'm afraid this book falls into the latter category, for multiple reasons. Fair warning: I may use a lot of spoilers in this review. I feel like I should preface this by saying that I find fantasy a problematic genre in general. I either seem to really like the fantasy books I read or to vehemently dislike them. I think this is because fantasy is a genre that's prone to falling into some traps that other genres seem to avoid more easily. Throne of Glass, I'm afraid, falls into one of the biggest fantasy traps of all: the Mary Sue. The first chapter of this book excited me, really excited me. I was sure I was onto something. A notorious female assassin who refuses to be intimidated by her captors? Sign me up! I was excited to find out all about what makes Celaena awesome. The problem? I never did find out. Oh, Celaena was sure to brag on and on and on about how great she was, but never once did she bring it and prove that what she said had any modicum of truth. Lady, next time at least have the tact to humblebrag, will ya? It didn't take long for me to actively dislike Celaena, and making a reader actively dislike the protagonist is not good unless you've made your character terribly flawed on purpose. This, sadly, is not the case with Celaena. It didn't matter that she had the nastiest manners imaginable, that she was downright mean to other characters at times, that she acted like everyone in the story existed to see to her every whim, I was supposed to root for her. No. And the scene where she has a temper tantrum while attempting to learn to play pool? I have a hard time imagining that any human being would find that amusing or sexy but, amazingly, Dorian seems to find it both. Me, I thought it made her seem like a spoiled three-year-old. I guess it takes all kinds. But this episode illustrates a major flaw of the book: Celaena is beautiful, awesome, and awesomely beautiful, so everyone loves her no matter what she does, because she is Celaena--except the bad guys, and that's because they're bad guys. I felt like this book cheated me out of the chance to see a supposedly elite assassin in action. It promised me a thrilling read about Celaena's struggle in the competition, and then the entirety of that competition took place over the space of maybe a dozen pages. I wanted to read the book that was described in the blurb, not the imposter that I found on my Kindle screen. If the author acts like the competition itself isn't important, how am I, as the reader, supposed to feel any sense of tension with regard to that competition? There are literally passages in the book that go a little something like this: "the next two tests were stealth and tracking, and she did well on both." I'm paraphrasing, but that happens in the book. For real. The reader is told at the beginning that these tests are, like, uber important, and that failing them may more or less be a death sentence for the participants. And then the tests are described in this manner. Yeah. Oh, and I wouldn't want to forget my favorite moment in the book: when the "elite" assassin wakes up on Yulemas morning, finds a bag of candy on her bed and, without knowing who gave it to her or worrying about how they managed to sneak it into her room without waking her (probably should mention here that there's a murderer loose in the castle at this point in the action), she starts eating it! I'm not an elite assassin and even I know you don't do that, especially when people have already tried to kill you--and failed because they're apparently even worse at what they do than you are, if that's possible. Next up, Dorian. You know what? I don't really even want to talk about Dorian. He barely exists as a character, other than to slaver over Celaena and think of how very purty she looks while he gives her puppies. He supposedly goes through some sort of epiphany in the end, when he realizes his daddy is evil with a capital e, and he decides maybe he should exert himself to be bothered by the genocide his father has been committing rather than focusing on acting like a spoiled boy annoying dad just for the heck of it. I mean, good for him that he decides to take a stand, but I was so appalled by his watching atrocity after atrocity unfurl before his sense of morality kicks in. It's possible to do that sort of thing convincingly in a novel, but Dorian has no depth, so there's no sense that he's gone through some major transformation. Instead, this transformation happens because he's afraid of what his dad might do to Celaena and, well, he thinks she's hot and he's kinda convinced he might love her. Sorry, all you nameless citizens whose deaths have evoked no sympathy from Dorian whatsoever. The only character I really liked was Chaol, and boy did I not want to see him with Celaena because he definitely deserves better. And I know he's young, but he's Captain of the Guard of a mustache-twirlingly evil king and he's never killed anyone. Say what? That makes no sense in any universe. What would have been much more interesting would be to see him have a crisis of conscience at carrying out the orders of a king who is so obviously corrupt and evil. Still, at least he does feel like a real person, and at least I felt like I could understand why Celaena might pique his interest, even if I do question his taste in women. Plot twist? Nope, saw that one coming from a mile away. It's painfully obvious who the villain is in this book, even though the author tries to throw out a few red herrings. This is because there is no nuance whatsoever in this book, none. Some of the characters--like Nehemia, for instance--give the illusion of depth, but there is no real depth to any of them. They have backstories and hopes and fears, but it's obvious who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. When good character do something bad or are indifferent, they're provided with excuses. I'd rather see shades of gray. By the end, I kept on reading this book because I thought it was so bad that I just had to know how it ended. So, even though I stuck with it, I will not be coming along for the ride in installment two.