Book Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Book Review (with Spoilers): A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

A.G.G. ——April 4, 2022

I will not lie, this is a book that I never had much interest in reading. It was through much persuasion from trusted friends of mine that I even picked this book up. Back when it came out, it had so much hype surrounding it (circa 2015), and I actually entered a Barnes & Noble giveaway to receive a signed first edition hardcover when the book released (spoiler alert: I won it!)…and yet, I still had my misgivings about reading it. To be quite honest, when there is so much overwhelming hype surrounding a book, it makes me steer clear of it, no matter how intrigued by the synopsis I might be. I typically tend to be the type of person who doesn’t like books that are hyped up, and my unpopular opinions get me some backlash.

But here, in the year 2022, having returned to the online book community since my time as a college student (I graduated in 2017), I have finally read ACOTAR. It took me longer than I expected to finish this book, but with the reluctance I had, that’s not so surprising. I mean, I did choose it for my book club’s reading challenge prompt “read an author or a book you swore you would never read.”

That’s enough preface, let’s move on to the actual review, what I liked, what I disliked, and what was kind of “meh” for me.

In order for me to go into detail about my likes and dislikes in the book, I do reference specific parts of the book that may contain spoilers, proceed with caution if you have not yet read this book.

What I liked:

• I liked Feyre, she’s not perfect and doesn’t claim to be, so I appreciate that about a character. I like that she finally gets to experience some semblance of joy and selfishness. She deserves to be happy and not have to worry all the time.

• I REALLY liked Lucien, he was a little bit mean, but he was funny and fun. He’s honestly one of the reasons that I KEPT reading the book. If it hadn’t been for him, I probably would have stopped reading and possibly DNFed the book early on.

• Reese’s Pieces…I mean, Rhysand. This guy stole the show (and my heart) as soon as he entered the story, he was mysterious, gorgeous, playful, and just a tad bit cruel (okay, maybe more than a tad, but there were characters who were much more cruel). He was interesting, which is more than I can say for others in the story. I won’t lie, he’s everything I look for in a male lead in a story. I like them a little bit mean, full of quips, a little dark, it’s just a personal preference and he hit all those points.

• Amarantha. Grade A villain. I understood where she was coming from, she was a baddie, did I like her, no, but I love her as the main villain in the story. She really raised the stakes and I only wish we could have gotten her a bit sooner.

• The world is pretty easy to understand, this is important to me because I don’t want to have a headache trying to understand the layout of the land to figure out where the characters are or what they’re doing or how far they are from others. Super easy to follow.

• I appreciated the easy to follow writing style as well, I never got confused by anything that was happening in the story, so I call this a win. Fantasy books are always hit or miss with easy to follow writing styles or not, so this one was a hit.

What I disliked:

• Feyre’s family. I could give less of a fuck about Nesta, Elain, and their father. They were awful to Feyre when she provided them with everything. Also, they’re cowards. The fact that they had to lean on the youngest child and put such a heavy burden on her to care for them when they didn’t even try to save themselves from the situation is such bullshit. Nesta can be pissed off that their father didn’t step up to the plate and try to provide for them, but she didn't help either. She just acted like a bitch.

• The pacing. I know some people feel like this is a quick read, but for a majority of the first half of the book, it felt like I was trudging through quicksand trying to make it through to the “good stuff.” I’d been assured and reassured through friends on twitter and people who commented on my TikTok video that it gets better after x amount of pages and that’s one of those things, aside from Lucien the shining light he was, that made me continue. Once again, had I not been encouraged to read through this book, I probably would have quit on it fairly early on.

What was “meh”:

• Nesta’s “redemption” toward the end of the book. It made me stop from full-blown hating her, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily like her. She’s still a bitch, and like I said before, she puts a lot of blame on others without taking responsibility herself.

• Tamlin, Tam Tam, the big dog bear bird thing in my brain, I didn't really like him from the start. He’s like this big lug of a beast who shows up, steals Feyre away, and tries to charm her, but like stops? I don’t know, he’s someone who, despite the fact that he is the actual male lead in the story, fell flat. He has zero personality. He’s awkward (which wouldn’t be an issue if he had anything else going for him other than “big beautiful powerful man beast”). Someway, somehow, Feyre falls in love with him and goes as far as to risk her life on countless occasions for him while he sits around being an emotionless drone. I won’t lie, he had his moments where I could see how he could appeal to some. And I won’t discredit him for allowing Feyre to be free and find joy before he makes her life hell by association. I understand that he couldn’t tell her about the curse, but my guy, you had FIFTY YEARS to come up with ways to hint at it to someone and you all just dropped the ball. He’s just an overpowered beast who didn’t do much. Feyre had more chemistry with Lucien, Rhysand, and Alis, than she did with Tamlin. Also, I feel like he’s going to continue on to be ridiculously possessive and secretive with her still and it’ll be toxic af.

• Slavery/Enslavement. This is only my second faerie book, so maybe it’s just the ones I’ve read, but there is always reference to enslavement of people and I just don’t vibe with it. I don’t care about the “realism” debate, it’s fantasy, it doesn’t need to be there. Maybe this is also just a me thing, but I just kind of feel like white authors love using slavery in fantasy and to make their predominantly white characters oppressed (I think there was mention of one dark-skinned faerie in the book?), just an observation, not really a call out or anything. I, again, don’t like seeing slavery/enslavement in anything really…

Final thoughts:

• I enjoyed the latter half of the book more than the beginning half. Once Rhysand entered the story, it got more interesting, and not just because he’s attractive. He kind of set the ball rolling toward the discovery of Amarantha and the curse and all of that. He actually helped further the plot more, so I appreciated that things were finally happening.

Am I going to continue reading the series?

• Yeah, I’ll continue. Like I said, it got more interesting and I’ve got the second book already, so I plan on reading it sometime this month. I’m curious to see where the story goes and to learn more about the world and characters we’ve met, as well as meeting new characters.

Overall Rating: 3/5 stars