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

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? It's complicated

0.25

 ** spoiler alert ** The Lion, The Witch, And The Audacity of this Book


TRIGGER WARNINGS; ab*se, s**ual assault


I went into this hoping for the best as someone new to the genre but this was genuinely terrible. I gave it an honest chance by reading it all the way through, I even got so excited after the first chapter was honestly alright! However, from there it went downhill fast.  This book was genuinely so hard to finish, I had to walk away every 20 pages just to get myself together. I am struggling to understand the high rating, and don't want to discount the author's hard work or the people who like this, but it's the first book I've ever read that I genuinely hate, got nothing out of and has put me off from reading anything else by this author (and literally anything with faeries). I wanted to chalk it up to just me having different taste but it genuinely is just bad plot, bad characters and bad writing, and I feel genuinely upset knowing that this has so much hype and attention from young readers. Please do not read this book. Anyways.


The Characters


Feyre is your run of the mill YA heroine, complete with bow-and-arrow skills. There are really no examples of character development because she mostly just stays the same, aside from putting on a dress that one time. She is also a massive martyr, incredibly dramatic, immature and has no consideration for the consequences of her actions. She gets incredibly lucky with everything she does, and maybe this is supposed to frame her as brave and daring, but it read as dumb contrived luck to me. She catches the supposedly hard to catch Suriel on her FIRST try and the Suriel also comments on her trap as being clever, because book LOVES to tell us that Feyre is smart and resourceful, yet refuses to show it to us, even doing the exact opposite and showing her do increasingly stupid things and verbally asserting them as clever and good. This is true spare maybe the trials, but even then she only survives because Lucien warns her and Rhys does whatever tf that tattoo thing was.


I liked her flaw being illiteracy (big Jared, 19 vibes), but it really went absolutely nowhere. Even in the second trial if she could have read the riddle on the wall it wouldn't have mattered because as the book showed us she 1. is really bad at solving basic riddles and 2. would have been saved by Rhys regardless.


Feyre is constantly telling the fae that she wants to escape and is ready to kill them to do so. Despite this, they're more than willing to constantly discuss extremely sensitive and important information in front of her, conveniently whenever it's necessary for the plot. Almost none of the interactions feel organic, as most conversations revolve around plot exposition or witty one-liners that try to build up some characterisation but just feel a bit forced and out of place. There are also a few times that are just stupid for no reason, like when Tamlin says to Feyre "You can't write, yet you learned how to hunt" how do these things have a causal relationship? Also, in a world that is very clearly not set in the modern day, I would assume most people know how to Use A Weapon and hate the fae like the gotdamn curse demands the chosen one does (and also probably don't know how to read) - even though Feyre can never make her mind up whether she hates the fae or not.



Feyre's sisters are emotionally absent, kind of abusive stereotypical evil (step)sister types. This would be fine, except for the fact that I find it incredibly hard to believe that after eight years of living in extreme poverty in a place where they're routinely starving, her sisters would still refuse to do basic chores or behave as if they could afford to live beyond their means. Really they would have all starved pretty quickly as one scrawny teenager absolutely can not realistically support four people in those conditions. It's "explained" later that Nesta behaved like this because of spite towards their father which just feels like a cop out (the author doesn't write any moments of character development for her or anyone else) and an undeserved redemption arc to set her up to show up in the sequels, I assume. Feyre forgives Nesta's years of neglect and bullying because she showed up to look for her as if one act of decency was enough to undo years of sibling abuse. Their father is also a piece of shit.


Amarantha's trials are way too easy and the answer to her end all be all riddle being "love" makes no sense for a character as brutal and powerful as her. She really could have made the answer something completely random and impossible to guess (like the way too specific curse) yet she chose "love"? Ok miss girl, whatever 💅 . And the fact that all of her power and her life are riding on Feyre surviving the trials and figuring out the riddle makes me want to scream. You're telling me this cruel, obsessive character who waited almost 50 years for this moment left that much of it to chance? Feyre's contrived luck and plot armour are giving cauldron ex machina. The only other female character with any meaningful part in the story is interesting-ish all the way up until you actually meet her, when she immediately becomes boring, her motives seem to lack any drive and she turns out to be just about as difficult to defeat as it is difficult to get my dog to eat his meds. Annoying and unnecessarily time consuming but not very hard is it.


The Romance and The Literal Ass*ults Like Bro Wtf This Isn't Hot This Is A Crime

Trigger warning, SA


Rhys is a terrible person who is framed painfully obviously as an important character for the sequels , he'll turn out to be an undercover good guy for sure. He, like Tamlin, does terrible things like oh I don't know murder, s***al ass*ult (when he forcefully kisses Feyre and also repeatedly drugs her and forces her to do degrading and sexual-in-nature acts in front of an entire court of people but he's a moral person because he "only touches her waist" (without consent)) yk the good old fashioned manipulate mansplain gaslight girlbossery. He also tries to do a lil Hades x Persephone fantasy that will probably be a thing in the next books but it was creepy, gross, and taking advantage of someone in a vulnerable state. JAIL!!!


