Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - A Court of Thorns and Roses (Parts 1 & 2) [Dramatized Adaptation]

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A Court of Thorns and Roses (Parts 1 & 2) [Dramatized Adaptation], by Sarah J. Maas

19 reviews

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

The main character is impossibly bland and frustrating. She is put through countless toxic or downright abusive situations. Both potential love interests are toxic and abusive. Her family is neglectful and abusive. This classifies, at best, as a dark romance. If you are already unimpressed by the offerings of that genre you will not have a good time reading this. The first sixty percent of the book is boring and toxic. After that it is no longer as boring but triple toxic.
The audiobook narrator does good with the material she is given but this is definitely not a tale for me. People say the next book is better and this is the worst book in the series but I am not giving this author a second chance.

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math5475's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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siravalondulac's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

weird but eh

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csmall73's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Initially the story kind of meandered through events that don’t seem to have much value to a storyline. Everything does tie in an intricate plot that even extends past its own series. As things develop it becomes quite chaotic and confusing but it is good. You get sucked into the story and into feyre. You must know what happens next even though it breaks her and it breaks you.

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soph22's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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saramk25's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

First book in a long time that I finished within 24 hours.

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carlyoc's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A slow and not-that-steamy start to a series I have heard so much about. After abandoning it 100 pages in a few years ago, I decided to give it a second chance. This time I was less distracted by the writing quality and better able to come to care for the characters. I ended up quite enjoying it but I think it could have been half as long.
I was also very frustrated at the main character for not solving a riddle that would have cut out the whole final conflict of the book. For plot reasons, I knew she wouldn't get it until the last second, but the answer seemed so obvious to me.
I'm looking forward to continuing the series, especially to learning more about Rhysand, high lord of the night court. He did unforgivable things, and yet being one of those good bad guys who sometimes does the right thing has me intrigued and mad at myself for it.
I like the twist this story put on the tale of Beauty and the Beast, and I wonder if the rest of the series will bring in fairytale elements as well.

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hattiexmae's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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midnacine's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Update: Six Months Later
I really hated this series, and after a friend spoiled the ending of House of Sky and Breath for me, I've decided I'm never picking up another SJM book ever again. I'm dropping my rating to 2 stars because in retrospect I just don't like any of these books lmao, thanks for coming to my TED talk

Okay... so I loved this book, but I have a lot of feelings. I usually write reviews on my phone but I had to come onto my laptop to type this one. That says a lot for me, because I'm lazy and pulling out my laptop is a hassle. Just a fair warning, my emotions WILL lead to cussing.

Just as a spoiler-free tidbit before I continue: great book, highly recommend if you're into high fantasy and heartbreaking romance.

I'd like to preface this saying I had the endgame couple spoiled for me long before I even bought this book, so if you haven't seen the fanart like I have, please do NOT continue reading this. Knowing is what made it difficult to read.

Spoiler

All in all, I really enjoyed this! I mean, clearly, because you see the ~~five star~~ rating. I love how the reader is introduced to this series with a twist on a classic fairytale. I think I remember my friend telling me it was a Beauty and the Beast reimagining years ago when she first recommended it, but I definitely didn't realize it until like halfway through lol. The characterization and the world building is so beautifully done. I feel connected to Feyre and the Spring Court fae, my heart aches for Tamlin, and Lucien is my precious snarky boy. Now, when it comes to Rhysand........... Rhysand is where the majority of my issues lie. Again, I know he ends up becoming the love interest for Feyre over Tamlin. What I can't figure out is WHY.

I published several of my Kindle notes on Goodreads, and if I were able to post them here, you'd notice the majority of them are from the last quarter of the book. When Rhysand first appeared at the Great Rite, I was like "oh okay cool this is gonna be like a ASITE/Plated Prisoner thing where everyone's terrified of him because he can kill people but he's actually a really wholesome guy who just doesn't wanna see people get hurt". And then we find out he's the one who sent the disembodied head to be displayed on Tamlin's fountain AS A JOKE and my brain turned into that clip of Tyra Banks saying "We were rooting for you! We were ALL rooting for you!"

