Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

51 reviews

mandersdraws's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

I guess I don’t hate it, but I really do not like it.

I’m currently reading the next book in the series, and the further I get, the more I think this book is only here to serve as a prequel. I don’t feel like it stands very well on its own merits, and as it is, I’m wondering if it was all set up just for the sequel to tear down.

Now. The main thread of this book, and one of the most frustrating things about it, is how the main character Feyre is kept incredibly uninformed about the world, its magic, and the people around her.

For most of the novel the characters have reasons or excuses for never telling her important details. But in my opinion, there are plenty of situations in the book where they definitely could have told her more. They could have answered many more of her questions. They could have explained why something was dangerous. Especially when it becomes clear that this girl will not follow a rule or a warning without being given any reasoning behind it. Characters then often blame Feyre for being uninformed about magic or faerie society, which I find to be…well,  unfair and kinda slimy. Especially when sex gets involved.

It also means that some of the rules of the magic in the world are just murky and unclear and appear to be inconsistent. The narration is in 1st person so (with maybe a few exceptions) we only know what Feyre knows.

And on the topic of world building, I had a little trouble staying invested when it came to the main villain of this book. They felt a little stereotypical to me in the way they are described. Additionally one of the great challenges they present, that ends up being the climax of the book, just felt a little silly.

I mean you’re telling me that this incredibly jaded war lord, for her incredibly high stakes challenge, is going to present a riddle about…love? Besides which, I’ve seen that the riddle is pretty obvious to many readers (I solved it immediately lol I mean come on). I guess we can assume Amarantha doesn’t think humans to be very smart but to stake her power on that assumption? Even though Feyre was genuinely challenged by it, how would Amarantha know that? I dunno girl. It just seemed a little ridiculous.

I also have some thoughts about how the narration deals with class issues in this book. There seems to be kind of a rigid caste structure in this world that doesn’t really get examined.

The narrative establishes kind of an innate hierarchy of races and sub-races, and then from that point onwards, the narration seems to almost exclusively care about the lives of the “High Fae,” who basically act as the magical world’s rulers and nobility. Lots of other faeries are described but none really appear to have personalities— the servants even being literally invisible for a large portion of the book — and Feyre doesn’t seem to concern herself with them. She also starts to look down upon her fellow humans at one point. But at the end of the day, I guess Feyre wasn’t a poor girl. She was a temporarily embarrassed rich girl. /s

I might be taking this part of the book too seriously, but if you’re one to read your fantasy books through a lens of class consciousness, well. Might not be the one for you.

And the way she gets resurrected at the end? I found myself thinking, not for the first time since starting the book, “that was an option???” I can’t help but feel weird about them resurrecting our white girl romantic lead protagonist and not the literal child that also died at the end. But I guess was kind of necessary to set us up in the next book.

Another point of frustration for me are Feyre’s own feelings about her family. I feel personally like whenever the narrative turns towards her father and sisters that her feelings are inconsistent. And listen. I know feelings don’t have to make sense. But it was a frustrating reading experience, mostly because for the majority of the book, I don’t feel like the narration recognizes the dichotomy in how she feels about them. It just kind of switches back and forth between devotion and resent.

I also feel a little uncomfortable knowing who the fan-favorite love interest ends up being in later books. That character treats the protagonist absolutely horribly in this book, and while there are (again) lots of magical and political reasons for him to treat her that way, if it’s not addressed and reconciled later, I’ll be kind of grumpy about it lol. Of course, this book’s love interest doesn’t treat Feyre great either IMO, and has a fair few red flags himself, but honestly. It’s bad. It’s all bad.

Now here’s what I did like:

I like that Feyre has character growth. It’s subtle and slow, but as a character who hasn’t had the time or privilege for introspection in her adolescent life, I think it makes sense. Feyre is a hunter by trade but the story has her questioning who and what she wants to be. 

I like that the love story has our characters finding common ground. That sounds like a low bar I guess, but the narrative is VERY EXPLICIT that they find each other sexy, so it’s nice that spice isn't all the characters have in common lol. 

When the book bothers to flesh out other characters than our main couple, I do tend to like them. Lucien is very likable, and I even ended up liking Nesta. 

Already I can see the sequel has more characters for us to get to know, and I hope for more development for them and for Feyre. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Excrement, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Abandonment

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual violence, and War

-Is drinking “faerie wine” alcohol use or drug use? It blurs the line. -Fantasy racism is a big topic in this book. -Additionally while it’s never addressed directly, I think this book is kind of heavy on rape culture.

