Book Review: The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J Maas
Rating: 10/10
Hello, stabby book dragons!
Today we are discussing The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J Maas. I read this when it came out, and then again in 2017, but as I never finished the series I decided to reread all the books from the beginning. If you looked at my Reading Plans for 2020 list (Link: Here) you will see this series on there. You will also see that I am very much behind on reading. But let’s not dwell, book friends! Onto the review!
This is a collection of novellas, but when read all together they all build on each other. Often I find that novellas are just fun additions to a series, but don’t provide the necessary information. This is not the case here. In my opinion, you need to read this first before proceeding onto the rest of the series. The information provided helps to understand Celaena’s character and what shapes her. Certain characters introduced in this book will also become more important. The character development Celaena goes through is also impressive, a lot of work was done by the author to make her practically a different person at the end of the book than at the beginning of the book.
We now go to SPOILER LAND! Stay out of Spoiler Land. Seriously stay out. Spoiler Land will hurt you.
Sam and Celaena by @Arz28 on Instagram
The first novella is the trigger to everything in the book and also in the later books. We start in the middle of a stormy night as any proper book should. Celaena is not a likable character at first. She grows on you. That makes her the best kind of character. She takes work. I really could not feel her loss, because we never met the person for whom she’s grieving so… I didn’t care. Later I figured out a certain thing and the importance of the death but at first, it just serves as a way to start the story. Celaena supposedly kills those responsible but we don’t get to see it and that disappoints me. Soon enough we are sent to the coast, or an island I don’t have the map handy as I am writing this in the car, with a mysterious mission from the King of Assasins. I cringe as I type the title in association with Arobynn. He does not deserve it. That manipulative little…. anyway. Sam and Celaena are shocked when they realize the business they were sent on involves slavery. I was shocked too. I think Sam is shocked for the same reason I am, that this is even a thing. Celaena is shocked because she didn’t expect it from Arobynn. I expected it. He just has a vibe, a slimy one. So well done Sarah. We also meet an interesting pirate lord, and I am all for pirate lords. Mostly the fictional hot ones.
We get our first indication that there is more to Celaena when she decides to free the slaves. She knows it will cause problems for her, but she still thinks its a cause worthy of the risk. Sam agrees with her, much to her surprise. The surprise was genuine because Celaena truly believes everyone is a threat to her position and thus can’t be trusted. It must be a sad world to live in. watching those two schemes and plot was the most fun I had in the book. If you read the book you know that things get pretty dark from here on. The scene where they pretend to get drunk in the bar as part of their distraction made me laugh out loud. Sam and Celaena had a good plan, but, as plans tend to do, things went very wrong very quickly. I think it took Celaena thinking Sam died for her to realize she might be feeling something.
The next novella is, on the surface, the least connected to the story. But I loved it. Most of it was from a viewpoint different than Celaena, which was a great way to get an outside look at her. I also actually enjoyed being in Yrene’s head. She is like me in many ways, she got stuck, knew it, but couldn’t think of a way out. I relate to that. I love that she got mad when Celaena tried to test her, after some self-defense training. It’s such a Celaena thing to do to someone, but I got the impression no one called her out on this kind of thing before. I doubt she expected someone she thought of as gentle and soft to do it. Celaena has issues realizing that there is more to people than one aspect. She has that same issue when it comes to herself because she had to focus on certain aspects of herself to survive. Yrene had a similar struggle, but she coped better because she has a different personality. I am so glad Celaena left Yrene money to get out and pursue her dreams.
If you have not read most of this series skip this paragraph. Seriously skip it. This novella just shows the planning Sarah did before writing the series. I did not expect we would ever see Yrene again, and not in the way we did. Who would expect the amount of groundwork that was put into the series?
Okay, everyone can come back now. The next novella I think truly gives Celaena a new perspective on her life and her mentor. She is sent off to train with another master assassin and expects to be treated like dirt, while at the same time to be the best. She is not treated like dirt, and she is not the best. All her expectations are shattered quickly and she has to learn to cope with a whole new environment. She has time to think about Arobynn’s actions, his motivations, and his treatment of her as well as other people. She builds a very careful friendship with Ansel, but it is not a deep friendship. Celaena does not put her trust in the other girl, but she feels like they have trust between them. This is where we start to get the impression that Celaena trusts Arobynn as much as she does because he knows her secrets, and has not betrayed them yet. In her eyes that is the most important thing, until she sees something different and is taken our of Arobynn’s direct control. I would even call sending her away from his direct influence and control a mistake on Arobynn’s part. I think he too expected something other than what the desert was like. Just a quick note on Ansel before I move on: that girl needs a lot of therapy and help.
The next story paints a picture of Rithfold for me. I start to understand what Celaena loves about the city, and I start to love it too. We get to see the beauty and the darkness. I knew Arobynn was a lying little cockroach from the beginning. Celaena trusted him, and I still can’t figure out why. Sam did not trust him but trusted that the information on a job they were given was correct. I had no such trust. I spend this whole novella screaming at the characters. We get to glimpse Celeana’s love of music here, When Sam got her the sheet music to a performance she loved I melted into a puddle of goo. He got her something that would truly mean something to her, and that moved her. It’s also a good contrast between what Arobynn keeps throwing at her. He keeps giving her jewelry, and yes she likes it but she does not place any particular emotional importance on it. I’m not sure the contrast occurs to her for a while but it jumped out at me.
The issue of slavery is once again addressed here, and we finally find out it’s a new thing or an old thing that came back due to one man’s ambition and power hunger. We get our first glimpse of just how terrified of the king of Adarlen Celaena is. Arobynn tells Celeana and Sam this whole story about them being hired by someone to assassinate an individual who wants to make slavery much easier and more profitable. I go: this is a trick. Celeana goes: on Arobynn is trying to make up for his past mistakes. GIrl, you know better. You know better. She does not do any research, which frustrated me. It’s all blind trust. I spent the whole novella wishing and praying Celeana would just get out of there.