Rhysand DRUGGED Feyre and forced her to give him lap dances in front of Tamlin nearly every night for three months. THREE MONTHS. Oh but he healed her arm and used his magic tattoo to help her win the second task because she can't read. Like big fuckin deal. He laughed at her pain, literally marked her as his property, and purposefully dressed her up in skimpy clothing she felt embarrassed in because he wanted to make Tamlin angry. Way to just objectify this woman and use her as a tool to hurt the guy she actually loves.

And then this mans has the AUDACITY to excuse his behavior and justify it by saying that he didn't want history to remember him as someone who stood in the background and did nothing, that you wanted to be written down as someone who fought against Amarantha "at the end". But bitch where were you BEFORE all of that??? Acting as her damn lackey and having sex with her. And worse of all - Feyre actually starts feeling for him! You're just gonna let three months of abuse slide under the table because "he feels as though no one should die alone just like I do!"

I just know this is gonna turn into a Severus Snape thing where the whole audience is expected to forgive this asshole for treating Feyre like garbage because he's dark, mysterious, and did a couple not-shitty things. Tbh most of the reason I wanna continue the series is because I wanna know what happens to Tamlin and I've heard Cassian is way better than Rhysand.

Okay I'm done ranting for now, if I have anything more to add I'll edit this some other time when it's not 2 AM and I'm being fueled by rage.

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crybabybea's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A Court of Thorns and Roses is a new adult retelling of the story of The Beauty and the Beast, following main character Feyre (the beauty) as she overcomes her long-held hatred for faerie kind after she is captured by a High Lord, Tamlin (the beast). The overarching theme of A Court of Thorns and Roses, in true Disney princess fashion, is the power of love to overcome hatred and prejudice.

As a fairy tale retelling, I think it does a great job, although more analytical readers will read the retelling aspect as cringey and nonsensical. Indeed, the novel does progress slowly and the main character (and thus, the reader) is left in the dark for the majority of the story, waiting until the last hundred or so pages to bring everything together in a whirlwind of information and puzzle pieces clicking into place. It’s arguable amongst readers whether the big reveal actually pays off, or if it makes everything worse. For me, the cringey parts of the book are part of the fun and play very well into the old-school fairy tale aspect of the story. Yes, the idea of the curse is incredibly Disney villain-esque, and anyone who has any inkling of the book’s central theme will solve Amarantha’s riddle in a matter of pages, but the story itself is still enjoyable and everything comes together quite nicely.

The book follows Feyre, a human girl who lives in poverty with her family, after her father risked his merchant fortune and lost it, resulting in creditors taking everything they own and leaving them to starve. Feyre has become the family caretaker, and learned to hunt at a young age to keep her family alive. Feyre, the youngest, has to care for her family that does little to nothing to help her. Her father, overcome with shame and reminiscing about the past, has become all but useless to the family, never bothering to do anything to bring his family out of poverty. Her elder sisters are equally useless; Nesta full of hatred, in denial about the reality of her living situation, and Elain helplessly following in Nesta’s shadow. In the world of Prythian, border walls separate faerie lands from the lowly human territories. We aren’t given too much backstory about the history of Prythian, but the general idea is that the faeries brutally enslaved humans for centuries, until a war broke out and a treaty was forged between faerie and human, giving humans limited territory and forbidding the faeries from enslaving them again. This complicated history being passed down for generations has resulted in a collective hatred between humans and faeries, something that Feyre herself suffers from.

Feyre’s hatred (in my opinion, it was more like ignorance since Feyre had to drop out of school and become a breadwinner for her family at the tender age of eight, but I digress) for faerie-kind is the driving point of the plot. One day, when hunting and stalking a starving doe, Feyre comes across a terrifyingly large black wolf. Feyre kills and skins the wolf, partly because of survival but also partly because she has a sinking feeling that the wolf is faerie-kind and her hatred drives her to kill it. The murder of the fae wolf doesn’t come without a price — the next night, after peddling the wolf’s skin for some gold, her front door is broken in by a fae wolf demanding an eye for an eye, or a life for a life, per the rules of the treaty.

