Throne of Glass Readalong 2016 – Part One

As I said in my post on Monday, I will be running a Throne of Glass readalong for the next three weeks or so. I plan on re-reading the first three books in the series before finally reading the fourth and most recent addition, so I thought I’d turn it into a bit of a blog event and encourage my readers to join in! Whether you’ve read the book before or are reading for the first time, feel free to leave your thoughts! And of course, as this is a readalong discussion post, there will be spoilers for Throne of Glass ahead.

Today I’ll be discussing the first part of the book – chapters 1 to 13.

This first part of the book sees Celaena Sardothien, also known as Adarlan’s Assassin, being taken from the Endovier Salt Mines, where she has been imprisoned and enslaved for over a year. Her ‘rescuers’ are Crown Prince Dorian Havilliard, and the Captain of the Guard Chaol Westfall. Dorian wants to enter Celaena into a competition to be the King’s Champion, and eventually personal assassin. If she wins, she will have to work for the King for four years – and then she will have her freedom, and be pardoned from all past crimes.

Later chapters show that, despite his position as Crown Prince, Dorian clashes with his father often. Celaena meets the King and the other champions, and begins her training. She also meets a princess called Nehemia, from the country of Eyllwe.

• One little note before the book even properly starts – I always appreciate it when books include maps at the beginning! It makes it a lot easier to get my bearings of a fantasy country or world.
• I’ve always read Celaena as Celina, even though I know it must be Suh-lay-na due to the spelling. However, I still read it my own way throughout this re-read – it’s stuck!
• Additionally, I still have no idea how Chaol’s name is actually said, even though I’ve met Sarah/seen her talk about the book, so I’m pretty sure his name was mentioned…
• Compare Celaena’s first thoughts of the guys: Dorian = ‘… achingly handsome…’; Chaol = ‘It’d be nice to see his blood spill across the marble’ …
• I never really thought about the different sides to Celaena before – she is both tough and quite girlish at times. Of course, anyone can be both – but it feels like quite a sudden juxtaposition in this case.
• One thing I want to know… is everyone in Endovier a hard criminal? Are they all assassins, murderers etc, or all kinds of criminals? It feels like the justice system of Celaena’s world is quite harsh – are there petty thieves, perhaps people who stole just to feed their families, mixed in with all the killers? I kind of get the impression that this is how it works. But I also feel like at least a couple of people would have lasted as long as Celaena, or escaped/nearly escaped.
• We see a small hint of Celaena’s past in chapter 5 – for those reading for the first time, I can’t wait for some big reveals!
• I feel like I’m reading so much more slowly this time, trying to soak in every detail. Since I already know what happens, I don’t feel the need to rush ahead in order to find out.
• I forgot that Celaena is actually quite witty, wonderfully flirty and actually quite adorable – despite being an assassin.

What do you think of Throne of Glass so far? I’ll be discussing Part Two on Monday!

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