I worked my way through most of the Throne of Glass series in the month of June. (Just finished up the series on July 9.) I must say that I enjoyed it much more than I expected!
I had bought the ebook version of the series for my Kindle a long time ago and just now got around to reading it.
The picture shows the books in order with the prequel first, but for some reason the actual ebook had The Assassin’s Blade at the end. By the time I’d read through the whole story, I wasn’t really impressed with The Assassin’s Blade because I already knew everything that had happened.
I would definitely recommend reading The Assassin’s Blade first or at least reading it before the 3rd book, Heir of Fire.
The first book, Throne of Glass, grabbed my attention with the idea of a young girl being a deadly assassin. Her fight through the King’s competition was adventurous and thrilling, yet heart-breaking at the same time. The added mystery kept my attention throughout and made this a 4.5 star read for me.
Crown of Midnight, #2 in the series, was full of adventure and some tough decision-making on Celaena’s part. Heir of Fire and Queen of Shadows, #3 & #4, were also great in my opinion. All of these got 4.5 stars from me. I liked the way they were written and flowed seamlessly from one book to the next.
After reading the fifth book, Empire of Storms, I understood why most people do a tandem read with The Tower of Dawn (#6). I felt like the fifth book took me out of the atmosphere that had been created. It only tells part of the events taking place at the time, where The Tower of Dawn tells events taking place at the same time but from other characters’ perspectives.
I ended up giving Empire of Storms 4 stars and The Tower of Dawn 4.5 stars. I really wish I had done the tandem read and definitely recommend it for anyone reading the series for the first time. I feel like it would keep you immersed in the story instead of seeing one part of the world and then “going back in time” to see the events from the other part of the world.
Kingdom of Ash, the conclusion to the series, was a really long book that I think could have been shortened some by not detailing the battles quite so much. However, it still got a 4.5 star rating from me because I loved the way everything was wrapped up in the end. There were so many different characters and storylines that ended up coming together so beautifully.
At the beginning, the length of the series and size of the books made me a little apprehensive about starting them. By the time I read a couple of the books, I forgot about how long it was and enjoyed it most of the way through. This is a series I would recommend for anyone who loves fantasy and doesn’t mind reading a long series.
