Throne of Glass Books Ranked
Throne of Glass is a hugely popular fantasy series, thanks, in part, to Tik Tok and the popularity of the author’s other very popular book series A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR). If you are like me, you read ACOTAR and were in a reading slump because you couldn’t think of anything else. Thankfully, the author had a completed eight book series to fall into. While ACOTAR stole my heart, the Throne of Glass series is arguably better, both in writing and in content.
Despite loving this series, I will say that much like ACOTAR, starting this series takes some dedication. The first several books are slow and the writing is hard to immerse yourself in. However, Throne of Glass was Sarah J Maas’s (SJM) first book, and the writing matures as the series continues.
Below is my ranking of the Throne of Glass series from worst to best.
8. The Assassin’s Blade
At number 8, my least favorite book in this series is The Assassin’s Blade. This book is a set of novellas that take place before the events of the main series. There is a lot of debate online about where in the series to read this book. I looked at the author’s website and read it as she recommended which was third (after Crown of Midnight). While I’m glad I didn’t read this book first, it was difficult to break from the main story to go back. However, it does have important information and I would not recommend skipping it.
7. Throne of Glass
This book did a wonderful job setting up the world for the series. You can see that SJM had an idea of where she wanted the series to go and did a wonderful job setting up the story. However, the writing in the book was lackluster and I found the main character to be very unlikeable in this story. I also found the competition that takes place in this book to be anticlimactic. Personally, this book was hard to get into and I almost stopped reading it several times.
6. Crown of Midnight
This is the second book in the series and was much better than the first. However, there is a huge tone difference between the first half of the series and the second half of the series. The second half is much more exciting.
5. Tower of Dawn
I actually enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I thought the story was very nice and it had a lot of important information in it. Don’t skip it! However, this story takes place at the same time as Empire of Storms and follows characters that are not as exciting. It was very difficult to break away from the main story of the series (for a second time!) and read the events in Tower of Dawn. Because of this a lot of people recommend tandem reading Tower of Dawn and Empire of Storms.
4. Queen of Shadows
Queen of Shadows is a fan favorite in this series. It contains some of the famous favorite lines you may have already seen online.
3. Heir of Fire
A lot of people like Queen of Shadows more than Heir of Fire. Heir of Fire is so much fun. In this one we are introduced to new POVs, new characters, and are taken outside of Rifthold to explore this world. This is really where the tone of the series changes.
2. Empire of Storms
1. Kingdom of Ash
Kingdom of Ash is the epic conclusion to the Throne of Glass series. It will have you on the edge of your seat and emotionally destroy you. Like all of SJM’s books the last 100-ish pages will be a whirlwind of emotions and twists. It is a very long book (around 1,000 pages), but it reads so fast.
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