Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - A Court of Thorns and Roses

Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

192 reviews

sgrunwald96's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I’m really torn on this one. For most of it it was a fun read with action mixed with a touch of tawdry romance and a good amount of folk lore, but I was really turned off by the glaring and underemphasized issues with consent.

She’s drugged and then hyper sexualized and publicly debased. The perpetrator “owns her” and admits he only doesn’t rape her so he can keep that as a bargaining chip. Somehow this is painted as a redeeming quality in him? They give him a redemption arc that ruined the book for me. I don’t want to be on the side of abusers.

Truly I think the consent issues ruined this book for me.

Content Warnings

indyyxoxo's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

Content Warnings

bree_h_reads's review against another edition

0.25

adventurous emotional lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I will start by saying that I can totally get why people enjoy this book. There are scenes where I could find myself really enjoying the book and beginning to fall into it, but it never properly lasted. I think if I turned my brain off for the book I would have enjoyed it far more, but the book doesn’t set the reader up to turn their brain off, so I could never fully fall into it.

Aside from that, I generally enjoyed the prose. There were moments I really enjoyed it and felt like it captured a certain feeling of magic. The biggest example being the Firelight Festival and the Summer Solstice celebration, it captured a feeling of old magic and enchantment that I really enjoyed. There were several points that I found the exposition for the world building fairly well done, though there were a handful of moments it felt like info dumping.

Finally, the audiobook narrator did an amazing job and I really enjoyed her performance. She also pronounced Rhysand so it sounded like “reason” and it cracked me up, so that’s another point in her favour.

OKAY THAT ASIDE! Spoilers ahead, I have A LOT to say about this book.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Mentions of SA, sexual harassment, drugging, & victim blaming

A Court of Thorns and Roses it a story about a 19-year-old human, Feyre, that is lied to and intimidated into coming to the home of a hot fey man that is several hundred years old. Why is she coming to his home? So she can fall in love with him obviously, but she doesn’t know that bc she’s told she needs to come to the fey land as penance for killing a fey. After being told she doesn’t have to stay at Hot Fey Man #1’s house by Hot Fey Man #1, the book immediately forgets and makes a big deal about her trying to escape. Eventually, she falls in love with Hot Fey Man #1 only to be sent away because Dangerous Things Are Coming. She returns to rescue Hot Fey Man #1 and ends up stuck doing 3 trials or solving a very simple riddle that the answer is obviously love to save him and their buddies. To complete the three trials she teams up with Hot Fey Man #2, who spends their time as allies sexually assaulting and drugging her! But it’s okay because it’s for “her own good”. (Gross!!!) Eventually she solves the riddle after a lot of suffering and basically getting beat to death. Then she’s revived and Hot Fey Man #2 is teased as a future smooch interest.

So, I have a LOT of thoughts on this book. To start, let’s tackle my biggest issue: The romanticisation of SA.

While at the beginning of the book we don’t see any of this, we have our first hint at the end of the Firelight Festival where Tamlin (Hot Fey Man #1) is all horny, can smell Feyre has been at the festival. Afterwards he encounters her in the house before the horny magic as worn off. What does he do? Well he pins her to the wall of course. She tells him to let her go, but he doesn’t. Instead he tells her how gentle he would have been if he got to have sex with her at the Horny Festival. He stops pinning her then, but Feyre continues to VERBALLY say that she’s not interested in engaging in anything. What does Tamlin do? Well obviously he bites and kisses her neck what else. Then he leaves. The next morning when Feyre wants to make him feel bad about it, he instead blames her for being out and about that night. While Feyre was told to remain in her room, she was given no explanation as to why, and was lured there by fey magic. Furthermore, she repeatedly did not give consent, which Tamlin ignored. The victim blaming, however, matched only by how that scene and the events after are portrayed as sexy and heavily romanticised. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine if Feyre is into having her neck bitten, but it’s completely different when she doesn’t give consent and the book hypes up how sexy it is Tamlin just takes what he wants. This later shows up again with Rhysand (Hot Fey Man #2.) Once he and Feyre make an agreement he’ll help her with the trials, every night he brings her to a party, drugs her, and makes her give him lap dances and dress in skimpy clothes. This is later justified by it being “for her own good and protection”. Overall, the way the book handled these topics was gross, and it’s not helped that it seems to want to reader to like and kind of fall for Rhysand a bit by the end.