Tamlin and Feyre's relationship is extremely inappropriate from the get go. No, him being 500 years old and looking like a 20-year-old does not make their age gap better, it makes it worse. Like miss girlie Maas, a relationship with a 481 year age gap... I'd like to submit to evidence the fact that scaled to faerie age Feyre is effectively a four-year-old, your honour. I'm calling Chris Hansen. Tampon has lived several human lifetimes, is a High Lord or whatever with incredible wealth and power who essentially sets his and Feyre's relationship up by telling her her options are to die or to go with him. The inherent power dynamic here even without the age gap is incredibly unbalanced, especially since Tamale is using Feyre for the prophecy, really.


Trigger warning; attempted r*pe


The Fire Night portion of this book was wildly uncomfortable and I'm shocked that these parts weren't cut from a book that is mostly read by young adults and teenagers. Feyre is repeatedly told to stay inside, which feels a bit victim blamey as they suggest that Tammy Tam won't be able to control himself when he's hopped up on fairy dust or magic juice or something. When she does go out she is almost r*ped by 3 faeries (saved by mr crusty scrunkly creep himself Rhys, thanks I guess) and then who shows up but Tarmac who admits to wanting to take her by force and attempts to r*pe her while heavily intoxicated.


I was about to pass out when he grabbed me, so fast I didn't see anything until he had me pinned against the wall

... I said, making to push him away. He grabbed my hands again and bit my neck. I cried out ... I couldn't move - couldn't think.


Yeah so that was terrible. Fayre, a teenager, is being harassed by a drunk Tadpole, while she thinks about how she's not sure if she wants to be in this situation or not. Needless to say my soul exited my body and any remaining hope for this book I had was yeeted off this mortal coil to another astral plane. The narrative of this book constantly excuses incredibly abusive actions by abusive people and not once holds any of them accountable. None of this is anything to strive for or accept in a relationship.


This book is sold as a romance, but there was honestly barely any of that. Tapioca and Feyre sure mention things they've done together in order to give credibility to their love story, but it's simply not effective with creating any kind of emotional attachment to these characters or their relationship because we don't SEE these moments, we only hear about them after the fact. There's some flirting, they have sex on two different occasions I think? Only one of which happens before the rescue mission thing, both of which I'd feel were very not horny enough for a romance book if that's why I was reading this book. I think the word "breast" was used once, that's something I guess. The book expects the reader to be on board with this being a love that is strong enough for Feyre to literally kill two innocent fae, risk the death of all of her friends and family, as well as be tortured (and s*xually as*ulted) for months on end. Sure, Jan.


The Plot and The Writing

The plot of this book is driven by three things. Exposition, contrivances and good ole plot holes. Bones that are weak enough for Feyre to break over her knee yet strong enough to kill a big ol' murder worm (Feyre vs Shai Hulud when), Rhys's resurrection powers, literally anything that happens ever in this book, you get it. My biggest problem is this; either the author doesn't trust that the reader is intelligent enough to draw a few inferences and come to some conclusions on their own, does not know how to write details into the story subtly and/or organically, or simply does not care to try.


The constant exposition gets incredibly tedious. Every character, even ones that have no reason to/gain nothing (or are actively harming themselves) by telling Feyre anything she asks about do so constantly and with no effort required from the reader to pick up on foreshadowing and subtle cues or any mystery/intrique behind details to the plot. The only time the reader can even try to use their own deduction skills is the godawful riddle that took me 2 seconds to solve and just made Feyre's complete incompetency that more aggravating.


The writing suffers from "tell don't show", the opposite of one of the basic rules in storytelling. The worst example of this is the Bogge. We kinda sorta meet it once and are told it is incredibly dangerous over and over and over again. Tamar Braxton goes to hunt it, again, every time reminding us that it is incredibly dangerous but we never ever see the Bogge do anything! It never kills anyone, we're never told exactly what it does that is so dangerous, we're never even shown say, a corpse of a victim. I simply do not give a shit about the Bogge because I have NO reason to believe it is dangerous, thus making Tachyarrhythmia's efforts hunting it have no tangible risk or emotional weight.

Feyre is constantly either saved at the last minute by other characters, or happens to be at the right place at the right time. She is not resourceful and brave but absurdly lucky and careless. Here's a list of stupid shit that happens that has no consequences for her and probably also puts others in danger.

1. She happens to have an (expensive) ash wood arrow on hand to kill Andras.


2. She happens to run into a mercenary she's never seen in town before, who warns and helps her and then never shows up except I guess for that thing with Nesta?


3. She finds the Suriel and traps it even though she's been told they're incredibly dangerous and hard to catch.


4. She does literally the one thing the Suriel says not to do (leaves the manor).


5. Constantly defies orders to stay where she is.


6. On several occasions she happens to be in the right place to eavesdrop on conversations in a massive manor.


7. She runs into Alis when she comes back after being sent away - even though it has been literal weeks since Tabasco and Lucien have gone - and very conveniently Alis has stayed behind this whole time.


