Pinterest Challenge

Pinterest Challenge was started by Janssen, of Everyday Reading, and her sisters, Merrick and Landen. If you would like to join in visit Janssen's original post and leave a link. 

I love Pinterest. Most of the time through I don't end up completing any of the pins. I just pin what looks interesting, and hope that one day I'll end up actually doing one of them. You know, some day. When Janssen and her sisters issued this challenge to complete one pinned thing from your Pintrest boards a week for six weeks I thought, "What a great idea!"

It took me a little time and searching for pins I thought I could actually complete in either a day or at least over the weekend, but I can finally start this challenge. I ended up choosing crafts that I felt would not only spruce up the ol' household, but also could double as birthday gifts if they come out nice enough. I'm always on the look out for DIY birthday gifts.

1. Birthday Calendar - I can't tell you how many times I forget some pretty important dates, like birthdays. This birthday calendar looks gorgeous and can be added on as the family grows. 

2. Tile Coasters - Some pretty quick DIY coasters that can be tailored to fit your tastes. What's not to love about that? 

3. Canvas Flower - I've tried scrapbook paper on canvas before. My first attempt didn't quite work out, but I hope that this time I'll have better luck. 

4. Gold Plant Prints - The actual link for this is corrupted, but the images are a basic how-to without the link.  

5. Quote Scarf Print - How gorgeous is this printed scarf? Now I just have to think of a quote to go with the challenge. 

6. Verse of the Week - A beautiful frame with chalkboard paint is a wonderful idea, but add to it a "verse of the week" theme and I really, really love it. You can buy one of these frames from the original Etsy seller, but I'm choosing to try and figure out a homemade version of this. 

I'm thrilled and also a little worried I won't actually complete this challenge, but here goes nothing! 

Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Title: Throne of Glass

Author: Sarah J. Maas (Author Site)

Series: Book 1 of 3

Published: August 2012

Edition Read: Traditional

Pages: 406

Level Recommended: Young Adult

Overall: I forget how I originally ran across Throne of Glass, but I was thrilled to read this book. I read all four novellas leading up to Throne of Glass. My only regret is that I didn't read the novellas before the novel. Celaena is a tough cookie to love, but somehow Maas really pulls it off.

Review: I just have to restate that you have to (HAVE TO) read the novellas before reading this novel. I feel that you will really understand Celaena and who she is walking into Throne of Glass. I feel like once you know what there is to know in the novellas you'll read Throne of Glass in a whole different light.  I reviewed the novellas before delving into what I thought about the novel. 

When we first met Celaena she is 18 years old, and has served a year of her nine life sentences in the salt mines of Endoiver. Most people don't survive this long in Endovier, and Celaena is given a chance to become the King of Adarlan's Champion. The Crown Prince has chosen Celaena as his champion in a competition created to chose the best candidate for the position. In a choice between the salt mines and sure death and becoming the King's Champion Celaena agrees to the competition. Celaena is sure that it will be and easy enough competition to win, and after four years of service she will be a free woman. The competition is a shining light in the darkness of her time in Endovier.

Celaena travels from Endovier to the Glass Castle where the King of Adarlan lives, and where the competition will be held. She is given a room of her own, fine food and clothes, and told that if she fails just one of the tests in the competition she will be sent back to Endovier and never given another chance at freedom again. Throughout the competition other champions, and mixture of thieves, warriors, and killers, begin to be found dead. Not just dead but mutilated, the next one worse then the last. Celaena takes it upon herself to find out just what is causing these deaths while at the same time restoring herself to health winning the competition. In the end, Celaena's arrogant and tough exterior is slowly chiseled away, and she eventually allows herself to care for others. She befriends the Princess Nehemia, and in her quest to learn the causes of such brutal deaths finds herself even more of a target in the competition. 

What I thought: I really found Celaena's arrogance to be off-putting. While I understood that Celaena had been hell and really had no reason to be sweet or kind. However, the author does not tell you why Celaena had been sent to Endovier. Or, if she did, I completely missed it. All we are told in the novel is how notorious Celaena was before being sent to Endovier, but somehow most people had no idea that Celaena was just a teenaged girl. Eventually Celaena's toughness is chipped away and you see a character you can connect with, but it takes quite a while to see it. This is is also the case in the novellas. By the end of both the novel and the novellas you really connect to Celaena and who she is. It just takes some time to get there. By the end I wanted to read more about Celanea and had already taken a side in the love triangle that had been pulled together in the novel.

Oh, my goodness, the love triangle! At first Celaena is not at looking to fall in love, and honestly why the heck should she? If you read the novellas you can see just how her last love ended. I kept reading the novel wondering just what the heck the summary meant by a love triangle between Celaena, Prince Dorian, and Captian Westfall. It takes some time, and little bit of forced mingling of feelings between Prince Dorian and Celaena, but eventually the love triangle takes place. I'm personally shipping Celaena and Captian Westfall, because no matter how I read it the relationship between Celanea and Prince Dorian seemed so forced. Captian Westfall on the other hand seemed much more authentic, and quite similar to how Maas portrayed Celaena and Sam's eventual love for each other. Chaol and Celaena gain a mutual respect for each other, and eventually fall in love. Celaena and Dorian just don't have that same relationship.

