The Assassin's Blade
Ratings500
Average rating4
This book is a collection of relatively short stories showing us the “origin story” of Celaena and I will highly recommend you read it after book 3 of the series - Heir of Fire.
Say what you will about Sarah J. Maas, the woman knows how to write addictive books and just when you think you've got her all figured out, she goes and sneaks in some subtlety.
I quite enjoyed this collection even though Celaena was fairly unbearable for a big part of it. But given that this is pretty much the beginning of her character arc, it's rather understandable. And we did see hints of improvement.
I am ashamed/happy to say that this book made me cry and experience some serious dread and sorrow. The hours where Celaena is waiting for Sam to return but he doesn't and you know he never will... this part killed me. I felt like it was I who was waiting and I have rarely experienced such sorrow from a book. It was masterfully done.
Great book!
It was so stressful trying to decide when I'd be reading this book but I picked reading it first before TOG cause that's what most people recommended so I'm excited to see where this goes.
I can't believe I'm rating it this high. I love reading fantasy but it has to have romance for me to really really love it so the fact that this book had so little of it and I enjoyed it so much is insane.
I loved Celaena, I think she's so cool and I can't wait for her to get the revenge she so clearly deserves.
The way that possessive asshole made it his mission in life to backstab her every chance he could got me so annoyed, I hope he has a slow torturous death.
Nice to get more background around certain charachters but reallly wanted to continue to Heir of Fire sawrrry
2023-
Yeah, still not a fan of Sam and Celaena. Did really enjoy the other three novellas
2022-
Still not a big fan of Sam and Celaena
2018-
I'm not sure if I'd survive another Maas Destruction
EDIT: 2nd read of this book and I can safely say I appreciate it much more. It was sad, beautiful, and tragic
Old rating: 3.5 stars
New rating: 4 stars
very impressed
This is the first book I've read by Sarah J. Mass and I've got to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed it. It does fit within the YA fantasy realm, but I'm not embarrassed to say that, as a 40-year-old man, I've had a very good time with it. I look forward to reading all the books by Sarah J. Mass in the near future!
Ouch.......
This is my favorite one in the series so far.
Can't wait to get to the tandem read.
If it wasn't for “The Assassin and the Healer” I would have given this two stars. It was such a slog to get through, I think I just really missed Manon.
4.5 stars
I bought the box set of this entire series like 3ish years ago now and it has sat on my bookshelf the whole time unread. At the end of 2022 I decided I was going to be making it a goal to read this entire series in 2023. Not too long after I made that decision Destiny announced wanting to finally read the final book in the series or possibly rereading the whole series. I commented saying I would totally be up for a buddy read of the entire series and here we are. Her partner has even joined us in this buddy read.
Destiny has read all but the last book in this series and she recommended we start with The Assassin's Blade which is a collection of 5 novellas. I know some people have commented saying I probably shouldn't have started with this book but I think it worked perfectly fine reading it this way. I admit it took me a little bit to get fully hooked. The 3rd story is the one that finally pulled me in. The first 2 were the shortest stories of the 5 and I just wasn't connecting with the characters at all. I was liking it but I wasn't obsessed.
The 3rd story is where things really picked up for me and where I started getting attached to certain characters. I think Celaena is a flawed character but she is 3 dimensional and while I think she is a very conceited character she grew on me. Sam Cortland had me from the very first story. I can't really say much because of spoilers but let's just say by the time I finished the last story Maas had ripped my heart out and stomped on it.
I'm very eager to continue on with the rest of the series but also afraid because if these stories hurt I'm afraid to find out what else she is going to put us through.
I don't think I listened to the right advice to start this series with the prequel. It took a long time to read through because I kept falling asleep. I'm certain that it had less to do with the content than with the context and would have enjoyed it more if I knew more about the characters going in. I already have Throne of Glass lined up. I'm excited to see what Celaena does.
This was... okay. It put me in a reading slump for like two weeks though because I had zero desire to read it. There were parts I liked but overall I just didn't really enjoy it that much.
My favorite of the stories was the one in the Red Dessert. But the rest left a lot to be desired for me.
I also hate to say this but I didn't really like Sam that much.
“Of all the girls in all the world, here she was on a spit of beach in the Red Desert, astride an Asterion horse, racing faster than the wind. Most would never experience this - she would never experience anything like this again. And for that one heartbeat, when there was nothing more to it than that, she tasted bliss so complete that she tipped her head back to the sky and laughed.”
