Has everyone heard the news?? The last ToG book’s release has been pushed back like 6 months and I’m so sad. Although this does mean that I won’t get my heart broken twice in the same year, so there is that. This past week I finally finished the last Maas book(s) I had left to read – The Assassin’s Blade. For those of you who don’t know, this is a collection of 5 novella’s she wrote about Celaena Sardothien, and how she eventually ended up in Endovier.
These novellas give us so much background to a lot of smaller things in the Throne of Glass world. Like who Sam Cortland is. Or who Ilias is and when Celaena met Rolfe for the first time. It also gives us huge insight into Celaena/Aelin, does quite a bit of world building, and introduces Lysandra and Arobynn, who are SO important in later books in the ToG series.
I have to say, I really enjoyed these stories. I think my favourite was The Assassin and the Desert. I finally met Ansel, and it was so worth it! She was such a complex character. I’m not excusing what she did (even though wow that took brains), but her motivations and desires were so gut wrenching. Also “Celaena had given her 21” like wow what growth! This novella showed such an interesting shift in Celaena’s character (see previous comment). She was physically and mentally weak in a lot of areas, trained hard, and put up with not being #1 all the time. I gotta say, I do kinda wish that she had kissed Ilias, but I totally get it – if I potentially had a Sam Cortland, then I would too haha.
Speaking about Sam, let’s just say that I wasn’t ready to get my heart torn out of my chest and stomped on. What’s worse is that I went in knowing his fate and I still didn’t want to read it – it took me a couple days to hype myself up enough to read the entire story. Let me just say that Aelin’s final scene with Sam was so heart breaking, and when she didn’t know that he was dead and was still looking for him?? Just stab me in the heart. It’s not like I needed it.
Would I say that these novellas are necessary to read? Not really. I think they give great insight into the world, and show a very different side of Aelin/Celaena. It introduces characters (some who don’t make it into the ToG series RIP) and also provides context to things in ToG. But again, I did read all of the ToG books before the Assassin’s Blade and found that I managed just fine. I just didn’t know why people loved this Sam guy so much.
Would I say people should read them? Again, up to you. I adore SJM, so if you like her writing you’ll like The Assassin’s Blade. Also Sam is a sweetheart and deserved so much more.
5/5 stars!
On that note, I need to go cry about my beautiful baby boy.
Have a good weekend ducks!
- Mon
Words, Pages, Books 