8. There just so happens to be a shortcut to Under The Mountain basically in their backyard.


9. Rhys happens to have chosen to lie about all humans looking the same to him, saving Feyre and her family and enabling the climax (hnnnng) of the book to even happen.

10. Lucien is allowed to roam freely enough Under The Mountain to be able to come heal Feyre (even though he's pretty much a prisoner) which also gets him into trouble.


The very start of the book - even as it is later "explained" is a stretch to make sense out of - it feels like an incredibly lazy way to kickstart the "actual plot" as Talc powder completely unnecessarily offers Feyre the two options for punishment for killing another faerie (death or a life in luxury for both her AND her family) and this is somehow not questioned then and there. What if Feyre chose death? Why offer that as an option if he inteded to take her with him? The way her family is given incredible opulence adds nothing to the plot except reward terrible people for being terrible. It also begs the question of what they intending on telling Feyre's family once it would have gotten unrealistic for her to still be staying with her dying aunt? It just doesn't feel like the world and it's rules were built beyond anything that is convenient for Feyre's story. To defend the plot by saying that it's all explained or makes sense in the last 20% of the book is actively choosing to ignore the fact that the writing is so bad that in order to enjoy the book (which I personally did not at any point past the first chapter) you have to waste a few hours wading through this thicc sludge of nothingness to get to anything half interesting.


Even though it is explained later, the way Feyre is allowed to kill one of the very few remaining friends/sentinels of Tambourine's with no reprecussions besides a few cold looks is beyond me. I don't care that it's explained by the curse (which is incredibly hyperspecific to Feyre's situation, relies on some incredible coincidences and effectively paints literally every other human woman that has existed in the past 49 years as weak cowards) it is baffling to me that nobody in Twink's court questions the fact that out of the options Tamlin technically had post-curse (1. Save countless of fae lives by sacrificing himself to live with Amarantha. 2. Waiting out the 49 years, not sending friends to their deaths and making the best of those 49 years trying to break the curse since the rules are flimsy anyways before going with Amarantha. 3. Trusting the odds to find his human bride letting a bunch of fae die in the process knowing that they're likely to fail regardless) he chooses the worst one. He's clearly willing to protect this one teenager he's known for a few months, even sending her away knowing he's potentially dooming his entire court, yet won't give any thought to people he's known for hundreds of years and they're all just cool with it? Besties, I am confusion.


Feyre's return to her family for a few weeks robs the reader of the only time anything potentially exciting happens. Instead of maybe being treated to a battle or building up characterisation or having some emotional interactions between Tamlin, Lucien and maybe idk giving literally any weight to Amarantha as a real threat, possibly even offering a chapter or two from these characters' points of view without the need for Feyre to be present, we spend those same chapters doing nothing and then going back only for another character to explain everything to Feyre and artificially moving the plot forward by literally walking Feyre over to the next checkpoint. It's just lazy writing.


The three trials... None of them are tasks that literally anyone else couldn't have done, as much as Feyre likes to tell us they're personal. She's also saved 2/3 times by someone else, and in the last task she might solve it herself but the fact that she can do that just makes it painfully obvious how it isn't realistic to claim that either she couldn't solve the most obvious riddle in the world in three whole months or that she can deduce the answer to the mystery here from vague hints and overheard words here or there. It's just not consistent characterisation. The amount of time between trials was also unnecessary filler aside from the few important lines that helped Feyre with the last task.


The Worldbuilding


The religious thing was one of the only things in this book I genuinely wanted to know more about and then it's just... Abandoned and never explored further. The creatures sound cool enough but we literally never get to explore them at all. The fae themselves are real confusing.

Amarantha weakening the fae's magic isn't really given a set of rules, so the author inserts as much of it into the story as the plot needs. I couldn't tell you what the rules of their magic are if I tried, and what the differences are between the types of fae or their courts. The fact that Nesta breaks the glamour thing by literally being too stubborn for it, and the other family members do so just as easily completely discounts any sense of power their magic has. It was never clear to me who had what abilities, why they had them, and how much exactly they were limited by the curse. The last straw was Rhys literally resurrecting Feyre as a High Fae. Clearly this is for the sake of the sequels in this series, but when I read this part I had to put the book down and scream into a pillow because it just felt like a last slap in the face. Haha fuck you resurrection and changin races is and has been a thing and totally doesn't create plot holes and more questions.



The Conclusion


This is a bad book. I have no interest in reading the sequels (update:I've nearly finished the entire series...), or any other of this author's work. If you disagree and loved this book/series good for you! (/gen) For me there was nothing good or enjoyable about this book, some of the stuff in this was genuinely frustrating to see romanticised and justified. I don't have much experience with this genre, but I don't believe I need to in order to see that there's nothing good to take away from this book and it's potentially doing more harm than good not just ideologically but also by way of bad quality writing. Now I will go and offer the friend who made me read this godawful book the options of 1. beating the sh*t out of them or 2. them coming to my house to live in luxury forever as punishment. Hoping they go for #1.

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