Overall the novel ended with quite a bang, and I ended up going back to the novellas to get answers about Celaena's past that weren't answered satisfyingly enough in the novel. It bothered me every time Celaena thought of Sam, Arobynn, and how much the King despised her enough to sentence her to Endovier, but there was no backstory written into the novel to understand why. Even so, I ended up loving Celaena, chosing Team Chaol, and wondering just what would happen next between Celaena and the King that hates her so much. I can't wait to read the next novel in the series, Crown of Midnight, in August of this year. 

Review: Throne of Glass Novellas by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass follows the heroine Celaena Sardothien, 18 year old assassin and main character of the series.

Bloomsbury published for e-book novellas written by Maas to be published before Throne of Glass was published in August 2012. 

I purchased these e-books with the intent to read them all before Throne of Glass was published and thus would be caught up with Celaena and her world before I delved into the novel.

I really wish I had actually accomplished this task before reading the novel. I believe it would have made the novel a much better experience for me as the novellas really told a history not really broached by the novel. 

I'll review the novel separately, but before I can do that I felt I should review the novellas first. 

Celaena Sardothien is 16-17 years old in the novellas. Her homeland was destroyed by the King of Adarlan who also outlawed magic and set about destroying and conquering as much of the world as possible. For Celaena this meant that her family and past were destroyed, and that she was picked up and raised by the King of the Assassians, Arobynn Hammel. She has been trained and raised to be the best, and she has always wanted everyone to know it. In The Assassin and the Pirate Lord Celaena has been sent to collect a debt owed by the Lord of the Pirates for Arobynn Hammel. Celaena is accompanied by Sam Cortland, and once both assassin's have arrived they realize that the debt they are here to collect involves slaves from a war torn country. This causes Celaena to start a chain of events that will eventually reverberate throughout the rest of the novellas and lead her to the beginning of the first novel, Throne of Glass. 

Up until I hit the final novella, The Assassin and the Underworld, I was a little underwhelmed with Celaena. She is very self involved, but there is reason behind it. In the world she has grown up in she has been taught to be competitive beyond measure. She has to be the best, and to be the best she must believe she is the best. However, this egotistic nature is hard to read and feel like your nose isn't being rubbed into how wonderful a character is. Throughout the second and third novellas Celaena falls in love with Sam Cortland.  When she does finally realize that she has fallen in love with Sam she allows herself the luxury of dropping her need to be the best and just enjoy her love for Sam. She would do anything for him, and their relationship is well fought for. She does all that she can to ensure that she and Sam will have a life without the Assassin's Guild and without Arobynn Hammel. By the time I finished the last novella I found myself turning digital pages as fast as I possibly could just to know what happens next. 

Now, if you ask me these novellas should have been the first novel in the Throne of Glass series. While I will review Throne of Glass the novel I just feel that Bloomsbury made a mistake in not taking these novellas and publishing them in as the first novel. Although I had planned to read these novellas before Throne of Glass I hadn't read novella four before I read Throne of Glass. All throughout the novel I kept wondering what the heck happened that landed Celaena in Endovier, what happened to her great love, and why did the king hate her so much? I felt like the novel didn't answer these questions, and you were expected to read the novellas to find out. BUT, at the same time you're told you don't HAVE to read the novellas to understand Throne of Glass. I felt that keeping these important elements to Celaena's past a secret, quite possibly because the publishers and author wanted you to buy and read the novellas, left huge holes in Throne of Glass. Okay, not gigantic holes, but enough to bother me.

I felt that reading the novellas would have greatly enhanced reading the first novel. The novellas left me with a connection to Celaena, and the love she and Sam held together. I would have walked into the first novel with a connection to her and that would have really helped me understand Throne of Glass and Celaena better. The novellas, and especially The Assassin and the Empire, left me with a real connection to Celaena, the world she lives in, and her hatred for the King of Adarlan. Sarah J. Maas's writing is great, and her world building is fairly seamless. Not surprisingly I didn't learn or understand the king's hatred for magic. Magic, although Maas stated that in the world of Throne of Glass magic does play a part and the king has set out to outlaw and destroy it completely, isn't a huge factor in the novellas. Most of the novellas are set in places and times were Celaena doesn't encounter much of it. I'd say the most magic is seen in novella two, The Assassin and the Desert. I'd really love to see how magic does pay out in the rest of the series.

Over all I enjoyed the novellas. I will definitely read the second novel in the Throne of Glass series, Crown of Midnight, that will be out in fall of 2013. However if you really want to walk into Throne of Glass with a better understanding of Celaena and the world that Sarah J. Maas has created for her it would be best to read all four novellas first. I really, really hope that Bloomsbury will publish the novellas together in one bound book so that more people can be introduced to the series in a better way. Not everyone will have read the novellas before the first novel, and not everyone will have an e-reader to do so. Plus, having the novellas in bound form on my bookshelves will really round out my collection, and help me re-visit Celaena's world whenever I want.