Let's Talk: The Assassin's Blade

Title: The Assassin's Blade

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Series: "Throne of Glass" #0.5

Genre: YA High-Fantasy

Page Length: 435 pages

Publication Date: March 4, 2014

Date Started: May 27, 2016

Date Finished: May 31, 2016

Rating: 5/5 stars

*Semi-spoiler free*

I hate Arobynn Hamel. Before I read this novel, when we were just going off of Celaena's descriptions in the main books, I thought that maybe he wasn't a bad guy. My thoughts on him were "Oh, he's Celaena's father figure. He took her in, trained her. He's gotta be a great guy and obviously really cares about Celaena." Boy was I wrong! I wanted to slap him most of the novel. I'm not gonna say much else, but I hate him with a burning passion. He's my number one most hated antagonist out of anything I've ever read.

Anyway, now that that's out of me, I loved this book. I love all books written by Sarah J. Maas, so it should be no surprise that I loved this one. My reread wasn't as good as the first time I read I read it, most likely because I was forcing myself to finish it before a certain day, but I still really loved it.

In this book we meet Sam Cortland, who we know about from the main books, and I loved him to death. It was very interesting to see his and Celaena's relationship develop and grow. I loved every moment of him. 

I loved loved loved seeing Celaena's past. I really enjoyed The Assassin and the Desert because not only was she miles and miles from home, but she was also training with different people. And the training was not what she was used to, and she was not top of the class. It was awesome seeing her determination and willpower throughout the whole novella. I also loved seeing more of the world and the Silent Assassins. I hope that they appear in later novels. 

As this was a prequel, I know exactly what the ending would be for the most part. And I told myself not to get attached to certain characters, but ended up getting attached anyway. By the end of the book I was sobbing so much. I had to take a break when I first read this book before I moved on in the series because the pain was so raw. 

I highly recommend these prequel novellas. As for what order to read the novels in, it's up for discussion. I read ToG, CoM, novellas, HoF, and then QoS, which I believe is publishing order. You could read the novellas before ToG, or you could even read them after the last book. I recommend between Crown of Midnight and Heir of Fire as the world gets a lot bigger in HoF and some of what happens in the novellas is referenced in QoS. 

All in all, I loved this book, just as I love all of Sarah J. Maas's novels. 

~

Thanks for reading

xoxo

Lauren

~

P.S. Join me for my Throne of Glass Read-A-Long for the release of Empire of Storms, starting this past May!