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Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

486 reviews

adventurous dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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adventurous dark slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No

As a Black American, I don't reccomend this book to other Black people or other oppressed groups because there is so much talk about ~humans~ being dominated and being slaves while all the humans in the book are white. It's definitely one of those fantasy books that was and is still a reality for folks today. That being said I did find that once I started I did want to know what happened at the end 

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Didn't enjoy as much as her other books, it was an odd pace, not enough time for character development, more about action, odd brutal plot, and the author writes her romance and sex scenes the same, almost the same type of characters as other books. 

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Where are the women main characters?? This reads like a wattpad love story where only the heroine matters and all other women are secondary side characters who are either competition or the help. Even the
main villain was only an issue because she wanted Feyre’s man.
The author constantly refers to the other women in the novel as “females” so that should really tell you all you need to know. There is so much in this story that’s engaging, but the lack of diverse, strong, HELPFUL women really ruined it for me. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

i initially didn't want to write an in-depth review about this book but i love to whine so figured why the hell not.

i have so many issues with this book. for starters, i found it impossible to get through it. the majority of this book was incredibly boring and repetitive. if i had to guess i'd say the final 20-25% of the book is slightly interesting, but i honestly almost stopped reading multiple times.

then there is the writing style. this seemed like a cheap wattpad fic. maas ends over half of the sentences she writes with "...", to the point where it just gets annoying. a lot of her lines are written with a lot of "-" halfway through sentences, making it complicated and difficult to read, but somehow cheesy at the same time. she kept reusing the same sentences ("his mouth was a thin line", "my bowels turned watery"), which just got annoying as well. 

let's talk about feyre too. feyre is the main character of the book, but she annoyed the hell out of me. feyre was whiny, didn't listen to anything she was told, went against every well meant advice and then acted surprised when she got kicked in the face because of it. looking at her background, her character definitely potential, but it was wasted. part of that is definitely attributable to maas' writing.

i read somewhere this book was supposed to be a beauty and the beast retelling, but maas removed every element that gave beauty and the beast its specialty. in beauty and the beast, belle falls in love with the beast despite his ugly exterior, because it's what's inside that really matters. however, tamlin ('the beast'), is never ugly to begin with, and it seemed a lot like that was one of the reasons why feyre ('belle') fell for him in the first place. (and if i'm honest, tamlin did not have a likable personality throughout the majority of this book at all.)

//tw sexual assault for the next paragraph 
but by far my biggest issue with this book, is the way this book deals with sexual assault.  somewhere halfway through the book tamlin comes home, high on magic, and runs into feyre in a hallway where he very angrily pretty much assaults her. this did not get dealt with properly at all. "if feyre cant be bothered to listen to orders, then i can't be held accountable for the consequences" is an actual quote from this book. i'm sorry, what are we doing here? well, he did in fact not get held accountable for his actions, because 'it was out of his control and he couldn't help it'. something similar happened with rhysand, who later in the book makes feyre blackout drunk on some sort of fearie special wine every single night and lets her give him lapdances and touches her even though she isn't at all aware of what she's doing. in front of EVERYONE ELSE. but in the end he's supposed to be forgiven because he did it to stand up to amarantha, and he never touched her below her waist? i'm sorry but what kind of reasoning is that? honestly, rhysand was a pig and a horrible person. i hate that we're supposed to feel bad for him in the end.

finally, let's talk about amarantha and the whole 'finale' of the book. amarantha is the main villain, and although not badly written (her reasoning for her actions seems somewhat reasonable?), i still do not think she was a well written villain. to me it seemed a lot like maas just tried to put as much cruelty into one character. amarantha had no limits and feyre's life during her months in amarantha's captivity just kept getting worse and worse every time you turned a page. it bugged me a little. if you need to put THAT much cruelty and gore into a character and her storyline to make her a good main villain, maybe she wasn't a good villain to begin with.


i have a lot more issues but these were my main ones. i do not recommend this book.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Rr. 

Got me out of my slump, Feyre is such a comfort character for me. She’s so strong and steady and yet aches for simple pleasures and safety and love from her family. 

Tamlin is meh honestly but I know these books so maybe I’m just biased 🤣

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