Through the defiance of social constructs and expectations and the events of her past fueling her, Celaena Sardothien creates a contradiction to the typical female equates to weakness emotional and physically. She rises up from the ashes of her past and experience as a female assassin to create her own values of female strength and how anyone can gain power. Among the many novels I read, I have a deep interest and love for fantasy novels and the world that they create, each detail whether insignificant or not intrigues me. I am often cynical and critical of these genres of books and often times I have certain requirements that need to be reached when reading or i become dis-intersted. This book met my requirements and exceeded them, when a book creates it's own world it needs to be enumerated by it's many details but still be clear, able to create a world that has certain logic, customs, morals, etc. This book was well written, it's world building extensive even including a new religion that most, if not all, followed with complete rituals performed, worshipping, and certain holidays that celebrated it too. I also liked the character building too, Celaena's development was strong and had good tactics used in order to want you to keep reading and wanting to know more, it was done this way by giving a very undefined background of her's, hinting at certain possibilities of her past, which I admired. Another concept that I appreciate greatly is the fact that Celaena had not been able to be strong just because she a love interest but because she was a strong individual . I also liked the fact that although she is a trained assassin who has killed, she can still show up to a ball looking gorgeous and have people falling at her feet.
One main flaw that stood out to me about Celeana's character, was how unaware she was. There were many small decisions she made that did not fit into her character of being an assassin. The only problem with concept of Celaena being an assassin, was the fact that we barely see her in action, and the times we do aren't examples of an assassin. Also the over all structure of book was decent, the middle of the book seemed to have dragged. Other than seemingly minor flaws, this novel was exceptional, I will definitely be continuing the series, earning it four stars out of five.