It’s the second checkpoint for the #TWOTOGCountdown read-a-long! By now I hope that everyone participating has had the time to get up to the end of Chapter 28. If you haven’t, beware of the spoilers below!
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Roast of Chaol Westfall!
Ugh. Okay. I don’t even know where to start on this one if I’m being 100% honest. I told a friend of mine that I was reading Throne of Glass for the first time and she’s been teasing me with her wondering of how much I’ll have Chaol by the end of this book (and apparently it’s only going to get worse from here) so I knew something was going to happen during this chunk, but I wasn’t sure when it was going to happen.
First off, Chaol just sets off so many red flags for me in this book. He’s too clingy, too invasive, and just otherwise so careless about what Celaena might want that it’s legitimately starting to bug me. I mean, he’s lucky that Celaena is just as incapable of keeping her hands to herself, because if it was me I’d have stabbed him by now. Not to mention that it’s very Edward vs Jacob or Peeta vs Gale in terms of how tacky the love triangle is right now and I just want it to stop!
But the bigger issue with Chaol is that he’s trusting when he shouldn’t be and concerned when he shouldn’t be. Celaena and Nehemia are best friends at this point (and I would honestly rather hear more about that relationship than the hetero-straight romance). If Dorian was getting threats and Celaena was the first one to hear about it, the first person she would tell other than Dorian, himself, would be Chaol. So the fact that he isn’t respecting that friendship is really not cool.
He definitely deserved to be punched in the face by the rebels and I can’t wait to see what Celaena does to him now that she knows her friend might have been killed by the king.
Aside from Chaol and his nonsense, I liked hearing more about Celaena killing everyone in Endovier and even the action sequence of her coming to save Chaol was really awesome. I spent the entire first book waiting for her to be this amazing assassin everyone claims her to be so to even get a glimpse of that in this book made me happy. And also hungry for more.
I liked getting more insight into what Nehemia is going through and even if her being behind the rebel uprising in Rifthold was pretty obvious from the get-go, it was nice to finally learn that she is honestly doing everything she can to not only free her people, but others as well. Her fight with Celaena was brilliant. I love these kind of moral struggles in fantasy and it’s a nice look at the reluctant hero. Nehemia is desperate for help while Celaena is tired of doing everyone else’s bidding. For once in her life, Celaena wants to do what she wants to do without being ordered around or threatened. It’s honestly because of this fight that I really hope Nehemia hasn’t been killed (even if there’s a “yet” that goes with that sentiment) because I want more of that. I want more of the both of them trying to get the other to see their point of view. It’s a thing that I truly love about reluctant heroes in fantasy.
So while the love story is getting on my nerves for the time being (and I look forward to it crumbling apart), and there’s a lot of things happening in the background that I want to know more about now, I’m still enjoying this one a lot more than the first book. The writing so far is a lot tighter and I’m dying to know what’s going to happen to Chaol when Celaena is done with his moronic behind.
How are you liking things so far? Let me know in the comments!
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(This post first appeared in Lucien's site)