A Court of Thorns and Roses
Author: Sarah J Maas Genre: Romantic Fantasy Year of Publication: 2015 Pages: 419 (hardback)
Writing: 3/10 Plot: 1/10 Characters: 1/10 Creativity: 3/10
Overall: 2/10
Spoilers Ahead!
Ugh…
I finally read it. After nearly 10 years of avoidance, I finally caved and read it. And surprise, surprise— I hated it. I knew I wasn’t going to like it but, as you guys know by now, I’m a literary masochist. Plus I feel like I need something on the website to tie you guys over while I work on The August Few redux (it’s coming I promise). I never liked SJM. I read Throne of Glass years ago and— to this day— it ranks high on the growing list of awful books I’ve forced my way through. ACOTAR isn’t as bad as Throne of Glass, but it was still a miserable slog.
The Plot
Lead character Feyre is hunting deer for her horrible family when she runs across a giant wolf. She suspects the wolf to be a fairy in disguise and since she hates fairies— she kills him with an ash wood arrow. She skins him and carries his pelt and the deer carcass back to her home— over her shoulders like some fucking strong guy mountain man. She’s not said to be all that strong— so already the book is shattering my immersion by having this half-starved 19 year old carry a carcass and a giant wolf pelt over her shoulders as if they weigh nothing. Anyway, she gets back to her shitty family consisting of her older sisters— Elaine the ditzy one and Nesta the bitchy one— and their father. Feyre thinks very little of her family and they think little of her. They used to be rich until their father made some bad deals— plunging them straight into poverty. On her deathbed— her mother made Feyre swear to protect and care for her shit ass family. Breaking a promise in this world is against the law or some shit— so Feyre is honor bound to keep that promise (even though her mother was an awful person too). “My youngest daughter, please take care of our family. My husband and my other daughters are too useless and will die from starvation if you do not take care of them. I know I didn’t give a shit about you until now. I know I never taught you how to read, but please burden yourself for these people you don’t even like.” What a great family you got there, Feyre.
She sells the pelts of the fairy wolf and the deer to a mercenary. Then later that night, she and her family are accosted by a beast. Some years ago, fairies and humans created The Treaty— a list of laws or whatever detailing their relationship and laws. The fairy tells her that she must pay for the life she took. “A life for a life.” However— he doesn’t kill her. Instead, he decides to take her back to his illustrious mansion where she will live out her days. How horrible. She is taken to the Spring Court and there the beast turns into a handsome man. So much for that Beauty and the Beast retelling I was promised. The dude’s name is Tamlin. No, not Tam Lin from the Scottish/English ballad, but Tamlin— a boring hunky hunk who allows the murderer of his friend to roam his home unharassed for reasons that are not clear until half way through the book. Because of a curse, he and his courtiers have masks stuck on their faces. Not even full face masks either. Just half masks. That way, we can still get a description on how chiseled Tamlin’s jaw is. Feyre meets Tam’s bff Lucien— who is missing an eye and wears a fox mask. He’s okay.
Blah blah blah, Feyre— for some reason— wants to go back to her shitty family. So she attempts to escape— but is almost killed by monsters. Later, she is told about Calanmai. No, not Calen Mai— the real world Welsh holiday— but Calanmai—a freakish fairy sex ritual. Feyre— who was attacked three times by dangerous fairy creatures— is told repeatedly to stay inside— but since she’s the main character, she sneaks out and is immediately accosted by three creepy fairy dudes. But don’t worry— Edgy McEdgers (Rhysand) shows up and rescues her— stealing Howl’s famous line “There you are. I was looking for you,” from Howl’s Moving Castle. Lucien then shows up and carries her back to the mansion. He tells her dumb ass to stay inside. Tamlin is going to be under the influence of fairy sex magic and will be hunting her down. Dumbfuck extraordinaire Feyre leaves her bedroom to get a midnight snack and is immediately sexually harassed by Tamlin. It’s fine though. She’s into it— even though she’s telling him no and pushing him away. The next morning, she and Tam laugh about the time he sexually harassed her while under the influence of fairy sex drugs. How romantic. Blah blah blah, they go on picnics and shit. It’s boring because they’re boring. Then Edgy Boy shows up to threaten them. He is working for the main bad, Amarantha. He asks for Feyre’s name and she gives him the name of some random girl who was then tortured by Amarantha. Tam is scared for her life so he tells her that she has to go back to her shitty family. And then they fuck I guess. I don’t know. I skipped most of the chapter.
