From Least Favorite to Favorite: Throne of Glass

TW: Spoilers ahead

TW: There are spoilers for some of the books in the series from here on out

My unsolicited ranking of each Throne of Glass book from my thoughts and feelings. I do overall love this series and think that the meanings behind many of the themes that are discussed are very vital to our understanding of the real world. I did read the series in publication order therefore I read Assassain’s Blade third. This is how the author wrote it and how it was meant to be read in my opinion.

I want to make this a new series where I share my rankings of series that I have read. If you have any suggestions, comment them down below. It can be books or movies.

And Now for the Rankings:

From Least Favorite to Favorite

8. Tower of Dawn

   Point blank, I didn’t love this one. I am a Chaol hater to the day I die. I don’t like him as a character and I don’t care about his story. I found him annoying and insufferable. I get why he is necessary, but I did not need a 672 page book about his redemption arc. I thought that his love story was okay nothing great. I did like the new city that was explored in this book and that we got to see some of the southern parts of the world. Reading this after the ending of Empire of Storms before picking up Kingdom of Ash was torture.

   

7. The Assassin’s Blade

   This book was good, but it felt young. The story of a first love told in different parts was very interesting. I did like Sam and the end was tragic. I did not think reading this book third made the ending any less impactful. I almost feel as though it helped bring the characters to life more knowing that Sam’s memory did not die here.

   

6. Crown of Midnight

   I liked this book when reading it a lot. I think it is a great book and gives us our iconic line, revealing Celaena’s true name. I didn’t even hate Chaol that much yet here. But he still was annoying and asked dumb questions. As for the plot, I thought that it was interesting and we were getting a glimpse of the future of this series. I remember reading Celaena’s fight with Baba Yellowlegs in this book and it was a thrilling experience.

   

5. Throne of Glass

   This is the original that started it all and it deserves props for that. I think this book is fantastic. I was hooked from the beginning. I liked the idea of the championship to compete for the king to become his champion. It was thrilling fun, and not too magical that I couldn’t understand.

   

4. Heir of Fire

   To see Aelin start to work through some of her issues as we the reader get a deeper insight into her past was done so beautifully. When I first picked up this series, I accidentally spoiled that Celaena was not her name and that it was Aelin, I was hesitant that I could connect with a character whose name changed after two books. But I found that we as readers could grow with her instead and learn to accept it as she learned to accept it too. This book is great at describing the slow process of healing from grief in many different ways.

   

3. Empire of Storms

   I am so thankful that I did not do the tandem reading. If I had chosen to read this at the same time as reading Tower of Dawn, I would not have liked this as much at all. This book grows just as much as each of the others do and I think that it is an amazing telling of how these books have evolved. The ending is tragic and unexpected and it made me so excited for Kingdom of Ash.

   

2. Queen of Shadows

   Aelin was finally transitioning from the girl who was afraid of her past to the girl who accepted her role of queen of a kingdom. The yearning that Aelin and Rowan had for each other as they started to discover their feelings was excruciatingly good. The painful revenge that Aelin got on her former Assassin’s master was like dessert after a great meal.

   

1. Kingdom of Ash

   The ending. The battle. Everything. I will think about this book for the rest of time. These characters will hold a special place in my heart because of this book and all that led up to it. There isn’t much else to say except how much of an epic ending to a long ride it was.