Finished THRONE OF GLASS by Sarah J. Maas and it just pressed all the wrong buttons for me. The female MC is practically a Mary-Sue - beautiful, intelligent, and the super best assassin ever, she plays piano, loves books and understands politics and history and she's even picked by the Goddess of the Hunt, protected by an ancient heroine and the bestest friend forever of a Princess. She's also an assassin who fails to kill anyone in this book, exists purely for a love triangle between Prince Charming and the 'umble captain of the guards (who's not so 'umble as to have not once been a Lord), needs said male characters to tell her what to do and then - ultimately - needs the men to save her. In fact every female character bats their eyelashes, purrs, coos and tosses their hair at least once, the MC sighs through her nose (impossible, BTW) and throws a strop whenever she doesn't get her own way (but you know, in a beautiful way so everyone thinks her childish, petty behaviour is just gosh darned charming).
The plot's got massive holes in it and it's horrendously over-written and heavily reliant on cliches.
I can see the elements in there that would appeal to the YA audience, but for me this was such a poorly written book that I am gobsmacked it was shortlisted for the Waterstone's Prize this year in the YA category. I know it started as a self published novel on fictionpress but it shows and I'm actually annoyed that I paid money for it.
About to start ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis because I've heard good things about it.
MM
