Spoilers ahead! And keep an eye out at the end for my take on a typical breakfast at The Glass Palace!
She hadn't tasted fear in a while-- hadn't let herself taste fear. When she awoke every morning, she repeated the same words: I will not be afraid.
Eighteen year old Celaena Sardothien is the best assassin Adarlan has ever seen-- and she's been sentenced to live out the rest of her life in the world's most brutal slave camp because of it. When the crown prince shows up after a year of torture and offers her a path to freedom, how could she turn him down?
Celaena soon realizes that her freedom will be coming at a cost much higher than she could ever imagine. She has been entered in a secret competition to become the King's Champion. If she wins, she will do the bidding of the man responsible for killing the people of her own homeland as well as countless others'. If she loses, she goes back to Endovier to live out her life sentence-- or die in the process.
Celaena knows she can take down all of 23 of her competitors without a second thought, but things become far more difficult when she learns of a strange evil lurking about the castle, disemboweling champions one by one. Does she have what it takes to both win this competition and destroy the beast that threatens her and the people she comes to care for?
She pulled her cloak around her. She would win. She'd win, and serve the king, and then vanish into nothing, and think no more of castles or kings or assassins. She didn't wish to reign over this city again. Magic was dead, the Fae were banished or executed, and she would never again have anything to do with the rise and fall of kingdoms. She wasn't fated for anything. Not anymore.
REVIEW
I've read this book before, and I think I found my experience this time to be quite the same as the first read. I really like it as a starting off point, but it's a bit of a slow burn and (knowing what I know about the series) is TOTALLY just the tip of the iceberg. I really wanted this re-read to help me sort through all the stuff that had originally confused me-- the wyrdgates and wyrdmarks and all that jazz. I definitely think I have a better grip on how it works now but I'm still a little fuzzy. I imagine that will be sorted out more conclusively for me later. It IS very funny to me, though, that I managed to read this book the first time without having read The Assassin's Blade. There were things that happened in here that I had originally thought would be explained later but now I'm like uh no girlie, that was in the first book and will have no future explanations because you should know that already!
"Guards are of no use in a library." Oh, how wrong he was! Libraries were full of ideas-- perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.
I feel like it's really hard to review this book because so much of it feels like exposition! I mean that in a good way, though. We're just casually dipping our toes in a bath to see how hot it is before we submerge ourselves. The good stuff all comes later!
We meet Dorian and Chaol first, amongst what I know will soon be an incredible ensemble of characters. These two do a beautiful job of showing us more about Celaena based on how she interacts with them. And oh boy, they're really just putty in her hands, aren't they? And they have no idea what they're getting into! I think I'm most excited to see Dorian's future character development-- he starts out as a pretty boy, but by the end he's grown up quite a bit and it's solely because he met Celaena. Chaol, however, is the dictionary definition for "grown up" but begins to show a softer, humorous side when he meets her. More than anything, these two goofs show us how alluring Celaena is-- she can get almost anyone to worship her if she so pleases. I think even I'd bow down to her if we ever crossed paths. However, the idea of a love triangle never really excites me, especially if both of the love interests are best friends, so I'm hoping for a happy ending for these two knuckleheads that leaves Celaena out of it. And ALSO, my heart is still terribly hurt over Sam, so I'm not ready for another guy to step in.
"Lonely?" She shook her head and finally, after all that coaxing, sat down. He fought against the urge to reach across the space between them to see if her hair was as silky as it looked. "No. I can survive well enough on my own-- if given proper reading material."
Something I feel we never really get a taste of in this first installment is Celaena's true mental state. We know most of the horrible things she's been through, but she's done such a good job of closing the bad thoughts out of her head that we only really see the somehow-still-chipper parts of her. She's great at putting on a happy show for the boys, but I think she's getting closer and closer to breaking. Celaena flourishes when she's in a harsh environment--that's how she grew up-- but I think the more she ignores those burdens on her shoulders, the easier it will be for her to crack. Maas did a wonderful job talking about mental health in the A Court of Thorns and Roses Series, so I'm looking forward to her perspective on Celaena. It's also harder because this series is written from a third person perspective, whereas ACOTAR is written in the first person.