While she was away frolicking in fairy heaven, Tamlin “glamoured” her family’s memories and gave them a fuck ton of money. They think she’s taking care of a distant aunt— and after her death— the aunt’s fortune went to her. Her shitty family is no longer shitty except for Nesta who had character development off page. Due to her strong will or some shit— the glamour didn’t work on her so she knows what happened to her sister. Blah blah blah, Feyre goes to Fairy World and there her servant Alis blabs about Amarantha’s life story for an entire chapter. Horrendous. Alis helps Feyre get into the Mountain and there she walks up to Amarantha and challenges her. Mustache-twirling anime villain Amarantha forces her to do three grueling task and if she passes them, she would set the fairies free from her curses or whatever the fuck (I was so checked out by this point). Feyre could either endure the challenges or solve the easiest riddle known to man. Since Feyre— who can’t read because her shitty family never bothered to teach her how— decides to take on the challenges. Amarantha gives her a whole month in between the challenges to think about the riddle. The first challenge is her fighting an Alaskan Bull Worm. She broke her arm in the process and while she is dying in her cell, Edgelord shows up and— after twisting her broken arm— he gives her an ultimatum: become his bitch for a week or die to infection. Having no real choice, she chooses the former. He tattoos her arm and when it’s time for her to be his plaything— he has his servants paint her body with blue marks and then drugs her with spiked wine so that she’s knocked out— only retaining faint memories of the events from the previous night. She wakes up— her body paint smudge from Edgerson’s hands. Lucien tells her that Scourge had her lap dance for him in front of everyone— utterly humiliating her.
Challenge two— a ceiling of spikes slowly descends upon her and Lucien. All she has to do is solve a riddle and pull the right lever— but she is illiterate. So, Edgy Man’s tattoos burn when she reaches for the wrong levers. She pulls the right one with his help. After forcing himself onto her a few more times, he eventually tells her his stupid ass plan. He’s on the good guy’s side. He wants Amarantha to die too so by humiliating and violating Feyre, he’s driving Tamlin mad— so mad that he is guaranteed to kill Amarantha. This is dumb as hell and I hate it. I loathe Rhysand. I’ll get to it later.
Challenge three— Feyre kills two fairies and almost kills Tamlin, but after reflecting on two throwaway lines, she realizes that Tamlin has a literal heart of stone. She stabs him, but he doesn’t die. Sore loser Amarantha starts torturing Feyre and— while she is dying— she suddenly realizes that the answer to the easiest puzzle in the world is “love.” This breaks the curse and Tamlin slaughters Amarantha. It’s very anti-climatic, honestly. Then Feyre dies— but is soon revived by all the High Lords, becoming a High Fae. The End.
I blame SJM for starting this trend of poorly paced, overly long, unedited “romantasy” stories. There are entire scenes that can be cut or shortened— especially in the middle of the book. The most infamous one is the fairy orgy. Nothing except for discomfort on the reader’s part is accomplished in that scene. It serves no purpose. It didn’t progress the plot nor the characters. I guess it’s worldbuilding, but that feels like a half-assed excuse to give us a “spicy” scene— as if sexual assault can be considered “spicy.” Just remove the scene. It was pointless.