Next is the characters. This is a romance novel, so obviously the characters should be likeable and the reader should be invested in them. By the time I hit the 60% mark I had one character I liked and by the end I didn’t like any of them. That doesn’t mean I can’t see the appeal in some instances. Tamlin had plenty of scenes where he was very endearing and sweet (his awkward compliments of Feyre at the beginning, giving her dirty poems using the words she struggled to read, and heightening her senses so she could hear the willow tree sing to name a few) and I can understand why people like Nesta after going through and entire book of very bland, one note female characters. Her rudeness, spunk, and straightforwardness are a welcome change of pace. However, throughout the entire novel I found just about every character switching between unlikeable, tolerable, and likeable. None felt particularly consistent, one moment Lucien (Hot Fey Man #1’s bestie) are having fun and enjoying each other’s company, the next he’s snarking at her for killing his friend. (Which it’s fair to be upset, but bro y’all literally sent the man out to be killed so some random human chick could come smooch Tamlin. This is not on her and she wasn’t even 100% sure he WAS fey.) Most characters fell into this cycle of being friendly and likeable and then railing against Feyre for things she didn’t know or understand because they weren’t explained to her. Not to say Feyre is much better, I personally found her insufferable, but at least she was consistent in that. I was also confused by people’s love of Elaine and Nesta at the beginning. While I understood Nest’s appeal by the end, the book tells you Elaine does nothing because there’s not a single thought in her head. She’s bland and one note, just pretty, nice, and stupid. Those three things do not a likeable character make.

I also overall found the consistency in the book lacking. We’re beat over the head at the beginning with the information fey can’t lie, but they frequently do and it isn’t until the end we’re told that tidbit that kept slapping us in the face wasn’t true. (I will be fair though and admit I might have forgotten the scene where it’s mentioned.) There was also the issue of Feyre constantly saying she didn’t trust Tamlin and Lucien, but then being upset when they themselves didn’t trust her. This was especially obnoxious when she had barely been around them for a week. It made the book feel like it needed a few more rounds of edits to catch these consistency issues and make sure it was called out when ideas were being proven wrong. The issues of consistency also spill into character development. One moment Feyre hates the fey, the next she loves them and hates humans because they aren’t as hot or graceful. Not having a consistent arc for the characters or consistency in the world made it hard for me to keep up with things and often left me wondering if I had missed scenes.

Finally, general flow of the story. I think the beginning was too condensed and the ending too spread out. I think if there were more time skips at the beginning showing us Feyre meeting the major players and then allowing more time to pass for a more natural flow of relationship growth. Having them quickly start to fall for each other within 2-3 weeks and then skipping over huge portions to get to the festivals and steamy scenes feels like a cop out and like we were deprived of watching a romance legitimately bloom between these two.

Final short notes. I will always make a disgusted face at the use of “female” and “male” as nouns and the use of “my mate”. It’s gross, I don’t like it. Also if I hear “I could never paint it” or “my bowels turned to water” (girl just say you shit yourself it’s okay) one more time I will lose my mind.

In conclusion, I can see why people enjoy this, if I turned my brain off I likely could. However the book refuses to set you up for such and in the interim romanticises SA and unhealthy relationships. Also Tamlin’s a creepy for only taking the 19-year-old human that killed a fey and not one of the older women that were stated to have also killed fey unprovoked because they were “too old”. Tamlin, I seriously doubt only grandmas were killing wolves.

Content Warnings

colin_s's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Quote:

"I was as unburdened as a piece of dandelion fluff, and he was the wind that stirred me about the world."

Setting:

The world is split into to parts. The human side is traditional medieval land with no magic and a good bit of sorrow. The faerie side is high magic though with a taint of evil upon the place that we explore as the book takes place.

Plot:

There is a magical wall separating the humans and the land ruled by the faerie, one day a human, Feyre, while hunting kills a wolf who turns out to be a faerie in wolf form. A short while later a faerie shows up and demands he join her to repay the debt for killing on of his kind. She is then whisked away to the land of faerie and it's unlike anything she expected.

