The Assassin's Blade

I wish we could've gotten even more of a back story with Sam. They deserved more time for their story to be told. I loved all the different past tales of her journeys. FU Arobynn.

Wow, this book has been a super fun adventure! one thing that drove me nuts was Cealena's personality. I'm not sure if I can read more books about her.

This book is actually a collection of novellas that are prequels to the Throne of Glass Series. Each one contains some event that shaped Celaena into the assassin we see in the series. These novellas were amazing and I really enjoyed all the background we got.

Each novella showed a lot of the choices Celaena makes that contradict the stereotypical assassin persona. These novellas helped show that what Celaena does in Crown of Midnight and Heir of Fire is not completely out of character and she has done similar things in the past. Personally I wish I had read this book before reading Heir of Fire because it would have augmented a few of the things Celaena goes through with Rowan if I had already read the Assassin's blade.

From the other books in the series, I did not think I would like Sam, but reading this book really made me understand why Sam and Celaena were good for each other. They dealt with the struggles of being an Assassin together and supported each other through that. Along with this came the heartbreak of just how devastated Celaena must be at the beginning of the Throne of Glass with being in the camp plus Sam's death. The slow build up of Celaena realize just how much she cares about Sam was wonderfully done.

Each of these stories were a great window into Celaena's life prior to Endovier and how they have shaped the events that take place in the other books. Arobynn is incredibly cruel and I absolutely do not understand how Celaena survived all that time with him. The Silent Master definitely taught her a lot and was a far better Master.

That last page killed me. So sad, but she is using Sam's death and her imprisonment to motivate her to survive and get her revenge. This book also made me crave more Celaena and I also miss Chaol and Dorian. I don't like that I have to wait until Fall 2015.

This collection of novellas with an overarching direction was very interesting. It gave a great deal of insight into Celaena's past. However, on it's own merit, it was not as good as the regular stories in the series. The writing and intensity were not up to par. Neither was the pacing. It dragged moments out in several places, especially with the ending that anyone who read the other books knows was coming. After having read Heir of Fire, this story by necessity does not feel as grand. Perhaps it lost some magic for that reason.
There were some great things and characters. Sam Cortland was fantastic. The silent assassins and the Mute Master were incredible (easily the best part). Overall, I just didn't love it as 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.

Ouch.......

This is my favorite one in the series so far.

Can't wait to get to the tandem read.

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

3.5 stars.
Loved 1 story
liked 2 stories
disliked 1 story
so overal, 3.5 stars. :)

My heart

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 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.

4.5⭐️

Did I went into this knowing Sam would die? Yes

Did I cry? Yes

OKAY WOW. i can't wait to read ToG now 😭

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.

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!

Gosh. That was a wild ride. Let's get this out of the way though. I like Arobynn. He's a jerk. A dick. A douchebag. But I think he had a separate agenda for all he did to Celaena. Maybe one day we'll figure it all out (please Queen of Shadows!) but that's going to be a mystery for now.
Maas' writing definitely got better in Heir of Fire. In the novellas and in books one and two, her writing was sort of basic. Not emotion-inducing or whatnot, but plain descriptive sentences. The characters drove the plot, not vice versa. It's fun to see someone improve by this much, though.
I really loved finding out Celaena's past and how she was before the Salt Mines of Endovier changed her. But perhaps it was the gods or fate that led her to becoming what she became later on. I guess we do have to admit that thanks to the King, he made his greatest enemy yet.
I can't wait for her story to continue.

A word about this book - I read it after finishing Crown of Midnight, and it absolutely was a great spot to cut over and read this prequel. Reading it before would have lessened the emotional impact of the stories, as I wouldn't have felt as strongly about the characters.

Update on 2024 re-read: still fantastic, still heartbreaking

Wow the main character would make a great psychology case study, and I don't mean the part where she is an assassin. She clearly has an attachment disorder and sabotages her interpersonal relationships. I seriously wanted to smack her at times.

4.5 stars!
HOLY JESUS CHRIST
THIS WAS AMAZING
I can't even comprehend how much I loved these stories, it was just absolutely amazing to read about Celaena's past and what she went through and holy crap, I understand so much!
The only thing that knocked it off the five star rating was because in the end I wanted to be like this

I was really like this

And this time I actually know that it wasn't just my lack of emotional display, but because it was written in a way that it didn't really reach me, which I found odd considering that everything else SJM writes is amazing.
But I love, love, looooooooved it so much!
AND SAM CORTLAND IS BAE AND THE MOST AMAZING HUMAN ON EARTH I WANTED SO MUCH MORE OF HIM IN ALL OF THE STORIES, I NEEDED MORE

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.

Nice to get more background around certain charachters but reallly wanted to continue to Heir of Fire sawrrry

“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.

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.

4★
i'm so glad i read this one after Heir of Fire. the emotional impact with the relationships between characters hit harder during the later books in the series and even though i knew what was coming, it didn't stop the tears

i'm not super keen on the background short stories.. this was a good book, don't get me wrong - i just didn't like it as much. i enjoyed reading the background of celaena but meh