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A review by sandrareilly513
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
3.0
Thoughts: Okay, unpopular opinion time... I did not love this book. I didn't hate it, necessarily, but definitely didn't love it. I actually started listening to the audiobook first, which I both recommend and also wish I had avoided. I appreciated knowing how to pronounce names (i.e. "Feyre" is pronounced "Farrah", which is definitely not how I would've read it in my head in the text version) and I also probably would've quickly read over or skimmed some of the background details instead of paying attention like I had to with the audio. But the first half of the book just takes a long time to get into and the audio version doesn't really help with that. Realizing I had hours to go resulted in me giving up somewhere in the 'teen chapters because I didn't feel the plot was moving fast enough. This story is basically a retelling of Beauty and the Beast but with more magic and some sexual content and it felt like Maas took a long time trying to explain how this story wasn't a B&B retelling that the beginning of the story dragged. But thanks to my best book buddy I decided to give the print version a shot. I wasn't really invested in the story until chapter 22 or 23, and in all honesty that was after considering giving up again because I really hated chapter 21. I won't go into why, but let's just say I'm a romantic and that chapter bugged the heck out of me. Also, I really didn't like Feyre as a character; she just did whatever she wanted without thinking it through or heeding anyone's warnings. But she got "better" towards the second half of the book, though.
Okay, enough whining. So what I did like... I really thought the second half of the story was pretty amazing. There was a lot of action, all of the feels between Feyre and a lot of the characters, and an interesting storyline. Maas is great at describing the action scenes to the point where I could clearly see each setting, event, and battle despite my limited imagination and fantasy book experiences. I also liked Lucien and Tamlin as characters. And, although this is a series, I'm also thankful for this because I don't really want to read the rest of the series, so I appreciate that
Harsh critiques aside, again I didn't hate this book -- in fact, I devoured the last third of it. However, I wouldn't classify this as young adult and I wouldn't add this to my high school collection due to the sexual content in the second half of the book. I don't immediately discount a book because of SC but I felt these instances were too descriptive or depicted unhealthy relationships/power imbalances. I would classify this book as "new adult" instead.
Okay, enough whining. So what I did like... I really thought the second half of the story was pretty amazing. There was a lot of action, all of the feels between Feyre and a lot of the characters, and an interesting storyline. Maas is great at describing the action scenes to the point where I could clearly see each setting, event, and battle despite my limited imagination and fantasy book experiences. I also liked Lucien and Tamlin as characters. And, although this is a series,
Spoiler
the ending is wrapped up pretty neatly so readers aren't left "hanging".Spoiler
there are very few plot points left unresolved.Harsh critiques aside, again I didn't hate this book -- in fact, I devoured the last third of it. However, I wouldn't classify this as young adult and I wouldn't add this to my high school collection due to the sexual content in the second half of the book. I don't immediately discount a book because of SC but I felt these instances were too descriptive or depicted unhealthy relationships/power imbalances. I would classify this book as "new adult" instead.