It annoys me to no end that— instead of weaving worldbuilding and Amarantha’s story throughout the narrative— SJM decides to waste our time for half the book with boring, meandering scenes of Feyre doing next to nothing. And then— once she realizes that she needs a climax— SJM dumps Amarantha’s entire life story on us and then changes the direction of the plot for the back half. This is not how you do this. Show us what life is like under Amarantha’s reign while the romance is happening. Show fairies telling stories of her rise in power— really build up her boogeyman status. Introduce more characters in the first half. It’s aggravating that we’re stuck with four characters — Feyre, Tam, Fox Boy, and Maid— for half the book. I would’ve liked to see more fairy folk. Let us get a good sense of the world. Hell— introduce Scourge earlier in the novel and properly foreshadow his heel turn. Speaking of:
The “foreshadowing” in this book is abysmal. Laying out clues adds to the enjoyment of reading. The author lays down some intriguing tidbits— activating the detective parts of the reader’s brain. Now they’re hooked. They are analyzing the text and piecing together the twist. The twist happens and— lo and behold— they were right! Now they’re satisfied and had a good time engaging with the story. For Gravity Falls, fans guessed who the writer of the journals was years before the show did and we were all hyped when we got it right. It was very satisfying and rewarding. That’s because the show laid out enough clues that led to the conclusion. This is why mysteries are so fun. Lead your audience to the answer. Don’t be too obvious, but don’t be too vague either. You gotta hit that sweet part to where you trigger the audience’s mystery solving senses and get them hooked into the story. ACOTAR doesn’t do this at all. The stone heart thing felt like a deus ex machina. Not once was it properly shown beforehand that fairies can have stone hearts. Alis tells Feyre to “Listen to what [she] hears” which is so vague that it can apply to anything. This is not a clue. There are only two lines referring to Tamlin’s stony heart and neither one of them seem literal.
Lucien: “Back off? Back off while you seal our fates and ruin everything? I stayed with you out of hope, not to watch you stumble. For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days. The Bogge was on our lands—the Bogge, Tamlin!…”
Ch 12
The Attor: “Though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin,” it said, and Tamlin went rigid, “you certainly keep a host of fear inside it.”
Ch 19
A stone heart metaphorically means that someone is stoic— Stony— which applies well to Tamlin. These lines do not make it seem like he has an actual heart of stone. We are in Feyre’s head and not once until the moment she has to stab him does she reflect on his lack of a heartbeat. This is objectively awful plotting. My theory for this piss poor writing is this: SJM wrote the book in one shot. Once she got to the stabbing scene, she pulled the “stone heart” thing out of her ass to solve the plot hole she just created. Then she went back to add two throwaway lines and Alis’ vague advice to “foreshadow” the twist and then she published the book. I feel the same way about Amarantha’s build up. She’s referenced briefly in a few earlier scenes and then we get that massive info dump half way through because SJM didn’t know who Amarantha was until that moment. It’s so sloppy. She was writing by the seat of her pants and didn’t fix any of her faults. I highly doubt she even outlined the plot!
Okay so the curse. Because Tamlin rejected her advances and said he would rather marry a human than her, Amarantha put a curse on him and his court. This curse saps him of most of his power. To break it, he has to court a human girl who hates fairies so much that she kills one. And the fairy she kills has to be one of his own men in an unprovoked attack. And she has to admit that she loves him with her entire heart. And— so that she loves him for him and not his looks— he has to wear a mask that only covers half his face. I hate this curse because— once again— it feels like SJM made it up at the Alis scene and then went back to add some ham-fisted lines and awkward moments to “foreshadow” the curse.
The vague as fuck Treaty doesn’t actually have a clause in it that states a human must pay for the life they took— which doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Why wouldn’t that be a part of the treaty when it was being drafted? So humans are just allowed to slaughter fairies with no consequences? Fairies treat humans like their animals, but they’re cool with them murdering them in cold blood? It doesn’t make sense. Tamlin sent out many of his soldiers to get killed by people which explains why he and Lucien were very nonchalant about Feyre killing their buddy. I guess they didn’t care that much for Andras.
I don’t understand why Amarantha gave them a way out in the first place. We are told that “making a fairy-hating human fall in love with a High Lord is impossible,” but it really wasn’t. Tamlin is still a hot piece of ass even with the mask on. If she turned him into an actual beast, this would make more sense. A human— regardless of if they hate fairies or not— would be put off by a talking monster. You know… like in Beauty and the Beast? SJM would rather pull stupid bullshit out of her ass than write an actual Beauty and the Beast retelling.
The Writing
Now I will say the writing here is much better than it is in Throne of Glass. Her writing style is still bad, but it doesn’t make my eyes bleed so that’s a step up.
