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A review by xcrissy67x
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book has been so incredibly hyped and a small part of me can definitely see why. However, I have some bones to pick with this book and I think overall, I would say I was disappointed with the book but that could be because I got caught up in the hype.
This book follows Fayre, a woman who has to hunt for the sake of her family and unfortunately she hunted the wrong wolf. As a punishment for this, she is whisked away by a Fae and is taken back to the land of Prythian to live out the rest of her life away from her family.
When I first started reading the book, the first thing I noticed was the writing style. And this was not in a good way. It was so… wishy-washy and flowery. It wasn't bad enough that I put the book down but I definitely rolled my eyes at the beginning because it all felt so forced. As I got more into the book, it calmed down a little which meant I could brush past that fact.
In addition to the writing style, there were just some inconsistencies in the writing. The main thing that bugged me were the inconsistency of the characters because they seem to flicker between two different personalities. Also, Amarantha’s hair colour changed about 100 pages in. So now I have an image of some lady with a bad dye job leaving her with half black and half red-gold hair.
The world building of this book was really poor. To be honest, I still know literally nothing about the world other than like 3 creatures that appeared at some point and that courts exist. Other than that, I am completely oblivious to the world and the different types of faes that allegedly exist.
The main character was also infuriatingly idiotic. She's supposed to be the caretaker of her family and be a huntress so you'd think she'd have a little common sense or something that would mean she wouldn't run head first into any danger you could think of. If someone tells her not to do something because it's dangerous, trust me she's going to do it and you're going to want to bash her head in at the same time.
Despite her stupid decisions, the author decides that everything needs to be handed to her easily even though she knows nothing about the world or creatures (much like myself ironically). Parts of the plot made me think “what the heck? That's all that happens?” because for most of the book, there is no trial and tribulations or any sort of difficulty for the main character.
The plot at the very beginning was honestly very interesting and I had high hopes until she gets into Prythian because then the plot is incredibly dull and makes no sense for about half of the book. Her supposed “punishment” for killing aforementioned wolf was not really a punishment and had me confused, because literally what? It does kind of get answered closer to the end of the book but it was far too late into the book.
I was also so conflicted about the romance, because quite frankly, I was torn between loving it and hating it. There was a steady pace… until there wasn't. You'd think after being kidnapped, you'd need to build trust. Yeah it starts to happen but then it just BHAM. Love. What? Like genuinely what?
The whole plot seemed to write around the romance rather than a plot happening and the romance happening alongside it. Mind you, there doesn't actually seem to be a plot until about 70% of the book.
Once you reach the 70% mark, you get so much info dumped on you that I was so taken aback. It wasn't even as if the plot was slowly unravelled. The entire plot was dumped on you through a terribly long monologue between two characters. It was as if Maas realised that she was running out of pages and she had rambled for so long at the beginning of the book that she had to tell us all the important information that she didn't tell us about before the actually interesting part started. Either that or she gave up with trying to foreshadow things, not that there was any effort to foreshadow much beforehand.
Only after this mind numbing monologue does the plot actually start to get more interesting. There is a lot more action (kind of) and there seems to be a lot more tension that kept me hooked. I don't know if there was supposed to be tension building in the first 3/4s of the book but if there was, it was a poor attempt.
Amarantha's character was cheesy and cliché. But at least her motives made sense (mostly). Her little riddle was also a big yawn - totally cliché and I guessed it in under a minute. But other than that and hoe cliché it is, I found the ending much more compelling than the first 35 chapters.
I might be being harsh because in all honesty, I didn't hate the book. I just got mildly (okay maybe moderately) annoyed at some aspects of the book, especially when reflecting back on the book to write this book review. But overall I found it entertaining. As a good friend of mine says, entertaining but not overwhelming, which I think is a very good way to describe this book. I will continue with the second book as I have heard that the second book is the best but whether I complete the series is up for debate.
This book follows Fayre, a woman who has to hunt for the sake of her family and unfortunately she hunted the wrong wolf. As a punishment for this, she is whisked away by a Fae and is taken back to the land of Prythian to live out the rest of her life away from her family.
When I first started reading the book, the first thing I noticed was the writing style. And this was not in a good way. It was so… wishy-washy and flowery. It wasn't bad enough that I put the book down but I definitely rolled my eyes at the beginning because it all felt so forced. As I got more into the book, it calmed down a little which meant I could brush past that fact.
In addition to the writing style, there were just some inconsistencies in the writing. The main thing that bugged me were the inconsistency of the characters because they seem to flicker between two different personalities. Also, Amarantha’s hair colour changed about 100 pages in. So now I have an image of some lady with a bad dye job leaving her with half black and half red-gold hair.
The world building of this book was really poor. To be honest, I still know literally nothing about the world other than like 3 creatures that appeared at some point and that courts exist. Other than that, I am completely oblivious to the world and the different types of faes that allegedly exist.
The main character was also infuriatingly idiotic. She's supposed to be the caretaker of her family and be a huntress so you'd think she'd have a little common sense or something that would mean she wouldn't run head first into any danger you could think of. If someone tells her not to do something because it's dangerous, trust me she's going to do it and you're going to want to bash her head in at the same time.
Despite her stupid decisions, the author decides that everything needs to be handed to her easily even though she knows nothing about the world or creatures (much like myself ironically). Parts of the plot made me think “what the heck? That's all that happens?” because for most of the book, there is no trial and tribulations or any sort of difficulty for the main character.
The plot at the very beginning was honestly very interesting and I had high hopes until she gets into Prythian because then the plot is incredibly dull and makes no sense for about half of the book. Her supposed “punishment” for killing aforementioned wolf was not really a punishment and had me confused, because literally what? It does kind of get answered closer to the end of the book but it was far too late into the book.
I was also so conflicted about the romance, because quite frankly, I was torn between loving it and hating it. There was a steady pace… until there wasn't. You'd think after being kidnapped, you'd need to build trust. Yeah it starts to happen but then it just BHAM. Love. What? Like genuinely what?
The whole plot seemed to write around the romance rather than a plot happening and the romance happening alongside it. Mind you, there doesn't actually seem to be a plot until about 70% of the book.
Once you reach the 70% mark, you get so much info dumped on you that I was so taken aback. It wasn't even as if the plot was slowly unravelled. The entire plot was dumped on you through a terribly long monologue between two characters. It was as if Maas realised that she was running out of pages and she had rambled for so long at the beginning of the book that she had to tell us all the important information that she didn't tell us about before the actually interesting part started. Either that or she gave up with trying to foreshadow things, not that there was any effort to foreshadow much beforehand.
Only after this mind numbing monologue does the plot actually start to get more interesting. There is a lot more action (kind of) and there seems to be a lot more tension that kept me hooked. I don't know if there was supposed to be tension building in the first 3/4s of the book but if there was, it was a poor attempt.
Amarantha's character was cheesy and cliché. But at least her motives made sense (mostly). Her little riddle was also a big yawn - totally cliché and I guessed it in under a minute. But other than that and hoe cliché it is, I found the ending much more compelling than the first 35 chapters.
I might be being harsh because in all honesty, I didn't hate the book. I just got mildly (okay maybe moderately) annoyed at some aspects of the book, especially when reflecting back on the book to write this book review. But overall I found it entertaining. As a good friend of mine says, entertaining but not overwhelming, which I think is a very good way to describe this book. I will continue with the second book as I have heard that the second book is the best but whether I complete the series is up for debate.