"Your scars are awful," he said, almost whispering. She put a hand on her hip and walked to the dressing room door. "We all bear scars, Dorian. Mine just happen to be more visible than most. Sit there if you like, but I'm going to get dressed."
I find that female protagonists are scrutinized far, far more than their male counterparts-- even when the men are solely there as love interests. I don't know if this is because we (the female-identifying reading community) just want more from our girls or if we're just extremely simple to please when it comes to the men. I get so frustrated when these women are put through such intense hardships and horrible emotional and physical torture and are somehow still called "annoying" and "whiny" afterwards. I've seen it happen to almost every single female protagonist from every series I've read. But I swear, I freaking dare anyone to say that about Celaena Sardothien. Because that would be factually incorrect. She kicks ass, she's brilliant, she's hilarious, and she's always the most interesting person in the room. And above all of that, she's got the biggest heart of any character in these books, despite her occupation. She owns her body, her mind, and she knows her worth. She's a character we should all look up to and, dare I say, try to be more like? I know I certainly will.
She brought her mouth close to his ear. "My name is Celaena Sardothien," she whispered. "But it makes no difference if my name's Celaena or Lillian or Bitch, because I'd still beat you, no matter what you call me." She smiled at him as she stood. He just stared up at her, his bloody nose leaking down the side of his cheek. She took the handkerchief from her pocket and dropped it on his chest. "You can keep that," she said before she walked off the veranda.
The creatures we get a little taste of in this novel are nothing if not nightmare-inducing. When I first read this book I legitimately had to keep the lights on in my room while I slept. Monsters crawling around in the night eating people's organs?? Yeah, no thank you. I was totally not prepared for that kind of content in this novel, but now I'm kind of welcoming it. It's an unexpected darkness that I haven't seen from Maas before-- sure, there were creepy-crawlies in ACOTAR but none as mysterious and haunting as the ridderak. And I have a very, very strong feeling that it only gets scarier from here.
I'm excited to see the pace pick up so we can get to the meat of this series. I know we've got a long way to go and we need to get out of the dang Glass Castle to do so. Also highly looking forward to Celaena's future revenge on Arobynn Hamel for Sam's death. I truly have no idea what happens in regard to that plot point, but I feel like I have a personal stake in this situation now, so I need Arobynn to pay for what he did. Take him down, Celaena.
Elena took a step toward her. "You could rattle the stars," she whispered. "You could do anything, if you only dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That's what scares you most."
A ROYAL BREAKFAST
"Ah, I see." She swallowed another bite. Oh, she loved porridge! But perhaps it needed another spoonful of sugar.
Mentioned many times throughout the book-- breakfast! That seems to be our favorite meal of the day to discuss in this series. I decided I wanted to make my own version of a classic morning meal at The Glass Palace. Scattered throughout the book I discovered that they typically have porridge, bread, and some sort of meat (I decided sausage and bacon would be a good choice). Accompanied by a nice cup of hot tea, here's how my meal came out:
This homemade bread was so simple and tasted amazing-- especially with the honey butter I made to go with it! I chose to cook up some turkey bacon (we like it extra crispy in my house) and some maple sausage links with syrup on the side. The porridge recipe I went with has a drizzle of brown butter and crumbled brown sugar all over the top and it was to-die-for! I had no idea what it was going to taste like and I was completely blown away. Highly recommend this yummy breakfast. Only thing I would change if I did it over again would be adding some fresh fruit!
Porridge Recipe: https://www.tastingtable.com/cook/recipes/brown-butter-spoon-bread-recipe-muas-italian-porridge-oatmeal-recipe
If you didn't know, I bake something from a book every week and post live updates on my Instagram. Tune in to @picklesandpages on Wednesdays to check it out!
NEXT READ: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
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