Reviews with content warning for Sexism - The Assassin's Blade

Do not read this if you value your soul!! Jesus Christ, the last of these stories was so, so sad. I do not know how to move on from the pain. It was sadistic to bring that story into the world, but I guess it was helpful in understanding Celaena and her life :/ Some of the earlier stories are a bit boring and slow for a bit, but they were still good. It was nice to see Celeana before Endovier and before so much of the pain in her life. It was, however, difficult to read that pain as it happened!!!

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barbarianmissy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

THE ASSASSIN AND THE EMPIRE:

ouch…. I knew exactly what was gonna happen but it STILL. HURT. ME!

I loooooooove that “My name is Celaena Sardothien and I will not be afraid” is from the one person she had left in her life that truly loved and cared for her. I gasped when he said it the first time and needed a moment to cope! Rip Sam, you were one sweet pea.

Arobynn, I hope you get brutally murdered in later books, I said what I said, and what I said is that you’re a stupid skank.

AS FOR THE BOOK AS A WHOLE!

I really enjoyed reading this prequel! It made me understand Celaena a lot more and appreciate her as a character and where she comes from. Dorian and Chaol better step up their game cause Team Sam alllllll the way, baby!

One small thing I did notice though was that, for the world’s greatest assassin, Celaena sure does get betrayed and captured a lot in these novellas. But it made for a fun time!

ONTO THE NEXT!

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allydoessomereading's review against another edition

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adventurous sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A great series of adventurous short stories to add some depth and backstory to the characters of celaena sardothien and arobynn Hamel. The first few stories feel more like separate adventures, lower stakes. Then the last two chapters/short stories are much higher stakes, impacting the wider story. A lot of fun to read.

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emilywemily6's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

This collection of stories about Calaena before the Throne of Glass events was harder to get through than I thought, and I think it’s because I knew the eventual outcome for both Calaena and Sam 😭 I really enjoyed the second and third stories though. I saw the “twist” of whose to blame from a mile away and felt like this grouping of prequel stories didn’t add a lot to the series as a whole, but gave me more time with Calaena’s character. I was really hoping for more info about the HUGE spoiler revealed at the end of Crown of Midnight, but all we got was an allusion to Calaena keeping secrets about her past 👀 So while I enjoyed this read, it didn’t meet my expectations in a couple ways. I am excited to get back into the rest of the series!

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annamary54's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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clem9's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

All the stories were very interesting and I'm very excited to meet the characters in the series again. Like Yrene was such a nice and kind character to meet I really what she became or Ansel, even if her betrayal kinda surprised me, I can see her coming back at some point even if it's not a big part.

But the last story ...

I'm heartbroken, Sam's death was horrible and he deserved so much better, he was such the perfect guy and I'm so sad that Celaena had to go through that loss when there was so much more to happen with him. Like they had a future planned together and she never had the chance to tell him she loved him.

I HATE Arobynn I honestly hope him and Farran will get tortured and viciously for what they did to Sam (and Celaena). Just because Arobynn felt possessive of Celaena ?? Are you kidding me ? I hate him so much !!!!

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aammeess's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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readwithria's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The Assassin’s Blade was both exactly what I expected and not at all what I expected.

I have read the other books in the series before, so I knew going in that there would be stories about specific people, and I had a general idea of how they would end. What I wasn’t expecting was to be so annoyed by Celaena.

She is such a bad friend and romantic partner, and I realize that part of the issue is that she’s 17 years old but part of the issue is that she hates so strongly that it’s hard to see another side to her. She’s mean, and heartless, and I really didn’t believe her relationship with Sam was as deep as she makes it out to be in Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight. I don’t believe that he could love her so strongly when she’s so terrible to him.

Beside that, this book makes Celaena’s lack of female friendships really obvious. It’s one of the things I don’t love about SJM’s writing - where are the friends??

Anyway, now onto the things I did enjoy. I really liked who Celaena was in the second and third stories. I think they offered growth for her that the other stories didn’t. I also liked seeing more of Rifthold and the training process. Even with knowing how the book had to end, the tension was built quite well and kept me reading the last 20-30 pages when I had previously been tempted to skim.

Is this book necessary? No. Would I recommend it? If you really enjoy TOG and COM then this is very similar in content and writing style. But if you didn’t enjoy those books, I would personally skip this one. 3 stars.

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