SJM is infamous for overusing em dashes (—). Em dashes work like ellipses… they create a dramatic pause. Using them every now and then is fine— but SJM uses them as replacements for commas almost every single time. This makes reading the book physically slow and disjointed. Every couple of words you are forced to stop— before continuing on. I hate it. Plus it just looks ugly. Formatting normally doesn’t take away from a book, but— in this case— it does. All those dashes on one page is hideous to look at.
Since SJM likes to be overly dramatic, she would repeat stuff for emphasis all the time. So much so that it stops being effective and becomes annoying.
It was impressive—truly impressive—to see Nesta go ramrod straight…
I blinked—but stifled the urge to blink a second time. She was overpaying—by a lot.
She looked beyond me—past me.
I was indeed feeling ill—ill and jumpy.
Ch 3
I had to get him out—get him away from my family.
Ch 4
South—all I had to do was go south, and I would eventually make it to the wall.
Now—I had to go now.
Food—getting food, then running at the next opportune moment.
Ch 6
These are just a few examples. The whole book is riddled with these. This is an effective way to emphasize something if used conservatively, but SJM said “fuck it— let’s do it all the time.” I cannot stand repetitive nonsense like this. It’s the biggest pet peeve I have and it’s one of the reasons why I despise her writing style so much. She forces you to pause— and then she repeats stuff for emphasis— for emphasis— all the time with little to no variation. What’s annoying is that she can write a good action scene, as I stated before. The Bogge scene was cool, the Alaskan Bull Worm fight was exciting, and her descriptions of gore and violence is visceral and creepy. Her dramatics work great in scenes that are supposed to be dramatic. But when characters are sitting around doing nothing, she maintains this overly serious tone. It irks me to no end.
SJM writes first person as if it’s third person limited— making Feyre impartial and objective. Feyre doesn’t have biases because she is objectively right in all of her assessments. If she says Nesta is a bitch, then she’s a bitch. It’s not just her perception of Nesta. That is who she is until SJM says otherwise. This impartialness and objectivity makes the book monotoned in a way a first person narrative shouldn’t be.
Ironically, we don’t learn much about Feyre even though we’re in her head. She likes to paint, but that aspect of her character and narration is so hollow. I like the idea of her being artistic. I like the idea of her marveling at the colors of nature and having the desire to capture it in paint. However, it’s not portrayed in an interesting way. I think it would’ve been neat if Feyre was more flowery in her speech or described things in intricate detail as an artist would. Have her talk about the shadowy contours of people’s faces or how sunlight plays off the grass or whatever. I would’ve loved to see her talk/think about the mechanics of painting. Instead of having her marvel at how real a painting looks— have her talk about the brushstrokes and the colors used. Have her creativity and attention-to-detail be huge parts of her personality. This is such a simple thing that would’ve made the narration and her character more alive and interesting.
A lot of the dialogue is on-the-nose and stilted. People talk like archetypes— not people. When they’re not cracking one liners, they are blabbering about the lore. Since we are stuck with archetypes— a lot of the dialogue breaks the immersion of the world. There’s two moments where Lucien and Shadow Boy say they “admire Feyre’s balls” which made me cringe. Why are these 100+ year old immortal beings talking like frat boys?
A few small things: Characters are constantly said to be growling, snarling, purring and hissing— as if they’re damn cats. I know a lot of these guys are fairies but— let’s be honest— the fairies are just hot people with magic. So it’s beyond cringe when they start behaving like furries. Humans do not purr. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be picturing. Are they just rolling their R’s? Again, I cannot take this book seriously no matter how hard SJM tries to force tone. At multiple points, Feyre thinks about how her “bowels/insides turn watery.” Did she shit herself? Does she have spontaneous diarrhea? Weird wording, Maas. Bad choice.