Here’s where I think the biggest issue with the story comes into play. Feyre, who killed a beloved fae soldier in an act of pure hatred, is brought to a larger-than-life mansion to serve her “punishment”. She is given every luxury she could possibly be afforded; servants who wait on her hand-and-foot, luxurious clothes and buffets of delicious food, and even the freedom to go anywhere in the faerie lands she pleases, should she dare to trek through the dangers herself. She is never really kept prisoner, never experiences cruelty or unfairness. It makes absolutely no sense in the context of what we know thus far, and makes Feyre look like a terrible person. She kills someone who was like a brother to the fae that take her prisoner, and although they all show resentment and disdain for her presence, she is met with luxury care and treatment, but continues to be insolent and rude to the people that spared her life when they could have gutted her in front of her family and left her to the flies. It makes sense once you’ve read the entire book, and understand the context, but on the surface, Feyre looks to be an absolutely ridiculous character who does nothing but complain and make terrible decisions. Once we understand everything though,

Spoiler

it’s obvious that Feyre is pretty much manipulated into every choice she makes. For example, when Lucien is telling her about the Suriel, he tells her that it’s dangerous while also slyly telling her the proper way to capture one. Even when it comes to falling in love with Tamlin, she has little to no choice but to fall for him, which is exactly according to his plan. I believe his feelings for her are real, but that doesn’t change the fact that Feyre’s love was manipulated due to Amarantha’s curse. One could even argue that her killing of Andras wasn’t entirely her choice to begin with, once we learn that Tamlin sent him out for the explicit purpose of being murdered.

Despite everything, I still like Feyre as a character. I think her downfalls are due to the confusing premise of the plot. I understand her character at its core; deeply traumatized and forced to grow up at a very young age, with the weight of the world on her shoulders (whether that world is the tiny home of her and her family, or the actual literal world of Prythian). Feyre had her life turned upside down after her father lost their fortune, and the only thing that kept her going was a promise made to her neglectful mother. Once she gets swept away to the Spring Court, her entire purpose and reason for living is knocked out from under her, and she’s grappling with the idea of not being needed anymore. Thinking about Feyre as a complex character, it’s easy to say that she doesn’t actually miss her family - she misses having a purpose and a reason to exist, and without it, she is spiraling and scrambling to find a foothold in her new life. It makes sense that she’s crying for her family that treated her like garbage; they were all she had, and she had never known true love to begin with. Yes, the decisions she makes can be frustrating and confusing, but I largely blame that on the way the author has set up the “big reveal”, which makes everything look confusing before we know the whole story. I enjoyed that Feyre’s true feelings slipped out beyond her hard and unfeeling exterior. Although I found myself annoyed at her constantly calling herself a stupid, insignificant human, it does make Feyre a well-rounded character and gives the reader a glimpse into how she operates and what drives her decision-making. I think overall, Feyre doesn’t get nearly enough empathy, and I found myself rooting for her despite rolling my eyes at times. Another issue I have with the book is its misogynistic themes and ideas. While the theme of love and sacrifice is endearing, it’s incredibly sad to see a great character like Feyre fall victim to overdone tropes so common in the romance genre, but I'll touch on that a bit more later.

The reveal itself is a bit cheesy, but it falls in like with the theme of The Beauty and the Beast, so I’ll forgive it. The last hundred pages of the book are action-packed and exciting, and actually had me disappointed every time I had to stop reading. Feyre's full character and motivations are fully realized by the end of the book, and her decisions and motivations make so much more sense. It's heartbreaking to see Feyre come to the realization that

Spoiler

the love that saved her will also be her end.

