It was her turn to raise her brows. "And that actually works?"
He laughed onto her fingers. "Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But usually it makes me feel better to some degree. Or just makes me laugh at myself a bit”
Title:The Assassin's Blade (Novellas 3 through 5)
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating: A- (for novellas 3 through 5)
Recommended For: Fans of the Throne of Glass series (obviously!) and fans of The Young Elites and Graceling
Source: Library e-book
One-sentence review: Much longer and more in-depth set of novella prequels that give the reader a much better idea of who Celaena Sardothien from the Throne of Glass series is and where she came from.
TBR It: Goodreads
Buy It: Amazon
Check out my review for the first half of this novella compilation here.
For fear of giving spoilers, I'm not going to break down the last three novellas individually like I did for the first two. In short, The Assassin and the Desert follows Celaena Sardothien as she spends her summer in the Red Desert to train with the Mute Master of the Silent Assassins. The other two novellas follow Celaena once she returns home.
These three novellas finally made me feel like this compilation was worth reading! Instead of being short stories like the previous installments, these novellas were so much more in-depth and exciting. The reader continues to learn about Celaena's moral scope of the world in which she lives, but the reader is also able to observe instances that help her shape this scope. Most prominently are lessons about trust, friendship, freedom and forgiveness. There is the same level of action, emotion and information that I was hoping for amongst these three prequels and I am very satisfied that I read them!
For those of you reading these prequels just to learn about Sam: The Assassin and the Underworld is the novella that will bring all the pieces together for you! However, I will say that I'm glad I read Throne of Glass first because I think it gave me a special level of dramatic irony that made these novellas especially exciting to read. Essentially I know what happens to Celaena, but I loved seeing the dots connect and learning who she is and how she got to where the series really begins. Yes, some things dragged on and were slow, but these novellas are definitely worth the time to read to get to know Celaena Sardothien a little bit better!
I liked reading the other two, but I agree with you that these are the ones that made this book being important for the rest of the series. I read this book before reading Throne of Glass and, while I see your point, it also made me more invested on the first book - which I think is the weakest of the series so far and I could have not been that invested on it if I didn't already liked Celaena's character so much.
ReplyDeleteDeyse @ Bound with Words