Why I Stopped Reading The Throne Of Glass Series

Hello guys! Today I wanted to talk about my views on the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas and why I put the entire series on hold. If you’ve been following my blog, you would know that I have a love/hate relationship with this series and with Sarah J maas as an author. You would also be aware of my love for the ACOTAR series.

ACOTAR has a slow start but ACOMAF absolutely blew me away. I was hoping for a similar experience with TOG and I was immensely satisfied with the first part. I finished the book in three days and had a lot of fun reading it. On first impression, Throne Of Glass seemed to be focused for a younger audience than ACOTAR, and yet I liked it better than ACOTAR. Then Crown Of Midnight happened and despite its issues, I still found myself to be liking it, albeit lesser than the first part. To me, the series only started going downhill with every sequel. Here’s why.

Contains spoilers till Queen Of Shadows!

 

THE STORY

The foundation set by the first book was arguably very different from how the story turned out to be. I know Sarah J Maas is very unpredictable that way, but this one just didn’t fit. The story started off as a tale about an assassin, who possesses some mysterious magic and has a destiny to fulfill. It ended up being so much more. It became complex and twisty. The first book was very simple but by the third book, everything had become so complicated and well..different. Now you must be thinking – what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that considered a good thing? While I would have appreciated all the new layers added to the story, my first impression prevented me from doing so. The first impression was decieving. The story digressed. It was like a mix of Game Of Thrones and Fullmetal Alchemist.

Trying to catch up on all the twists like.

 

CELAENA SARDOTHIEN/ AELIN GALATHYNIUS

What’s that? The protagonist? Well, yes. Celaena Sardothien isn’t a very likable character. Let me rephrase – She’s extremely hard not to like. I wanted to like her. I really did. I’m the kind of person who can be indifferent to the protagonists of the story, but never hate them. Not until Celaena came by. Or should I say Aelin, because Celaena was a thousand times better when compared to Aelin. The character development is a bit too far fetched, but I’ll cover that later. Now, Celaena was a good enough character in the first book (I can’t help but compare everything to the first book). She is vain, conceited. One of the most arrogant characters I’ve come across in a book. And since most of the story progresses from her perspective, It becomes a bit hard to like it. I found her to be very unreasonable and downright unfair at times.

Aelin really got on my nerves.

That’s not all, though. She is shown to be extremely skilled and badass, so much so that she always wins. She never loses at all. The people around her will die horribly and get tortured (poor Dorian!), but somehow that never happens to Celaena. Which adds to her already swelled up demeanor. She’s strong but hey, you gotta lose once a while.

Also, almost every guy she meets falls in love with her. That didn’t seem realistic to me. Not to mention she makes a point to break their hearts too. That’s unfair.

 

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENTS

The events of the series led to some very brutal changes, and with them came the character developments. They became so different from their original personalities. One simply does not become a different person by changing their name. But Aelin here did. One moment she was this sick assassin with a hollow soul, and the other moment she became this lost queen with conviction and vengeance. Not to mention, how everyone now just wants to kiss her feet and sing her songs.

It was a particular form of torture.

Chaol and Celaena had a great thing going on. But then suddenly they both hate each other and are nothing more than reluctant allies. How did that come to be? Chaol started off as this honourable man who believed in Celaena, and now all he wants is to get rid of her. I just wasn’t able to stand their constant bickering in Queen Of Shadows. I shipped them, and seeing them hate each other was breaking my heart. And Dorian. What happened to him is abolutely unforgivable. He didn’t deserve any of it. It broke my heart what happened with/between the characters.

Maas did a good enough job with the characters, and even though her sudden introduction of new POVs and characters made the story hard to follow, I’ll have to admit the characters were intriguing. The way she lead those characters, however, was simply annoying.

 

 

In a nutshell, the story & the characters both ended up disappointing me, and the things I earlier rooted for became nothing more than dust and ashes. I wasn’t able to get through Queen Of Shadows. The only reason I was able to get as far as Queen Of Shadows was because of Maas’s captivating storytelling. I’ll give her that. But I wasn’t able to read more than two pages of Queen Of Shadows at a time. It was putting me into a reading slump. And that’s when I finally decided to put the series on hold, and pick it up later. Preferably when the entire series is finished so I won’t have to wait for the cliffhangers. So these were a few of the reasons why I stopped reading TOG.

 

I feel much better now.

 

Do you agree with me? Disagree?  What did you think of the series?  Share your opinions in the comments.