The Assassin´s Blade

Hey guys!

Unfortunately, it´s Monday but luckily here we are again and I am bringing you a whole new review of one of Sarah J. Mass´s books. Today I will be talking about The Assassin’s Blade de collection of all the prequel novellas from the Throne of Glass series.

I will be talking about each story individually because they work as separate books. So, you can read all the post or just the part you are interested in. As per usual this will be a spoiler free review and if I need to make a spoiler for any reason you will be warned in advance and the text will be written in white so if you want to read it you will have to select the text.

The Assassin’s Blade is as I said the collection of the prequel novellas of Throne of Glass, but still Celaena is our main character. She still as cool as usual and we get to know more about her pass. Every story can be read individually but as they are order in chronological order if you are planning to read this book, read for instance, only the first min-review if you haven’t read any; the first and the second if you had only read the first and so on.

And now without further ado, let´s jump into the actual review (note that each individual review was written right after I finished reading each story).

The Assassin and the Pirate Lord

This one is the first novella and at this point Celaena is sixteen. She doesn’t know what it´s waiting for her in the future. We get to meet a whole cast of different characters but, they are not really important maybe only with the exception of both Sam and Arobynn.

I liked how, once more, Celaena is presented to us as a character with a strong moral sense despite her profession. I think she is a very well portrayed character. The best of her in this novel, she is somehow, more of a child of what she is in the first novel, which, makes all the sense in the world considering all she went through.

As for the secondary characters, they are well presented but they are not really important with the two exceptions that I have already mention. To the exceptions I have to add that the villain in this story is extremely interesting and, considering the few space the author had its amazing.

As for the plot, I will say it´s highly entertained. It serves for two things: we met new characters that will be more important in further novellas and, we get to see Celaena as we met her in the other books, but when she is still an assassin.

With regard to the rhythm and the style they were perfect and they were what the author has us used to.

I gave this novella 5 out 5 stars.

The Assassin and the Healer

This novella was in my opinion pointless it really didn’t add anything to the story. It´s very static and really nothing happens.

Celaena is cool as she always is but the other main character in this story is stupid and I really didn’t like her.

I gave 2.5 out of 5 stars to this story.

The Assassin and the Dessert

In this third novella, we follow Celaena as she is completing the punishment for freeing all the slaves in the first novella. She is going to the Red Dessert to train with the Silent assassins. She needs the latter of approval of the master of those assassins to be save when she gets back to Rifthold.

The plot in this story could have been way better than it was. Because not over a 100 pager where needed to tell this story. It was way too slow and everything happens right at the end.

Also, there is this attempt of romance that fails, plus the whole friendship that in a way is like a copy of Celaena´s and Nehemia´s friendship and I didn’t like it.

However, I enjoyed the whole training part, even when it was the part in which the story was less focus on. I also liked the style, it was Sarah J.Mass in her more addicting writing.

Overall, I gave this one 3.5 out of 5 stars.

The Assassin and the Underworld

In this book, we follow Celaena as she is back in Rifthold after all that have happened to her during the summer. This story was simply magnificent I have really enjoyed reading it.

Contrary to what I said about the previous story in this one the action starts from very early on and we get to see a whole plot. It was well developing, and the rhythm in which things happened was just perfect.

As for the characters, I have really loved this story. We had a glimpse of Arobynn on the first book and through the memories of Celaena in the two previous stories, but in this one we get to really meet him and he is such a terrific character. As for Sam, I really loved him even more and I hate to know what’s going to happen with him before hand; tough maybe it will prevent my heart to be broken into a thousand pieces.

Celaena was such a great character to read from but as I did when reading the first Throne of Glass book, I have a problem with her attitude, thinking that she is the best and constantly reminding it to the reader.

And just so you know there is a little cameo of a couple of characters that will appear later on in the story.  

Overall, I gave this story 4.5 out of 5 stars.

The Assasin and the Empire

First things first, coming to this point in the book I was starting to feel a little bit heart broken mostly because I already knew what was going to happen. But as read the first chapter of this story my heart broke into a million pieces.

In this last story we follow Celaena and Sam as they are trying to leave Rifthold for good. But in order to do so they need to do a final job that will grant them to have enough money to pay a fee all the assassins have to pay when they leave the Guild. And as all of us know by now is how they were betrayed and how Sam died. The thing is that when you read this story you know who betrayed them and in a way, is shocking.

Overall this story was magnificent, because the writing was on point. And the characters that appear played important parts. And all the feelings that the story transmitted was because it gets us to empathize with the characters. I gave this one 5 out of 5 stars.

By the way, I think that the titles for this last story and the previous one should be change. I think it will make much more sense.

Overall, I gave to the Assassin’s Blade 4.1 out of 5 stars and I will highly recommend reading it to all Throne of Glass Fans.

Have you read it yet? What are your thoughts on the book? What are your though of prequel novellas?

See you all next Monday.