The Characters
Feyre is so damn boring. She likes to paint, she can’t read, she cares about her shitty neglectful family, she hunts, and that’s it. Her impartial, monotoned, unbiased narration makes her boring and personality-less. I already talked about how underutilized her painting trait is— so let’s talk about how her boring narration ruins her arc and the arcs of others. Since her word is law, her actions and desires do not match with what we see. Her family treat her like shit. This is an objective fact as we do not see anything that contradicts this perception of hers. When she told Nesta to not marry that Thomas dude because he’s abusive, I was confused as to why she would care. Nesta is a massive prick. It is heavily implied that if it wasn’t for the promise she made to her mother, Feyre would’ve fled a long time ago. When SJM backtracks on this and decides to make Nesta more dynamic, it feels out of nowhere and unearned.
In the beginning, Nesta is an asshole— but later on, she states that she was jealous of Feyre for helping the family in a way she couldn’t. This doesn’t make sense because— if she was jealous and wanted to help the family— why didn’t she do anything to help? Why is Feyre doing literally everything? She wouldn’t even chop wood. So her actions do not match her words, but Feyre decides that she wrongly looked down on her sisters and thinks more highly of Nesta even though their relationship is strained. This sucks. If Feyre was more unreliable and biased, her realizing that Nesta isn’t as shallow as she seems would’ve hit so much harder! Show Nesta actually doing stuff for the family that Feyre looks down upon. Feyre’s the hunter. She believes she is putting her life at more risk to help them unlike her sisters. Elaine tends to a vegetable garden and patches up their clothing. Feyre looks down on this because she’s out here hunting and doing heavy manual labor. This “woman’s work” is weak. Nesta is in control of the family’s finances since their dad is too distant to do it anymore. Nesta— being the hard-ass she is— rips into Feyre for wasting their money of frivolous things like paint. This annoys Feyre and so she thinks very little of her. It’s not until much later does she realize that she was too hard on Nesta and Elaine. When they’re back together and thriving, she apologies to them. I can’t see Nesta apologizing back but I can see Elaine accepting it. Have all three sisters be at odds with each other and have Feyre be very biased against them. This may make the reader dislike her at first— but after an arc of her mellowing out, the reader would understand her.
Even if this was written in third person, I feel like SJM would still have Feyre’s family treat her like garbage just so she can write that Cinderella moment— where our protag is swept away from a bad situation by a handsome rich man because she’s such a good, kind, and precious soul. Feyre tells her shitty sister not to marry a dude because she’s a good person. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t track with what we were told. Feyre is good. Always.
Okay so the romance. I will say this— there was an attempt. Fourth Wing used horniness in place of connection. Powerless used banter in place of growth. ACOTAR— the og of all this crap— at least tries to give us romance. It’s still bad— just not as bad as the copycats’. It’s bad because our characters are as boring as blocks of wood. I don’t care for Tamlin at all. He’s so boring. Whenever he’s on the page, he doesn’t showcase much personality other than “warrior man who is super strong.” I did like how awkward he was toward Feyre in the beginning, but that goes away after we time jump a couple of days and months. Oh and of course there was the sexual assault scene. It didn’t add anything. Should’ve been cut.
We spend so much time witnessing Feyre walk around and be blabbed at by other characters. She hangs out with Lucien more than Tamlin. Sometimes Tam would pop up and Feyre would gawk at him all admiringly— after she randomly got over her fairy hatred. At one point, Tam offered to teach her how to read/write and she rejects him. It would’ve been good if she came back around after getting to know him more and took him up on his offer. That would’ve been such a great bonding moment for both of them and a huge show of trust on Feyre’s part— but no. Instead, Tamlin takes her words list and turns them into dirty poetry. If this was in a scene where he was teaching her how to read and she realizes that the poetry she’s reading is filthy, it could’ve been funny. But that’s not what happened. There’s one scene I liked. It was when they were sitting down and chatting about their family troubles and the pressure they’re both under. For the first time in about 200 pages, we had a moment where they found that they had something in common. Other than their family troubles and their mutual lust for each other, what else do they have in common? Fuck if I know. Boring boring. Plus I fucking hate that she’s 19. He’s like hunderds of years old. Just make her 25-30. There’s no reason for her to be so damn young.
