“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
-- Sarah J Maas, Throne of glass
My current favourite author is definitely Sarah J Maas, her books might just be the most popular series on booktok and all I have to say is - they deserve all the hype.
If there is one genre I’m wary of it has to be young adult, so I started the throne of glass with a lot of hesitation, still thinking of it as a typical y/a book with a female protagonist. But it definitely wasn’t anything like I thought it would have been, it was actually far more interesting and didn’t have a very annoyingly basic plot. I’ll have to begrudgingly admit it made me relook at ya because I stayed up till 2am to finish her books.
Her books have strong themes-
Feminism - Her female characters aren’t damsels in distress, they make it quite clear that they won’t wait to be saved and never take shit from anyone. Another unique thing is that sarah j maas, unlike other fantasy authors, included periods/monthly cycles in her books. It sounds like an extremely trivial thing honestly, and it’s a rather tiny detail, but I found it really nice of her to include that.
War - You can see the tides turning in the war and how the tiniest alliances
shift the odds. Not just that you can see the impact on the characters, in how they’ve grown because of the war, in how many parts of them are broken mentally, in how they try to make lighthearted jokes and try to go on even when there was never hope. “What if we go on,' he said, 'only to more pain and despair?””Then it is not the end.” —- queen of shadows
Loyalty - another recurring theme in her books was loyalty. She writes about the blind loyalty soldiers have to their kings and queens and how it morally corrupts them. She even writes about how love trumps loyalty. Loyalty shouldn’t be blindly following someone but instead being faithful to them and objecting when it’s wrong.
Writing style
Sarah J Maas doesn’t usually end books on cliffhangers, not literal cliffhangers at least (I’m looking at you Rick Riordan) but all her books do leave you wanting to pick the next book right the second you finish the book.
Her characters develop a whole lot during the series and have really good arcs in general. She also made sure to not end up just writing names of too many characters and even made sure to flesh out the smaller characters.
One of the most devilish parts of her writing style has to be the way she leads you, on making you feel all smart for catching on to all the small hints and twists and then slamming a big plot twist right onto your face. It’s not like she doesn’t give you clues on the big plot twist... it’s just you’re so busy being smug about catching onto the small hints that you don’t realise she was playing a bigger game.
All in all, Sarah J Maas really made me re-look at YA and also broke the mold of the genre at the same time by being so unique in her writing style.
Here’s another quote from throne of glass to finish this off:
“I can survive on my own if given the proper reading materials”
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