I’m happy that I stuck through the dragging lull in the middle of the book, and through the cringey romance scenes. For me, the last hundred pages were worth the eye-rolling and confusion, and gave me hope for the rest of the series. It seems to me that Sarah J. Maas is great at articulating emotion and the human spirit, but has trouble with other fantasy elements like world-building and immersion.

As for the other characters, I do not like Tamlin as a love interest. I like the bit of his story that we are told, but he has a lot of hot-and-cold, push-and-pull behavior, and doesn’t quite know how to approach Feyre. He has the potential to show great motivations and morality, but unfortunately falls victim to the same misogynistic tropes that Feyre does. Because of how he is written, it takes a lot of reaching and connecting seemingly unrelated dots to find some sort of redeemable quality in Tamlin. I wanted to like him, but I shouldn't have to fill in the blanks because of poor writing on the author's behalf. I think of this quote:

“Because your human joy fascinates me—the way you experience things, in your life span, so wildly and deeply and all at once, is … entrancing. I’m drawn to it, even when I know I shouldn’t be, even when I try not to be.”

Spoiler

Tamlin clearly has his own internal struggle regarding the curse and his relationship with Feyre, and I think he holds some guilt for bringing her into this whirlwind of danger and death. We get to see glimpses of it, of the immense burden placed on his shoulders both by the title of High Lord, and the curse. I refuse to believe that Tamlin doesn’t feel like he manipulated Feyre into this situation, and I think it’s the reason why he sent Feyre back home near the final act.

His complexity, though, often gets written off as him being dark and mysterious, and we never get much information about him. It seems Sarah J. Maas would rather see a potentially interesting character become nothing more than a bodice-ripping, alpha male stereotype. We do learn about

Spoiler

his father’s cruelty and enslavement of humans, which is partly used to explain why he showed mercy to Feyre instead of killing her,

but he spends most of the book closed off and not sharing much with Feyre (or the reader). I understand why Tamlin keeps things to himself -- it's even written into the plotline itself -- but the dark and brooding love interest is just not a trope I personally enjoy, and I felt his character was ruined because of it. Tamlin is often shown as overprotective and half-feral, and these moments were uncomfortable for me. He is always growling, stalking, and his claws are always poking out (as a symbol of his struggle to contain his anger, which is scary). Because of this, I found the romantic moments between Tamlin and Feyre to be a bit cringey and even off-putting at times. I felt they really had no chemistry as a couple and their relationship felt like a situationship more than an actual love. Especially because I understood Feyre’s character so deeply, I was a bit uncomfortable with her relationship with Tamlin who took on a “protector” role (but didn’t really do that great of a job at protecting her). The final straw for me was

Spoiler

their first “sexual” encounter - when Tamlin corners her while drugged and manic on lust magic from the Calanmai ceremony, and bites and licks her neck despite her telling him no and pushing him away.

It made me extremely uncomfortable and any interaction between them after just didn’t sit well with me. After that, the precedent is set that every sexual encounter between Feyre and Tamlin is feral and violent, which I’m sure is fun for some people to read, but left me wanting more connection and passion and less potentially harmful stereotypes.

To be frank, both love interests in this book were terrible and made me extremely uncomfortable. I know Rhysand is a fan-favorite character, but he was just as bad as Tamlin — just a bit more charismatic where Tamlin was broody and mysterious. I can’t forget the part of the book where Rhysand

Spoiler

dresses Feyre in a slip that barely covers her body (even Lucien admits that he saw more of Feyre than he would have liked), and paints her all over so he can tell where she has been touched. He essentially drugs her by telling her to drink the wine, and she blacks out. Her only information of the night before come from the smudges on the body paint, and the relay of events from people like Lucien or Rhysand himself. This is written off as something that is both done to protect Feyre (gross) and a tool to make Tamlin angry enough to want to kill Amarantha (grosser). He even admits, at one point, that he would have loved to essentially rape Feyre while she was drugged, but didn’t because he needed to use Tamlin's fury in his favor (disgusting). It becomes like a coping mechanism to Feyre, allowing her to black out for a big chunk of her time Under the Mountain, and Rhysand is able to protect her from suspicion and from being taken advantage of by other faeries. This whole situation would have been just fine if Rhysand had given Feyre any warning instead of sending his servants to ship her off in the middle of the night.

At that point in the book, the reader has no inclination of Rhysand’s motivations, and the entire thing just feels icky. With Feyre being constantly in between two male love interests, sometimes it feels like she is an object or a territory to be fought over. It’s also worth mentioning that in pretty much every instance, although Feyre is strong and does a lot on her own, she is always “saved” by either Tamlin or Rhysand. I understand that a lot of readers are into this type of alpha male, strong but submissive damsel storytelling, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I love Feyre as a character for her vulnerability and perserverence, but I wouldn’t agree with others who call her a feminist icon or a badass, simply because the author relied on the problematic love interests a bit too much. It’s made worse by the fact that the “male” (as SJM constantly refers to them as) dominance is simply biological, it can’t be unlearned and it shouldn’t be challenged, which is a common excuse amongst misogynists and abusers in the real world.

I don’t have much to say about Amarantha. She’s a compelling enough villain, her motivations are a little bit flimsy but I guess revenge and rejection are tales as old as time. If the author was aiming for a fairy tale vision, Amarantha is a perfect example of a villain, and her

Spoiler

defeat was satisfying.

As a fantasy novel, A Court of Thorns and Roses leaves a lot to be desired. The premise is cool, if you can stomach the “love will save the world” theme. The world seems interesting enough, and shows promise. The problem is that the world-building is terribly lackluster, and the author uses a lot of “tell vs. show” technique to get points across. We know a little bit of the history of Prythian, but everything we learn is thrown at us through info-dumpy dialogue where a character vomits up a Sparknotes version of 300+ years of history to catch Feyre (and the reader) up on what’s going on. Character motivations are pretty much never left up to the imagination or critical analysis of the reader, and the “tell vs. show” pattern shows up here, too. This is typical for novels aimed at a young adult audience, but it would have been nice to see the boundaries pushed just a bit more in a new adult fantasy. Although there is a bit of foreshadowing sprinkled here and there, most things are not revealed or learned slowly; we learn everything all at once and then have to scramble to catch up to where we’re meant to be. The magic system is also pretty confusing, although we are told that each High Lord has different powers, it’s unclear what regular faeries can do, and what purpose the different Courts play. From what I can tell, High Lords are capable of pretty much anything and there are hardly any natural limits to their power. To Feyre’s convenience,

Spoiler

the High Lords have the ability to combine tiny remnants of their collective power to revive a dead mortal and turn them into a member of the immortal High Fae, because why not? We got no inclination that this was even a possibility, so it was a flimsy deus ex machina thrown in to continue the series.

I would love to learn more about how the world of Prythian works, and to get a more immersive experience from the book. I also would have loved to see more fae creatures; the faeries tend to be all relatively the same, and the only ones that are different are the dangerous or “scary” ones. Because of these issues, I struggle to call A Court of Thorns and Roses a true fantasy novel, instead it reads more like a paranormal romances with fantasy elements thrown in for plot purposes. Maybe this is due to the author wanting a more "fairy tale" experience rather than fantasy, but it left a lot to be desired.

Overall, if you enjoy romance with a bit of a paranormal or fantastical touch, this is a fun read to pass the time. It does its job as a retelling of the classic story of The Beauty and the Beast, which makes it accessible to those new to fantasy or uninterested in high fantasy lore. For fantasy lovers, you’re likely to leave the book feeling a bit disappointed and wishing for more from what could have been a great magical adventure. Despite questionable character motivations and misogynistic romance tropes, this read was enjoyable enough. The only reasons I could rate this book with three stars were that I genuinely enjoyed Feyre's character and the plotline was entertaining. This book would have been perfect if the author wrote more compelling male characters and did a better job at world-building instead of focusing on edgy romance and old-school tropes.

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