A Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J Maas
Rating: 3/5
A Court of Thorns and Roses is bit Stockholm Syndrome-y (I highly doubt that was the goal though).
ACOTAR is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with nineteen-year-old Feyre at the helm. After killing a wolf in the woods while hunting, a scary monster-beast comes to her home and demands that she pay with her life for the murder of his friend. So she gets whisked away to the monster-beast’s grand estate where it turns out he’s faerie royalty. Evil looms and *gasp* Feyre develops feelings for her captor.
I was hesitant to pick this book up because I wasn’t captivated by the way Throne of Glass was written. However, since Throne of Glass was Maas’s first novel, I thought I’d give this series a chance.
The writing is definitely better and the plot much less flimsy than Throne of Glass. The three main men in the story were pretty much the same person and if you swapped their names around they could have been interchangeable. Also the plot hangs on the silliest thing: “You killed my friend, you must die. BUT WAIT, you can let me kidnap you and live in my LUXURY mansion because you just killed my friend.” What?!
I just couldn’t really get into it.. It took me two weeks to make my way through it, which, for such a short book, is a looong time. Usually I’ll make my way through Ken Follett’s 1000 page novels in 2-3 weeks.
I think it just boils down to the fact that Sarah J Maas’ writing style and characterization just doesn’t mesh with my tastes. It definitely wasn’t an awful book, and she is a good author, it just wasn’t for me. I’ll probably read the second one out of curiousity, but I’m pretty indifferent to the world she built.
I’ve seen a lot of praise for this book, especially from those whose reviews I usually see eye to eye on, so if this sounds like your type of thing definitely go check it out!
(Amazon US / Amazon CA / Book Depository / Indigo)