First read - 5 stars

Re-read - 3.75 stars 

This was really interesting to re-read, and overall, I’m pleasantly surprised by how well the book holds up on the whole. All of the rip-off books flying around these days have really soured me to this type of story, but Maas obviously became popular because she can write a bloody compelling story.  

True, Celaena is a whiny, self-entitled, self-centred, insecure idiot in this one, but that's the whole point, so a character done well. She was also never quite abrasive enough to make me hate her - there was always at least a shred of empathy there at all times. 

Having said this, there were definitely some things that had the book been published today, I think more thought would need to go into them. 

One of the main instances of this is that it’s truly impossible to tell if the characters are ethnically diverse, or just different shades of white. Any character with a darker skin tone is 'tan', most of the time described directly as having 'tanned skin’, so surely that must mean white... Or maybe it’s that she just isn’t committing to characters being PoC, which is almost worse, especially when Eyllwe is so obviously based on South Asian culture. 

The other most notable issue was the way the Silent Assassin’s muteness was portrayed. It seemed pretty odd that they had apparently never developed a precise sign language, and instead just seemingly used a random mix of gestures. There are also some off things, like towards the end of the story when the Master says, "there are some times when words are necessary - when explanations are needed more than gestures can convey." Excuse me?? 

1. If she'd given them actual sign language, they'd be able to explain everything fully. 

2. She could easily have written around this by explaining that the Master spoke because Celaena didn’t understand the signs properly after only being there a month, and he wanted to make sure she understood, rather than dissing a whole community’s main method of communication. 

For training etc., sure, use simple gestures to encourage thought and different interpretations, but, especially when it explicitly says that there are multiple assassins who’ve been mute from birth, more complex signs would have emerged. All just felt a little insensitive. 

I’m also having to dock 0.25 stars for the audience’s ‘thundered’ applause between the 3rd and 4th movements of a symphony. Especially because Celaena, one of the ponciest and ‘do it right’ people, wasn’t outraged by it herself. Disgustin. 

And finally, I just want to share my eternal infuriation that Celaena has stark white hair on the cover of the book, even though her hair is DIRECTLY described as ‘golden’ on EVERY OTHER FUCKING PAGE. Is it really that difficult for publishers to get something so basic right??