Lucien is fine. He’s Tam’s wingman and has a tragic backstory like the majority of them. I like how he fucks with Feyre a bit in the earlier scenes. I found them amusing, but that’s about it. He’s nothing special. I don’t care about Alis and I dislike Amarantha. Amarantha is your archetypal mustache-twirling villain. I don’t need all my villains to be multilayered, but I want them to be interesting which Amarantha is not. She shows up and then dies. I don’t give a shit about her backstory because it was lazily dumped on us. If the author doesn’t give a shit, why should I?
Now there’s Edgy Shadow Boy. I hate him. He’s edgy bad boy #50,698. I can’t stand this archetype. It’s overdone, it’s boring, and it’s infuriating. I know this sack of shit is end game and that irks me to no end. This dude sucks! He twisted Feyre’s broken arm. He drugged her and assaulted her over and over. He forced a kiss on her. I don’t buy the whole “he was acting to secretly take down Amarantha” crap because he twisted Feyre’s broken arm! Amarantha wasn’t there when that happened so why did he do that? Why didn’t he just tell Feyre at that moment what he was up to? Plus his plan is so stupid. He’s violating Feyre to piss off Tamlin so that he kills Amarantha. First, Tam would’ve done that without the humiliation of the girl he likes. Second, that doesn’t excuse twisting her arm, you dumbfuck. Why did you do that? I despise how we waste an entire book building up Feyre x Tamlin. Obviously, SJM didn’t plan out anything in this series. If you somehow don’t know, Tamlin is going to character assassinated and Rhysand’s horrific actions are going to be justified with “he was abused by Amarantha! He didn’t have a choice.” All of my fucking hate.
The Worldbuilding
The Fairy World doesn’t feel lived in or fully realized at all. I don’t have much to say because it’s so damn boring. I will complain about the Naga though because they shouldn’t be here. Naga are East/South East Asian creatures. It makes no sense for these guys to be in a story that is full of Celtic creatures. I don’t understand why she put them in when she most likely had to look up mythical monsters to put into the book. She has a Púca, which is a Celtic being. She made up the Attor, the Bogge, and the Suriel, so why did she use Naga? It’s off and broke the immersion for me.
I don’t like that SJM took a real holiday and bastardized it into some weird orgy shit. She’s creative enough to make her own creatures, but I guess holidays were too much. Don’t do this please. It’s offensive to take another culture’s holidays/ rituals/ myths/ language and make a mockery of them. If you’re not a part of the culture and you’re not going to honor them properly, make up your own shit. It’s so easy to avoid this mess.
Okay so the mating bond crap. Hate. It’s a gross, dehumanizing, fetishistic, and lazy trope that should stay where it was born— in werewolf erotica. It’s a cheap way to force characters together. With it, the author can avoid justifying why a couple should be together and get straight into the fucking. Within the context of ACOTAR, it’s deeply troubling. Tamlin talks about how his mother was stuck with his abusive father because of the mating bond shit. That’s awful. What if your mate is someone you hate? The mating bond is not love so it’s possible. Just awful. I hate it. This is another reason why I avoided this series for so long.
The fairies don’t call each other “men” and “women.” Instead they use “male” and “female.” I despise this for similar reasons as the mate crap— It’s dehumanizing. I know the fairies are not human, but they’re not animal enough to be reduced down to “males” and “females.” It doesn’t matter how many times they growl at each other— they’re still just people. Speaking of, the High Fae are so lame. Some of the lesser fairies are pretty neat. We get descriptions of fairies with bark skin and whatnot, but all of the important fairies are the High Fae who are just people. She doesn’t use fairy lore to its fullest extent which is extremely lame. I’m not an expert in fairy lore, but the stuff I do know is neat. Fairies are cool! They’re very versatile and various— ripe for storytelling— but she chose to make them boring. She removed all of their weaknesses like iron and their inability to lie. Lame 0/10.
Look— I get why people like this. It’s a soap opera in book form. I know as the series goes on it becomes more ridiculous, convoluted, and dramatic. Everyone has their trash, but this is not mine. I hated this. It’s boring, the writing is bad, the characters suck, the worldbuilding is uninspired, and the plot is poorly thought out.
Now, I will be reading ACOMAF— just to stave off the inevitable rebuttal of “it gets better in the second book.” I highly doubt that since I despise SJM’s writing, worldbuilding, and charactes— but I guess we’ll see…
