Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publish Date: 7th August 2012
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?
Cinderella has been reincarnated; only this time, she has daggers in her hands.
Author Sarah J. Maas started with a simple idea: what if Cinderella went to the ball, not to meet the prince, but to kill him? And thus, the incredibly ferocious and fiery panther-like assassin Celaena Sardothien was born. For a book that is inspired by Cinderella, there's so much originality in the story. Maas keeps the central themes of Cinderella well but manages to push them to the limits and addresses them in the world she has created. So slavery, jealousy, and of course, love are all major factors in that determine the outcome of the plot.
The way the book started made me feel as if I'd just tuned into the second series or episode of a television show. This wasn't a bad thing entirely, but not knowing how Celaena, one of the deadliest assassins in the kingdom managed to get herself captured was such a tease. It's a smart move for Maas as now we have to (or at least I do) read all the novellas set just before this book to know how it all happened and how Celaena got here. Whilst I appreciate that this book is going to be a series of books, I at least wanted to feel like that by the end of the book the questions of how we arrived into the main plot were answered. (For example, finding out all about Jon Arryn with Eddard Stark in ASOIAF: A Game of Thrones). Perhaps we were supposed to have been told enough (that she'd been betrayed by someone during a job) but I wanted to know more. Perhaps that was just me.
However, that being said this was still one of the best high fantasy novels I'd read in a while. The worldbuilding was fantastic. I was in a completely different area of my imagination for this one. This was probably down to Maas' writing style though; she could make words dance beautifully together on a page when describing features of the castle or the surrounding areas. To then couple it with character's reactions in these places gave it the edge. Each setting has a mood and a theme. These aren't simply places that events happen in, they are places central to the story.
The complex characters and dynamic relationships in the book were just enough to satisfy me but left me with a taste for more. The 'love triangle' was worrying and definitely not one of my favourite parts about the story but the outcome made me sigh with relief when I realised the moral about the one relationship/infatuation in the book based on appearance. One scene which broke my heart in the book was the final test, and Chaol's response. This was the most fantastically built up climax to the final development of characters ever, especially his. Nehemia was a pleasant surprise, another strong female who rivalled Celaena on fierceness of character. Dorian was the weakest for me, though possibly because I didn't like him as a person but his development was still there; it was just not as strong as the other character's.
This book leaves me feeling like Maas has something much, much bigger planned and is going to blow our minds. Celaena Sardothien, you have my attention and my respect. Show me what ya got.
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