~
I really enjoyed this collection of short adventures that provide some history to Celaena's life and some background to her person. Maas did a great job of making each story captivating and emotional, setting up the start of Throne of Glass.I really enjoyed the collection of short adventures that Maas put together to provide some history to Celaena's life and background into her person. Maas did a fantastic job of making each story captivating and emotional, setting up the start of the Throne of Glass.
This book is collection of novellas ranging from the beautiful and inspiring to the dark and depressing.
While it is a collection of different stories, the narrative does flow between them in a novel-ish way, there are no significant time jumps and events from one section feed directly into the next. That said, I found the feel of the stories are radically different. Without too much of a spoiler, I found the first tale to be an awesome adventure, the desert based tale to be at times beautiful and moving. The final two city-based stories however became steadily darker and more disturbing - not to my taste.
As they are so different I think it's only fair to break things down:
• The Assassin and the Pirate Lord. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• The Assassin and the Healer. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
• The Assassin and the Desert. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (beautiful)
• The Assassin and the Underworld. ⭐️⭐️ (too predictable)
• The Assassin and the Empire ⭐️ (predictable and way too nasty for my taste)
To summarise, I'm really glad I read this book for the Desert tale, but by the end I was glad to finish. I may come back to read another in the series at some point, but right now I need something different to get over that extremely dark ending.
Where do men find it in themselves to do such monstrous things? How do they find it acceptable?
Part of me wishes I had read this prior to starting the ToG series, but it was also nice to read it after seeing more of Celaena's character. To new readers I'd definitely recommend the novellas before Throne of Glass, though. These were a bit of a mixed bag for me, but overall I liked them! They each focus on a different story but move chronologically and build off of each other.
1. The Assassin and the Pirate Lord - 4 stars
This was a nice introduction to Celaena and her values as well as her relationship with Sam. I really enjoyed reading their interactions and seeing how they played off each other's strengths even when they weren't getting along.
2. The Assassin and the Healer - 3 stars
Easily the most forgettable of the five, I actually had completely wiped it from my memory until I went to write down my individual ratings. It's nice, but not particularly strong.
3. The Assassin and the Desert - 5 stars
I loved this one! I could easily read a full-length novel about the Silent Assassins and hope that they possibly feature more in future books. I did not guess that twist, though!
4. The Assassin and the Underworld - 4.5 stars
This featured a lot of Celaena and Sam, which I loved! We get a better feel for how Celaena's life with the assassins goes, and how she starts drifting from Arobynn.
5. The Assassin and the Empire - 4 stars
Heart-wrenching! Bits of it felt a little overdone to me, but this shows us how Celaena got to where we find her at the beginning of Throne of Glass, as well as her state of mind there.
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“My name is Celaena Sardothien," she whispered, "and I will not be afraid.”
I loved this! It adds more depth to Celaena's character. I think my favorite story is the assassin and the desert because of the complex female friendship and i enjoyed reading about Celaena's time there. But i also liked the last two stories because of how interesting Arobyn as an antagonist was and also because of Lysandra and Sam.
3.8 out of 5. Since these are the first works of SJM I understand that pacing was not the best. I struggled a bit reading it but now I'm really excited about the actual ToG saga knowing more about Celaena's background story!
This one was a slog to get through, but necessary for setup of the next book.
I agree with people that this was better than the first in ‘Throne of Glass'. The Celaena in this one was more badass and more sympathetic. But still, I'm not particularly drawn to the world of this series.
This review contains spoilers
This book should sit in a corner and think about what it's done.
I have read the Throne of Glass series last year and it's became one of my all time favourite series. But guess what? I hadn't read “The Assassin's Blade” before, so I decided to read it now, since I'm going to re-read Throne of Glass. Oh, I thought I was going to be prepared. Plot-twist: I WAS NOT .
I finally got to meet the amazing Sam I've heard so much about and I loved him so, so much. Such a pure and amazing character, he loved Celaena with all his heart. And that broke my heart, because he will never get to know Aelin, he will never get to see her as the Queen of Terrasen. That's what I kept thinking about last night, after reading the chapter of his death. I was so angry, so hurt. His death was so brutal and he didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve it at all and it pains me to even think of it.
I KNEW why I've been avoiding to read this book. Now, after knowing the story of Sam and Celaena, my heart will never be the same. I will read Throne of Glass again and probably start crying at every mention of Sam. Before, I didn't understand Celaena's pain when she was talking about Sam. But now I will.
I'm not usually a big fan of novellas, but I loved this. It was great getting Celaena's back story. She has led a very interesting life. Definitely excited to continue this series. I just love assassin stories.