More than once in my life I’ve been told to “give a book a chance,” that it will “get better after a couple of chapters.” But that’s never been how I saw it. I don’t believe in judging a book by its cover but by its first chapter. Its first page even.

After reading the first page of a book, I’ve been a lot of things: bored to tears, intrigued, mildly interested. But it wasn’t until I picked up Sarah J. Maas’ book A Throne of Glass that I was truly enthralled by the first page of a book. Her ability to trap me within the first page of her stories persisted throughout every book in the series.

The Throne of Glass series isn’t only enjoyed by one age group, but by anyone who picks them up. The unparalleled imagery, use of word choice, and variation of literary devices will intrigue anyone who takes a look in between the covers.

I have never seen such masterful use of words and punctuation in all my years of being an avid reader. Every single thing you learn in English class, Sarah J. Maas puts to use in her books. And not in the awkward, “I have to use alliteration, so I’ll throw it in here randomly” way that I am imperfectly, improperly, incorrectly doing right now. No, Maas does so in a way that instead enriches every sentence of her books.

While her stories alone are works of art, it is when they are put together that the true extent of her extraordinary storytelling becomes apparent. Phrases that appeared in the first book that made little to no sense come back in later books tying everything together. Each word in her books has some sort of meaning, and the fact that she often hides that meaning until later in the series has you racing to the library to get the next book.

Often times, when reading the last few books of the series I would gasp in the middle of class during the revealing of the meaning of something that occurred in the first book. It is like a collage made of many small pictures that come together to make a spectacular larger picture.

I will never again feel as though I must “give a book a chance.” I will never again force myself to read something that doesn’t instantaneously draw me in because I know now what it’s like to open a book and be truly enthralled by the first page alone.