Book Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses #1

Genres: Young Adult/New Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Publication Date: May 5, 2015

Rating: ★★★★

Links: Goodreads | B&N | TBD | Amazon

 

Yes, that’s right. I started this series. After hearing about it for so long, I finally picked it up. In fact, I finished this book a few weeks ago now and I’ve been the hardest time trying to express my thoughts about it, so I’m going to go for a more untraditional format for this review.

 

Things I Liked

➳ The world-building – Sarah J. Maas is an amazing world-builder. I could practically see the mortal village where Feyre grew up and smell the flowers of the Spring Court.

➳ The magic – I thought the magic system in ACOTAR was really interesting. My only complaint about it is that I feel there’s a lot that wasn’t explained but I’m looking forward to learning more about it in the next book.

➳ Most of the characters – The characters in this novel were very interesting and well-developed. Tamlin really grew on me although I know he’s going to mess things up haha.

➳ The way the plot ties together – About two-thirds of the way through the story, the Faes’ history is explained and everything clicks. I love when an author drops subtle hints throughout the novel and then everything ties together and that’s exactly what happened in ACOTAR.

 

Things I Disliked

➳ The pacing – The beginning of this novel was honestly really slow. It wasn’t so slow that I considered DNFing it, but it was slow enough that I wasn’t picking it up every chance I got. It took until I hit about the two-thirds mark for things to pick up and then I was really eager to see what happened.

➳ Feyre – I’ve mentioned a few times how I hate female characters who try so hard to be tough and independent that they just act cold-hearted and Feyre is one of them. I understand that she’s been through a lot, but after a while her attitude just got irritating. There’s a fine line between tough and rude and I think she crossed it a lot. So overall, I sympathize with her and I definitely don’t hate her, but she’s not one of my favorite MCs as of right now.

➳ It could be a bit repetitive at times – There were certain phrases that I felt like I read a thousand times. Everyone always “growled” and Feyre was always smelled the “metallic scent of magic.” This isn’t a major criticism, it just got a little annoying after a while.

 

Overall, I feel that the positives outweighed the negatives. This wasn’t my favorite book ever, but I really enjoyed it. I always hear that the second and third books are much better so I’m looking forward to continuing on with this series.

 

Have you read this series? What did you think of it? If not, are you planning to?