Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

528 reviews

adventurous challenging dark emotional lighthearted tense 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: Yes

Ok listen… I didn’t think I would like it imma be honest. Howeva once I got to the plot 👀. I finished the book in 2 days however I’m curious as to why Tamlin is referred to as “tampon” on booktok. I’m scared to read the next one. Although intrigued. Smut not good don’t recommend😐.

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

this book was pretty simple, it gave me pretty heavy twilight vibes but I didn’t find the characters as relatable or interesting. I’m curious to see how the rest of the world works but I found Feyra (i listened to the audiobook so not sure about spelling) to be frustratingly mischaracterized by her own story. I thought this was going to be a story about a heartless fierce girl learning to love but in reality Feyra is immediately kind and overly forgiving of her family who doesn’t appreciate her hard work. She doesn’t want to be a huntress, she doesn’t want to be cold and is never unfeeling. It just made the whole “girl with ice in her heart” feel so hollow. Also, I have a hard time with main characters who are actively stupid just to make the plot work better. There are so many times she is simply willfully ignorant because if she was a little smarter then the -drama- wouldn’t happen. The things I liked about the book were the world and faeries and the rules, though I feel like these all took a backseat to the romance. I’m also not sure if this is because I was listening to the audiobook but there were weird time skips that left me feeling very off balance. Again, I’m curious to see more of the universe fleshed out but I am irritated that I have to see it all through Feyra’s eyes lol

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

Erstmal auf Deutsch:
Nachdem eine Freundin seit mehr als einem Jahr versucht hat, mich davon zu überzeugen, diese Reihe zu lesen, habe ich mich endlich überzeugen lassen. 
Es gab ein paar Kleinigkeiten, die mich gestört haben, 
z. B. Habe ich die Anziehung zwischen Tamlin und Feyre nicht sonderlich gespürt
aber der Erzählstil hat mir gut gefallen und jetzt, da ich auch den nächsten Teil gelesen habe, kann ich bestätigen, dass dieser Band mehr wie eine lange Einleitung zum Rest der Reihe ist. 

Now for the English readers: I picked this up from a friend after she tried to persuade me for over a year to read it. 
There were some things I didn't like very much,
e. G. That there was no atmosphere between Tamlin and Feyre and how whiny she was in the beginning even though she is supposed to be a huntress

But I liked Maas's writing style and after reading the second book I can confirm that this is mostly a really long introduction to the real series, but it's worth it. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional medium-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

I knew nothing about this story before getting into it, so I didn't realize the first half was going to be a
Beauty and the Beast
retelling. However, I quickly picked up on the parallels by the time Feyre arrived at the manor. Because of this, it wasn't difficult at all to predict what the "plot twists" would be.

Before I prattle on about the story of ACOTR, I need to vent about some of SJM's writing choices here. What does the phrase "my bowels turned watery" mean, and why was it used TWICE? To me, this is one of the most disgusting descriptions in a book filled with gore and violence. Also, the colors just cannot stay consistent throughout. First, Rhys's deep blue eyes are suddenly referred to as violet, and then, Amarantha's "gold-red hair" becomes "her black hair" in the span of about 90 pages! It's very difficult to hold a picture in my mind when the visual descriptions keep changing all willy-nilly.

This story was very slow-moving for the first few chapters and I was having quite a hard time getting into it. It wasn't until Chapter 5 that I felt a bit interested. Around 60% of the way through is when I actually started having hope for this book. I know this is not the common opinion, but I felt like I could really feel a connection between
Feyre and Tamlin
growing and I was happy to see them finally embrace it. Now, I am well aware that everyone says
Rhys
is so much better in the next book, but at this point, I just don't care. And for the folks that disregard his actions in this book because he helped in the end: a few good deeds do not negate doing a boatload of fucked up shit, especially when that "good" is highly self-motivated/self-serving.

As for Amarantha, I thought she was kind of a boring villain. I feel SJM could have taken more time to immerse us into her backstory. Instead, it just felt like a rushed explanation of how we got here. And her trials! Why, oh why, did they get easier as they went on?! For someone so villainous and horrid that everyone on Prythian was terrified of her, her tasks were shockingly simple and straightforward. I would have loved to have seen some of that Amarantha cunning and deception she is apparently well-known for shine through in these trials. I think this would have helped me like Feyre more, too, if we had seen her have to be a bit more clever in order to survive.

The majority of the reason for my rating not being higher comes down to the damn riddle. This "riddle" makes me so mad. Why was so much put on the line over a simple riddle?? And why did Feyre have NO idea of what the answer could be?! I guessed that shit by the time the first line was recited! This genuinely made the last 25% of this book painful for me to read.

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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional medium-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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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: Yes

I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this book as much as I did. I found some of the writing to be a bit cringe/odd but I had alot of fun reading it. Maybe it's just because I haven't read a fantasy book in a while but this book was exactly what I needed and im anticipating the events of the second one.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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: No

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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark funny medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings