Book Review: A Court of Thorns & Roses by Sarah J. Maas

 

A Court of Thorns & Roses 

    So I read this book when I was freshman in highschool. When I first read this book, I really liked it. However, now I am sophmore in college and now a more experience reader. With that being said, ACOTAR is a fun fairytale retelling and while I do believe this book is infinitely better than Throne of Glass, it still has the classic Sarah J Maas shortcomings. 

    If you haven't heard of Sarah J Maas yet, here's what you need to know. She writes fantasy novels for YA, New Adult, and Adult readers. And her books tend to follow a formula. A while female protagnist with gold-like supernatural powers who has to save the world and falls in love with a brooding, territorial & mascular male. I'm not even joking. This is the basic formula that all of her books follow and while it's not a bad formula, it can get tedious at times because she does recycle so many of the same tropes over and over again. 

    She also favors writing about white/caucasian characters who are also very, very straight. 

    I wanted to say this so that anyone who reads her books has a good idea of what their getting into. Sarah J Maas is a good writer. Her books are fun and easy to read. This book especially has a good plot and some really cool characters but I'm also not going to ignore the problematic part of her writings. 

What I liked:

-The Setting: One thing that Sarah J Maas is expertly good at is world buliding. I really like the world in which ACTOR is set in. I love how all the Faerie courts are divided into seasonal and celestial courts. It's very unique and fun. 

-The Characters: I really like our protagnist, Feyre. She's a pretty decent character and she does have a interesting chracter arch throughout this book. I also really LOVE Lucien. He was by far my favorite character in this entire series. He is so snarky and fun. I love him! I hope to God that Sarah will give him his own book in the future because I will pay for that!!! Rhys is also a fun character. 

-The Plot: The plot of this book is actually pretty good. ACOTAR follows the classic Beauty and the Beast fairytale and I think Sarah did a great job with it. The plot was exciting and action packed and very entertaining. I was never bored while reading this book. 

What I disliked:

-The Info Dumping: I hate info dumping and boy was there a lot of it in this book. I don't mind if there was a little info dumping spread throughout the book. But there was a whole chapter that dedicated to info dumping. Sarah J Maas is a great at creating fantasy worlds, don't get me wrong. However, this is not how you should do world building.

-Lack of Diversity: This is a major problem with Sarah J Maas. But there is literally no direct LGBTQ characters or any characters of color. And if there is, they feel more like background characters or Tokens rather than actual people. 

Overall, I give A Court of Thorns and Roses 3 out of 5 stars. It's a good read but not an amazing if you ask me. If you like fantasy romance books or are a hard-core Sarah J Maas's fan, you'll like this book. But to be honest, I read better books. And while it was a fun and enjoyable read, I wasn't exactly blown out of my seat.