Our main character Feyre is blamed for the male love interest being out of control around her, sexually (Magic was involved in the scenario, but she was not informed about the effects). Additionally towards the end of the novel, she is made to perform sexual dances while under the influence. Generally the narrative has a habit of not informing the Feyre of anything, and then blaming her for making uninformed decisions.

maddybick's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

2.5

Difficult book to read because of the writing style. Interesting plot but pretty predictable. Finished it because I was curious to see what happened plot wise and because the books in this series have really great reviews, but wasn’t really that sold on it. Feyre didn’t read as a strong female lead, and the writing from her point of view was often difficult to follow. Lucien was the only lovable character for me. Probably wouldn’t read again but would watch a movie rendition of it 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse

splitdice's review against another edition

adventurous 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

2.0

honestly I would've given this a 3 star had the third act not been so bad. I liked everyone else except feyre (who is NOT a strong fmc... I don't know where people get that notion). honestly if nesta would have been the main character this would bring it up a star for me. otherwise, the third act really made this book worse for me. I felt like SJMs writing got significantly worse and repetitive and everything was easily predictable. what really sealed the deal for me was how romanticized feyre's suffering was. honestly I had to put the book down sometimes. I read a lot of dark stuff so I don't think it was the content but rather the portrayal and romantization of the abuse feyre suffered.

kind of spoiler for the future of the series:

what i especially dont like is that the majority of the abuse comes from rhysand, feyres actual endgame love interest. and it gets kind of excused bc he was amaranthas sex slave but i feel like what he did was still so unnecessary? i haven't read ACOMAF yet but i feel like there has to be some really bad character assassination on tamlins part to make rhysand look a lot better because what he did in this book is NOT GOOD

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Emotional abuse

plethora's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense 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? No

2.0

Is all of media conspiring to groom its young femme readers?

Yet another teen girl manipulated into a romantic relationship with an immortal 500 year old man.

. Ick. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Kidnapping, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

corallydeer's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I got physically mad by the time I finished reading this book. The amount of emotional whiplash it gave me by the end was enough to make me vibrate, have a racing heart, and feel like I wanted to chuck the book against the wall. The first two-thirds of the book was spent being fairly bored with the book and even struggling to get through it a bit (even though I'd been warned all over the internet that it could be a bit of a slog), but by the last 200 pages or so I was hooked and on the edge of my seat. 

Feyre's stubbornness and inability to make decisions that seemed to make rational sense,

along with the hot and cold start to her and Tamlin's relationship

, was mildly offputting and prevented me from getting into any kind of consistent flow. It lulled me into a sense of boredom that got 180'd into edge-of-my-seat reading within just a few chapters that didn't release me until I finished the book.

I loved Amarantha as a villain; I thought everything about her was incredibly well done, from the way she acted to her visual description perfectly showing her as a cold and cruel beauty who loved torture

.

I also loved Rhysand as a character (despite everything he did to Feyre in this book) and can't wait to read more about him

. I guess I'm gonna have to go and get the second book asap, dang.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Drug abuse, Sexual content, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death and Vomit

Death

(Feyre's mother died when she was young, death and killing of various fae in varying levels of detail)

| Gore

(Feyre has nightmares of killing Andras in human form and skinning him, summer fae gets his wings cut off with details about his condition, decapitated fae head staked on a fountain, detailed killing of Amarantha)

| Murder

(a number of fae and some humans are murdered at the whim of Amarantha, Feyre murders Andras and is later forced to murder innocent fae outright with lots of internal dialogue)

| Violence

(bouts of violence throughout the book related to survival and/or defense until the last third of the book where there is considerably more and graphic violence)

| Alcohol, Drug Abuse, & Sexual Harassment

(Feyre gets drugged with fae wine every day for a few months by Rhysand and forced in her delirium to do sexual dances)

| Injury/Injury Detail

(injuries related to fantasy violence and murder)

| Sexual Content

(a handful of instances that are usually no more than a page and mostly "fade to black" style with the focus on foreplay)

| Animal Death

(Feyre hunts to survive which is referenced in a few spots throughout the book)

| Vomit

(a few depictions of vomiting, typically in reaction to murder/death)

littletiramisu's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and War

tabea1409's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

ninipu's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

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

2.5

A lot of inconsistencies.
For example: Tam calls Feyre „You“, she things he can‘t remember her  name. A few sentence after he calls her Feyre, she don’t comment on it. A few sentence after he calls her Feyre again, and now she comments on ist that he know her name…. Yes, Girl, he die that a Minute ago also.
That small, bit wh hen there is stuff like this again and again it become really annoying.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Blood, Grief, Gaslighting, and War

Minor: Ableism, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, Medical content, Death of parent, and Alcohol

nikkic66's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death

furreverreading's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

The first half of the book was a bit slow for me, but the second half picked up, and I enjoyed the ending. Some characters I have mixed feelings about, so it will be interesting to see how they develop in the next books, to see which way my feelings solidify. 
SJM writing was overall decent. I did get a little annoyed with the ways she tended to describe Feyres feelings or reactions to things. Such as “my bowels turned watery” and various forms of that. But it can be overlooked 🤷🏻‍♀️ 
Overall, it didn’t live up to the hype that I expected it to, but it wasn’t terrible. It was still a fun read, and I plan to read the next one soon! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Blood, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment