The Assassin's Blade - Sarah J. Maas

The Assassin's Blade - Sarah J. Maas ★★★★★ 5.0

So freaking amazing. This book gets 5 stars. Here's why:

• Who doesn't love Celaena? Obvs.
• Arobynn... good or bad?
• SAM. CORTLAND. My heart. Myyy heeeaaarrrttt.
• The Silent Assassins
• Thankyouforthebackstory, Ms. Maas.

This is a collection of five prequel novellas to the Throne of Glass series.

And these novellas are INCREDIBLE. The great thing is that they all go together. One leads right into the other, so definitely read them together if you get the chance to pick up The Assassin's Blade.

I have only read Throne of Glass. I decided to read the novellas after the first book because I've heard that's a good way to do it. And I was not quite ready to get back into the series, so the novellas were a way to keep myself involved in the story, but not so much that it overwhelmed me. I know it's odd, but I get overwhelmed by huge, dramatic, fantastic stories. So I have to take a break and read a cute fairytale or contemporary or, in this case, novellas. AND I LIKED THEM MORE THAN THRONE OF GLASS.

I. Liked. Them. More.

And I loved Throne of Glass. It wasn't the best book in the history of the universe, or even my favorite book of the year, but I loved it. And then Assassin's Blade happened.

And Sam happened.

And. Well that happened.

Sam...

So I absolutely adore Celaena. I'll be honest: I usually get sick of headstrong, super independent main characters. But I think Celaena is possibly my favorite female character ever. And this remained true through The Assassin's Blade. And when you combine her with the beautiful gift Sarah Maas bestowed upon us - Sam Cortland - it's perfection. They're perfection. They're both cocky and funny and compassionate. Compassionate assassins. Ha! Whatever that means.

Sam is so sweet and so manly and just so good. And. Well, if you've read Throne of Glass, you probably recall Celaena thinking, Oh Sam..., mysteriously time after time. So. It's no secret that there can't really be a Team Sam anyway, even if that's what the masses demand. Which sucks.

However - and don't attack me for this - I'm still all for Dorian, 100%. Even if Sam could happen.

I also feel like we didn't get to know Sam that well. Which, you know, was kind of inevitable considering everything that went down. But I wanted to love him. I just hadn't gotten to that point yet. I wish. I really wish.

He was... you know. Near perfect. But a mysterious kind of perfection with an air of uncertainty. For me, he was incomplete. I felt like my vision of him was perfect as far as our deficiency of knowledge allows us to see him. Maybe that's good. Maybe we'd all never recover from Sam and never love Dorian or Chaol because of that. Maybe it was Sarah J. Maas's intention to never let us fully get to know & love Sam so that we couldn't pine for a character that isn't really a possibility as far as love interests go. Just a thought.

While on the subject of characters...

THERE WERE JUST SO MANY. And I loved all of them. And hated some. But still loved them. I love love love how Sarah J. Maas can give us awesome characters all around. Every. Single. One. There were none that were boring or dull or unmemorable. Which is shocking. Because we were introduced to so many new/old (old because it's the past) people.

Arobynn. We got to know him better. And... he's... I'm both charmed and fascinated by him. Should I be? No. I shouldn't. Absolutely not. BUT AROBYNN IS SO AWESOME. And awful. Please, PLEASE don't understand me wrong. He's awful.

<3

And the Silent Assassins. So cool. I loved seeing Celaena's time with them. Especially the Mute Master. It seemed like such an incredible place and I wish we could have seen more there. Maybe in future books..?

Final thoughts: Maybe my favorite book this year so far. Or Cress. Cress... Not sure. BUT YOU HAVE TO READ IT. I'd actually suggest doing it like I did and reading ToG first, THEN The Assassin's Blade. Because I liked to have that mystery and then be filled in on it later. It made it more interesting. And then there was one part... where I wondered... if we had already met those characters in ToG. Hmm. So read it. Please. Please. If you haven't picked up this series, do yourself a favor. (: I can't say enough about this book. So good.