Breakaway Books

Authored by Sarah J. Maas; Published starting in 2012; Fantasy

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

Throne of Glass is quite the contrast to Maas’s brand new Crescent City series. It is long-form epic fantasy, and it is certainly not set in a technology-friendly era—not a cell phone in sight. The series is seven books long, and, similar to ACOTAR, the first book after which the series is named is not necessarily reflective of the whole series.

I like when books grab and hold my attention from the first page to the last. That was not my experience with the Throne of Glass series. Instead, I would find myself dragging through the first two thirds of the book and then racing through the last third consistently throughout the series. So, I would call these a slow burn, overall, but it is noteworthy that by that last third, I was always invested.

I loved to watch the heroine evolve from assassin to fae to queen, and how she dealt with all those changes along the way. There’s a lot of trauma in her journey, and I like how Maas depicted the way that she carries it with her, becoming stronger from everything she’s gone through. She gathers a band of allies crossing continents and magical factions, and to me, it seemed normal and natural that she inspired devotion in all of them.

The kingdom that Maas introduces in this series is sprawling, with tons of character and backstory to remember. If you have the time to devote to it (and it might take a lot of time), I’d suggest reading all of them in a row to get the full impact of the series and avoid forgetting key details. It doesn’t have quite the spicy romance of her latter series, but I found the love stories it contained incredibly sweet.

If you are into the cross-universal aspects of Maas’s other novels, I would say this: you will find the villain of this series interesting, and I thought it shed light on some of the other series. But, if your only interest in Throne of Glass is for connections to ACOTAR, I don’t think these are worth the (significant) investment.

But, if you’re looking for a long-form epic fantasy with a sweeping breadth, this is an excellent series for you.