The best thing about The Assassin's Blade is I am done reading it. And it hurts me to admit that about a book. I wanted to like it, considering how much I loved both Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight. However, it just didn't do it for me. With there being five stories, I did still want to rank them, so if anyone does decide to read it they know exactly what to expect.
1. The Assassin and the Empire
If you only read one story in this entire book, read this one. This story is Sarah J. Maas at her best - with high tension and a countdown clock to know the worst is about to happen. I felt like this story was written for those who are reading it after Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight. The way she used the tension, combined with the last scene, made it my favorite - but it definitely reads better if you already know how it will end.
2. The Assassin and the Desert
The irony of me putting Desert above Underworld is not lost on me, especially because I feel the latter is more important to Celaena as a character. This story was the equivalent of a giant training montage. It was excellent to see how Celaena learned some of her skills, but it was mostly just fluff. That being said, there were a few characters introduced who I think will come back later in the series, and I think this did a better job at introducing them than how Healer does for Yrene.
3. The Assassin and the Underworld
I know that Celaena and Lysandra are both teenage girls. But an entire story that revolved around them having a petty fight over a boy was just too much drama for me. However, there were extremely important plot points in this story - from Celaena deciding to try and leave the assassins who had raised her, to her and Sam finally getting together. But the drama was just too much for me to ever really enjoy it.
4. The Assassin and the Pirate Lord
This story was just okay, with its purpose being to show how Celaena's war against slavery started. And that's a really important thing to show. However, the story itself was pretty predictable and didn't add much to the world as a whole. I'm not sure if we're going to see the pirates again, and honestly, I couldn't care either way.
5. The Assassin and the Healer
This story almost made me DNF the book. And according to my TikTok comments, I was not the only one. The pacing was wrong, and the story itself was not engaging. I feel like Yrene is going to be a great character once she's reintroduced in the series, but this entire story could have just been a throwaway line in a conversation about how she knows Celaena.