Having said all this I did not like the way Celeana treated or thought about Lyssandra. I did not like it at all. She acted like Lysandra picked the situation she was in and like she was in more control of her life than Celeana. Frankly, I am not a fan of people being bitches to other people for no reason, and Celeana was a real bitch the whole time. She did not even try to understand, even when Sam pointed out the truth to her. She didn’t want to. I think she felt threatened by the presence of another woman in the lives of Sam and, sadly, Arobynn. I wanted to pet her on the head and tell her that Arobynn has had other women in his life the whole time, and she just didn’t know. And Sam has his mind and knows what he wants. You don’t have to bring someone down whose whole value is already only measured in their looks and in being a sexual conquest to men. I cannot get behind this. I am not saying Lysandra didn't purposefully do certain things to get under Celaena’s skin. She did. That does not make her worthy of contempt. It makes her human.
The relationship development between Sam and Celaena was so great. Watching her not know how to handle feelings. She did everything she could to push him away and deny that feelings were happening. Sam was the one with the patience of a saint. I am happy he could see past her shallow and prickly exterior and to the deeper and more interesting person hiding underneath. It was through seeing how Arobynn treated Sam that Celaena’s eyes got opened about just how toxin the whole citation was. She had the means to get out, she earned them, and then wait for her to use those means drove me crazy. It is so sad that it took a trick and a murder of someone who was trying to help the world for her to see the truth. I was so happy she found a way to get Sam out of there too. I fully expected that scene to go about as well as it did. Arobynn is a character I truly hate. He bought Lysandra with the money Celaena paid for her freedom with. Let that sink in for a second. He bought the sexual “rights” to a woman with the money another woman paid him with for her freedom this is so messed up on so many levels.
The final novella will break your heart. It broke mine at least. You sense disaster coming but there is nothing to be done about it. Things just keep getting worse and you as the reader cant help. Celaena and Sam are living together in her apartment and for the most part, they are happy and in love, but the relationship, and the situation they are in. are far from perfect. They are unable to find jobs because they left The League, aka Arobynn is pissy. Celaena left and took Sam with her and he can’t handle it, and they both have been trained to be assassins, a profession that does not allow for a lot of alternative career paths. Sam has no money and thus feels like he is useless, and Celaena’s money is running out as well. I laughed so hard when Celena let it slip that she had never been grocery shopping and that it took too much time out of her day. First of all honey cakes, what are you doing with that time anyhow? And second of all welcome to life. She wanted to hire a housekeeper but didn’t because Sam was too worried about money. I know this is not her fault and not funny but I could not keep it in because it’s such a ridiculous thing to say.
That was the only funny thing I found in this novella. I feel the stress and tension coming off Sam and I know it will prompt some bad decisions on his part. Celaena, on the other hand, is in denial about the sustainability of the situation. She does not want to leave, because she loves the city, but in my opinion, she is simply scared to leave. She does not think that she is afraid. She tells herself it is because she couldn’t possibly find an equally good place. I call bullshit, and Sam calls bullshit. I knew things would end in disaster as soon as Celaena insisted they needed to talk to Arobynn. Sam was right. They should have skedaddled out of there as soon as possible. They should have left as soon as it became clear that theory would not find work, and while they had more savings. Celaena is so far in denial about Arobynn, as I have said multiple times in this review, that she cannot see what is happening. She is still hoping that things will work out between the two of them. Sam does not believe that and it’s a source of conflict between the two of them. They go and Arobynn plays Celaena per usual. Immediately after Sam finds a potential, extremely well-paying job. I started screaming at this point. For once Sam is so excited that he does not see the trap coming, and Celaena does not see the trap coming. They both acknowledge the danger but don’t expect the whole thing to be a trap and a setup. Just one more thing before I move onto the end of the story, Arobynn trying to sow distrust between Sam and Celaena by implying she has a deep dark secret was a dirty move. Sam being understanding about it shows you just how great of a human being he is. I so badly wanted Celaena to confide in him, but those trust issues come in again. And part of her trust in Arobynn comes from the fact that he kept her secret all these years, but That trust is so badly misplaced it hurts me. It hurts me on her behalf because she deserves better and on Sam’s behalf because he deserves to have a relationship in which there are no deep dark secrets.
As soon as Sam does not come back on time I knew it’s not good. And I am right. Celaena waiting around drove me insane. I do not think it was her fault, the whole thing was caused by a variety of variables. The biggest variable was freaking Arobynn. It takes a lot to make me truly hate a character without seeing a positive side to them, but I hate him He made sure Sam would be the captured and the one tortured and the one killed. It was just another way to ensure Celaena would be hurt as much as possible before he broke her completely. And it worked. She was captured and sold into slavery. And she still refused to see who was responsible not only for her suffering but also for the suffering and death of the man she loved. It was so frustrating to see that. Because at the end of this book there is no bright side to bee seen for Celaena. She lost. And she is suffering.
Alright, this is it, we are out o SPOILER LAND. You can come back if you left. I just have a few final thoughts left.
These novellas are necessary for the rest of the series if you ask me. There is so much background here, and so much character development. In my opinion, you will be missing out on a lot if you don’t read The Assasin’s Blade. The ending here is traumatic, to say the least, so it’s a good thing that I am writing this review at a time when all the books are already written and out there in the world for us to devour.
This is it for my disorganized review. I kept going back and forth on how I should write this and it took me forever to complete it but I am going to leave it before it gets worse. Goodbye and see you next time!
Anna
