A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR series)

By Sarah J. Maas

We have been on bookstagram for about 3 months now and if you are an active member of that awesome bookish community you probably have seen myriads of ACOTAR related posts: pictures of the five already written books, a lot of fan art, and even bookmarks, T-shirts and candles with the names of the main characters. There is a huge fan base of Sarah J. Maas’ books, and partly due to the hype and partly due to our own curiosity, we could no longer resist and all four of us, Emmy, Lilly, JJ and Ira, read her ACOTAR book. 

The plot:

The first book in the series tells a story of Feyre, a mortal 18 year old, who is trying really hard to be like Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger game series. She is a tough, skillful huntress, that is fully supporting her useless awful sisters and father. Her family used to be rich but now they are poor and Feyre has to hunt in a forest where horrible creatures live. One night Feyre kills a wolf, who, as it turns out, was not a wolf, but a fae, an immortal powerful being. Now, to pay for his death, she has to go with another mysterious fae and live with him on his fae lands, forever and ever. And that’s where Feyre’s adventures begin.

JJ’s review:

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. 3.5 stars out of 5 for me.

The good:

  • The writing was fluid and pretty;

  • The story was entertaining with an interesting world. The plot appeared to be a weird mix of the Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Hunger Games and heavy metal (in the last part Feyre was pretty much like Leo DiCaprio in the Revenant, with all the torture and struggles he endured to acquire the Oscar);

  • The suriel character was amazing – I loved him/her;

  • The main character was annoying in the beginning, with all her “I ma no go wear zis dress”  but she wasn’t a virgin and even initiated several consensual “afternoon stands” (is there such a thing?) with one random dude, so you go, girl! Do what you like!

Things that could have been improved:

  • The first 2/3 of the book are very slow and tedious;

  • There are so many illogical plot developments, such :

    • for the first 200+ pages Feyre really wanted to go home, then suddenly, due to an event that wasn’t even that significant, imho, she does 180 and now she no longer wants to go home but wants to stay and make sweet love to the main character, who actually later sends her home, but she comes back.

    • The explanation why her sisters were so ungrateful seems ridiculous to me: “I was a biatch to you and spent all your hard earned money on random #$%t because I knew you could get more money by going to a super dark and dangerous place”.

  • I didn’t really see how the characters’ feelings progressed from “I can’t stand you” to “you are awesome and I wanna see you naked”.

Emmy Grant’s two cents (actually, a whole bank):

I have read the entire series published so far, and the summary of it is: money grab. Below is my review of the first books. 

Overall: The first ⅔ were a torture to get through. Plot holes, shallow and boring characters, weird developments, conflict that reads about as natural as Kim Kardashian’s photoshopped Instagram pictures. And then… at about 68%, the book actually becomes interesting. We are introduced to some interesting characters, the plot develops in a way that makes sense, the characters begin to interact and react in believable ways. The switch is abrupt and the sticky-sweet love story quickly turns into some unexpected action and pretty graphic violence. The novel basically goes from “Lovefool” by The Cardigans to “Nightmare” by Avenged Sevenfold in a heartbeat.

The Good (spoilers ahead):

  • As JJ Steam mentioned, consensual sex is a plus. Also, a heroine is not only not virgin, but also enjoys casual sex, as opposed to the usual doe-eyed innocent virgin who invariably falls for a guy who had his dick stuck in half the female population. 

  • The discovery that the main villain is just a sexually frustrated biatch was quite funny. To me.

  • When the action begins, the main heroine gets hurt. As in, believably and as would be expected in the circumstances. Infection and all. This is a refreshing contrast to many books and movies where someone would escape these trials with a little tiny scratch. 

  • The heroine is not miraculously and instantaneously overcoming her shortcomings, such as her illiteracy. Instead, she has to resort to cheating. Plus, her guess of the answer before cheating was totally wrong, which is, once again, a refreshing departure from one lucky chance after another, which often plagues these types of books. 

  • The heroine, a weak fragile ordinary mortal, is not the one to kill the Big Bad. In fact, the Big Bad kills her with ease.

  • The heroine’s emotions of hopelessness, fear and grief during the last 30% of the book are believable and well-written.

  • The graphic violence was quite unsettling, in a good way. There was literally a poor dude who pissed himself in fear of being tortured/killed. 

  • We are introduced to some promising characters, such as Rhysand, who seem to be morally ambivalent.

The Bad:

  • The characters, at least for the first ⅔ of the book, lack nuance. They’re either pure good or pure evil. The character “developments” are forced and are either not developments at all, or happen abruptly and with no explanation. Two prominent examples:

    • The reason our main heroine falls in love with the main male protagonist makes no sense. Initially, she annoyingly misconstrues EVERYTHING he says or does and hates him for it. If the poor guy made an innocuous comment such as “the weather is sunny today” she would surely read that to mean “humans are insignificant and aren’t worth the rays of the sun. Also, you’re illiterate and dumb”. Then, out of the blue, and for no logical reason, she does an abrupt 180 and wants to fuck his brains out. What?!! Ira Tate’s explanation is the only one that makes sense here: she needed a good boning to make her less of a shrew :)

    • The main character’s older sister Nesta: Imma help rescue my sista from dangerous faerie lands where I am almost certain to die. But helping with anything at all when we were actually starving? Nah, ain’t nobody got time for that. 

The wtf-ness of the main protagonist sending the heroine home before she had a chance to break the curse: that decision not only put thousands (millions?) of lives in danger to presumably protect one biatch, it was ineffective in achieving its very goal, since the horny villain intended to slaughter every human in existence, which would include our heroine, and the only fighting chance the protagonist and the rest of ‘em had was by breaking the curse, which could be only done by the heroine.

Review by Lily Wolf 

ACOTAR 1

Beauty and the Beast meets Terminator. Feyre is far from a damsel in distress, she’s an absolute badass that makes her own way and fights to her hottie. The book starts to drag on a bit about half way through but then redeems itself with a mindblowing finale of action. Would recommend! 4.16/5 

ACOTAR 2

I absolutely loved Rhys and Feyre! I cannot get enough of them. Their relationship kept me on my toes for the entire 700 pages! The only criticism: super unrealist sex sequences. We know what this genre is about but sex 12 hours straight without breaks? Come on. I got a UTI just by reading that chapter lol 4.75/5 

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