A review by rubybastille
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I just don’t get the appeal of these books yet. Aside from it being a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, which is fine in and of itself, the story cherry-picks from lots of existing books (Hunger Games is an obvious one) and Feyre is actually kind of annoying. Characters repeatedly warn her to not do the thing, she does the thing anyway, and suffers through the consequences until one of those characters (always male) rescues her. She’s portrayed as a tough sexy Cool Girl badass but actually largely lacks agency and/or uses her agency to do stupid stuff that men have to save her from. And speaking of sexy, there are a few scenes where Feyre is put through sexually degrading situations and those always had an undertone of voyeurism that didn’t sit well with me.
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