ACOTAR Week: "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas
"A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas
Welp, this is definitely a case of something I would have never done without being an active follower of other Bookstagram accounts, but here we are. ACOTAR week! The reviews of each of the individual books will be spoiler-free (I got to read them without spoilers, so you should, too!), but I do plan on doing a wrap-up of my thoughts of the series as a whole that will include spoilers.
Synopsis: When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.
At least, he's not a beast all the time.
As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin-and his world-forever.
Rating: 3.5
Review: I’m honestly a little shocked it took me so long to pick up this book - I have a well-documented love for both books about magic and ridiculously lengthy series, so ACOTAR should have been on my radar long before…Memorial Day Weekend. However, once I started, I blew through all 5 books in about 4 days; sometimes, it’s really helpful to be a speedy reader.
ACOTAR is the series about Feyre, her human family, and her what happens after she’s abducted by a faerie. Confused? Yeah, me, too. This is the first book in the series, and it is definitely ambitious in its scope. We have magic! dark creatures! a trial! a new world order! love! sex! weird-ass bargain tattoos! Everything you could want in a fantasy series, and honestly, a little bit more.
I posted on Instagram while I was reading this that I felt like it took me about 50 pages to get into it, and I wasn’t the only one that felt like that. I feel like this is fairly common in books that require world-building — a lot goes into exposition and not action, and that’s definitely the case here. Like, yes, it didn’t seem great that Feyre had been taken across the wall, but I also didn’t care that much because I didn’t really know Feyre as a character? Obviously that changed as the book progressed, but I still didn’t really like her?
I guess I should talk a little bit about that. Feyre is our human protagonist: a gifted huntress, a loyal (and guilt-ridden) sister, and someone who feels things deeply. Enter Tamlin, the Fae Lord of Spring, who avenges the murder of one of his friends by bringing Feyre across the wall to live in his opulent castle for the rest of his days. I know, weird punishment, right? It does start to make sense once you learn the intricacies of faerie law (a sentence I never expected to type), but it doesn’t really feel like a massive punishment.
This is going to sound strange, I’m well aware, but I just didn’t get it — why was Feyre so great? Why was Tamlin so in love with her — and vice versa? That doesn’t mean that the story wasn’t compelling or that I didn’t want to continue reading it, but I wasn’t really feeling this as an epic-love-to-end-all-ages-and-change-the-world. The characters felt shallow, but upon further reflection, that may have been an intentional choice by Sarah J. Maas — and I can’t say more than that without spoiling Book 2. Let me just say I got “Edward-and-Bella” vibes from this romance and leave it here (no, I don’t mean that as a positive).
Sarah J. Maas does some amazing world-building here, and I really appreciate the attention to detail. Also, having read the whole series, there are some interesting easter eggs that you can follow through the other books. I have to say this book really picked up for me the last 100 - 150 pages — once Feyre starts her trials Under the Mountain, I was much more engaged in the story, and I started to get anxious for her and some of the other characters.* It does feel a little Hunger-Games-adjacent with the trials, but I liked the Hunger Games, so I’m not saying that as a criticism. What happened Under the Mountain was much more compelling than what happened in the Spring Court, and ultimately, it’s what made me excited to see where Feyre’s story goes next.
ALSO! For some reason, I thought these were young adult books, and…they are not. There’s a lot more sex and cursing than I expected, and I’m not at all a prude about that (at least in literature). It took me by surprise, and I feel like I should warn people if you also thought this was going to be a touch more chaste.
*Mostly Lucien
TL;DR: While this was my least favorite part of Feyre’s story, it’s an essential read if you plan to continue with the series - suffer through it and know that book 2 gets way better.
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