A review by maxgardner
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous funny tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I have a lot of friends who have read this and wanted me to read it, so I gave it a shot on audiobook. I don't love split-genre romance books (as in, I don't mind romance in my stories so long as it isn't one of the primary genres of an already genre book, like romantasy), and this was just a reminder of why for me. When a book is written with romance as the most important element, it almost always changes the writing for the worse (unless it's meant to be a cute romance story based in realism, though even then...sometimes). So much fluff and cringey scenes; most of the interactions between Feyre and Tamlin are in service to their eventual romance, not to their character development or the overarching story of this conflict between the mortal and fairy worlds, which is an unfortunate fumble on the part of Sarah J Maas, who has created an otherwise interesting setup for a fantasy story. In turn, the story is SO BORING. It's Feyre being mad she has to go live in a goddamn mansion instead of in poverty with a family who fucking sucks and doesn't care whether she lives or dies (and who ALSO are taken care of and given a better life). Like boo hoo, sorry, I don't feel bad that you got literally the ideal outcome here, and her emotions about it are so wishy washy, even as she warms up to Tamlin. She's such a petulant, whiney character that I found unbearable and unlikeable in almost every regard, which made it tough to care at all about the story progression. Then you have Tamlin, who's such a flat, one-note character—handsome, smart, kind-hearted, has come to save Feyre and bears the burden of his kingdom. There's also such a weird disconnect at times between the language and the world the story's based in. It feels like Maas wants to set this in the 17th/18th century based on her descriptions of the worlds, but then they use language and interact in ways that feel disjointedly modern at times. Not to mention Maas abusing several phrases repeatedly to the point that I would roll my eyes every time I heard them pop up (why are Feyre's bowels constantly turning to liquid? is she shitting herself this entire book?). The book finally picks up for the last 1/3, and though I found some of that section done well, it was still way too much time dedicated to romance (with ANOTHER man coming in as an obvious future romantic prospect for Feyre on top of the continuing romance with Tamlin). Like give it up, this woman is in captivity living in squalor for three months but I'm supposed to believe the first thing she's going to do when she gets a moment alone with Tamlin finally is to try to fuck him? Be so fucking for real, I don't care of it's "not real". In so many of the places where we get these little forced interjections to build the romance, it's Maas doing the least interesting thing with the story. I don't care that that's the point of romantasy. All of this to say, I did not like it, but I'm reading the second because I've heard it's quite different than the first, and I can at least give that a chance to see if it's an improvement.