So here's the thing about Throne of Glass. Once upon a time, a beautiful set of covers came out, the internet started raving, and the book sounded good. Yes, it seemed like a good idea at the time to buy it but I knew I wouldn't get around to reading it while the internet was still going on and on about how Sarah J. Maas is amazing and wonderful and unstoppable. Not that the internet would have swayed my opinion; I would have disliked this book if I read it when I was thirteen and highly, I mean incredibly highly, impressionable. I liked Twilight, for goodness sake. 
 I can't really think of a way to sort my thoughts about this overstuffed mess of a book. So instead of fighting to make this a regular review, have a half-rant, half-review in the form of bullet points. Basically, I'm hitting all of the bullcrap moments that make Throne of Glass such a weak book. And I do mean weak. God help you if you can make it through this book. 
 **The characters are boring. They are boring, so boring, amazingly boring; I couldn't read more than two paragraphs before yawning and putting the book down, picking it up two hours later, and repeating the process all over again. Here's the cast: "Assassin," Prince, Guard (not even Captain of the Guard, just a guard; he does absolutely nothing to separate him from the rest of the guards), Evil King, Foreign Princess. There's nothing to flesh them out. They are only people with signs hung around their necks-titles, not even names-that move around an unpainted stage like stiff wooden puppets. 
 **This "test" that's happening-like, how stupid is that? What king looks at his dungeons and says, "Yeah, let's go ahead and pull out these murderers. I want them to run loose, doing my bidding because they'll totally listen to the man who imprisoned them." And the training? Why does Adarlan's "Greatest Assassin" need training from the king's washed-up weapons master? Celaena already has training from a guy who churns out assassins like nothing. A "weapons master," more accurately known as the castle's/hold's master of arms, is kept in court to teach the royal kids how to spar; a master of arms helps the captain of the guard train new recruits so they know the way things are and don't stab a visiting noble. If Adarlan's weapons master was a real master of arms, he'd refuse to oversee gym class for thieves and murderers. 
 **Seriously. The big ol' scary test is gym class. PE. Phys Ed. And it all happens OFF SCREEN. And competitors turn up dead before tests-you guessed it, OFF SCREEN. At one point it was mentioned that four people died. In a single paragraph. And then Celaena went on thinking about the prince or whatever. The fight to become the king's champion is supposed to be the whole plot, and the plot happens OFF. SCREEN. 
 **Okay, I'll get this out of the way because it's the only praise. Waste straight boys' time 2k16! There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. Sure, when Celaena is batting her eyelashes at both boys, my eyes rolled far back into my head. But Celaena comes to her senses and realizes she wants to be free in every sense of the word, meaning no relationships. I'm sure there's plenty of fanfics out there where Dorian crows that he was "friend zoned" (although we all know there's no such thing) and he'll win Celaena's love somehow! But no, really, I love how she shut him down. 
 **I. Hate. Celaena. I hate her. 
 **Her ego is BEYOND ridiculous. Not invited to a shindig? Whine about it. Look like you've suffered hard labor and little food in a torture mine for a year while standing in front of a prince? Whine about it. Someone's not paying attention to you for TWO SECONDS? Whine, whine, whine. If someone isn't paying attention to her, she's freaking whining about it. If you're supposed to be an assassin-notorious or not-you shouldn't want attention. You should be able to blend in, to go unnoticed. The fact she wants to be adored at every minute of every day is not endearing. 
 **I'm told she's the best. Over and over and over and over. Celaena's the best-the best of the best! She set the bar! She's the ultimate. Stop, stop it. Just show me. If I actually had evidence of her actually being a good assassin, maybe I'd change my tune. As it is, if you didn't follow this story while it was on FictionPress, you see nothing of Celaena's abilities. It's forced down our throats that she could do this, she could do that. She could take out an entire legion of guards in a blink. Um, all I see is a chick who thinks she's something but really needs a reality check. Maybe the whole story is just a hallucination on her death bed in the mines? 
 **And if she's supposed to be the best, why can't she do anything on her own? Okay, power of friendship, great, I get that. It's a theme that stretches through YA and chick lit and all kinds of things, especially aimed at young girls. Not even Harry freaking Potter could defeat Voldemort on his own. But there's literally no sense of friendship in this book. Nehemia, you say? Nah, bro. Nehemia and Celaena lied to each other throughout the book. In fact, Celaena trusted her so very little that she suspected Nehemia of killing people. Yep, great friends right there. Celaena just kicks back in the castle and lets the ghost of an ancient queen, who's name is super duper surprisingly similar to Celaena's (HMMMM....), give her all the answers. Celaena does nothing except eat, sleep, and somehow spend a lot of time with the prince. 
 **The entire book would have been more enjoyable if Dorian and Chaol were romantically involved. They were the only characters with chemistry, and even most of their interactions happened off screen. 
 **Maas has a thing for repetition. And not the good kind that adds tension, mystery, or even poetry to a story. It's basically "She wanted to run, run, run away" or "She needed air, air, air in her lungs." Trying to reach that word goal, eh? Trust me, it only gets worse in the last 30 pages. 
 **This book is DOUBLE the length it needs to be. If you cut out 200 pages of Maas assuring us that Celaena is super duper amazing and wonderful, and replace it all with the actual contest that is supposed to be the PLOT of the book, it would be solid. Maas wouldn't have to beat us over the head that her heroine is amazing and we should love her, because we would then get to see how amazing she is. 
 **Wyrdmarks. Um? Ummm??? Okay, so the Evil King has outlawed magic and Wyrd is supposed to be some ancient religion or magic or whatever, AND YET the characters say things like "By the Wyrd!" without worrying about the consequences. I'm pretty sure that if a king who outlawed magic heard someone throwing Wyrd stuff around, he would do something about it. Not to mention Celaena has a Wyrdmark on her forehead yet the king is totally cool with it. Instead of making an example of her, he just lets her flounce around, no big deal. 
 **I thought I would make it through a YA book without someone calling the heroine clumsy. I was wrong. Celaena, Adarlan's greatest assassin, was called clumsy and she didn't even try to kill that someone. She shrugged it off. Instead of taking offense, she accepted being called clumsy. Because it's supposed to be endearing. If you and a friend read the same YA book, never bet against clumsy. 
 I don't understand how people can rave about this book. Rant, yes. Jeer, yes. But calling it a masterpiece and how it's so awesome and Celaena is so amazing and strong? What book did they read? Mob mentality is a real thing, and it certainly shows in the reviews of this obnoxious book. And somehow Maas is churning out, like, six more stories about this series!