Writing:

Sarah J. Maas's writing is perfectly serviceable, at times it's even inspired. I found some paragraphs really well written while others just didn't distract me from getting to the next.

Characters:

Feyre the main character through the first half of the book is insufferable and I found it hard to care much for her. This does get much better in the second half I will also admit. The remainder of the cast of characters are really fleshed out and make decisions that feel in character through the whole of the book.

Pros:

Well written

A compelling tale that keeps you reading

Cons:

Sexual Assault

First half is a chore

Recommendation:

I read this story as part of a book swap with my wife. I was to some extend aware of what I'd signed up for when we started. I wasn't prepared for the plot driven sexual assault but luckily it was brief and not a major focus of the book. If you can look past this and don't mind the focus on lust/love there is a good story in the book as well. One I'd almost continue reading if the love scenes didn't make me squirm to read.

Content Warnings

lqne's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

mrs_gale's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Loved it! Slow to start but then stayed up to 3am to finish this because I couldn't put it down. I adore Lucien and thought he and Fayre might have become a couple at first. I do have a soft spot for a Beauty and the Beast story and this was great. Can't wait to start reading the next book!

Content Warnings

natroze's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark mysterious fast-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: Yes

Content Warnings

indiana_sorell's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

hidingtoread's review against another edition

medium-paced

I’m going to start and end this review with the same statement: If you loved this book, great, I encourage reading and I’m glad this is something you enjoy. I just didn’t and realize I should stay in my lane with adult/grimdark fantasy. I accept I made the mistake here. I’m glad I purchased the book and gave it a go at least, rather than pulling my nose up at it without giving it a shot.

Now my thoughts, the amount of times I rolled my eyes is almost as many times as Fey-Belle talked about how she couldn't paint the colour she was seeing, or the use of ellipses. Don't tell me this a fae story when you also make them werewolf vampire shapeshifters. Also how can one tell how good looking someone is when they permanently wear a mask, they could be a Leper under that mask! Is SJM also throwing in a bit of Phantom of the Opera? I should be able to read a fantasy and still be able to see myself in this world, except the Fae are all thin and "beautiful" af (I'm curvy and jiggly so I can't relate there) and the humans are as dumb af. I say this because appearance comes up A LOT.

I did not care for the any of the characters. The evil queen should have made the curse harder and turned them all into cutlery for all I cared. The fact that you had a riddle that was not hard and yet the MC struggled with it. Its not like she had never been with a guy before, the first few chapters were literally her talking about having a “relationship” with a guy from her village.

A lot of this was so inconsistent, male MC is so nice but also growls a lot, but he’s Fae, why is he growling, why does he have claws! Fey-Belle is the dumbest 19 year old I have ever known. How can someone ignore warnings from the people “protecting her” every damn time, despite the fact that they are proven right every time.

Lastly, I can’t believe readers are into the forced intimacy and abuse in this, calling it sexy, but when it’s a male writer, its un-necessary and vulgar or “why can’t they write a strong female character”. Especially when, like in Malazan, they are not a mythical creature, just human beings doing human hateful things, but that’s the reality of humanity and you’re expected to have a repulsed reaction to it, and be angered by the injustice, and disgusted by these human behaviours. No, SJM makes it sexy and people love it. If its S&M then give us internal monologue where the M is enjoying it and externally shows they want it, thereby giving consent. Don’t tell us the MC is resisting but make out like we should be aroused by reading it. No, just no.

I liked the first part, up to where Fey-Belle encounters the thing that whispers to her in the forest. That was creepy and I read on thinking it would carry on or get better. Maybe it did, I just didn’t see it because I kept getting annoyed at all of the other stuff. Which is a shame.

So again, if you loved it, great, I encourage reading and I’m glad this is something you enjoy. I just didn’t and realize I should stay in my lane with adult/grimdark fantasy. I accept I made the mistake here. I’m glad I purchased the book and gave it a go at least rather than pulling my nose up at it without giving it a shot.

I’m still giving it a 2 star, one for the first part, and the second because its got a lot of people into reading which I love and I recognise how it has contributed to the book world in general which I also love. Keep doing what you do SJM, I just won’t be reading it, but will recommend to people who might like it.

Content Warnings

bookish_bailey's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

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