Feyre's survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price ...
Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre's presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.
Book …
Feyre's survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price ...
Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre's presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.
It was ok and easy to get through, but nothing spectacular. It is, however, necessary to get through, to get to book two.
It’s worth it for the second book, which is a whole lot better!
I have to say. The first time I read this book, I hated it. Human girl kills faerie, then is taken by faerie high lord to become his… honored guest?
Let alone… love interest?! Let alone… being remotely successful among a faster/stronger species?!
I finished it because I hate leaving things unread. But by the end, I kind of got it. It pulled on my teenage romance loving heart strings. I got the second book and boy oh boy was that one WAY better. I read the rest of the series within a week, and I have to say I love the universe Sarah J Maas created.
Yes, it will never be considered ~literature~ like Kafka, but it is such a fun guilty pleasure read.
If you’re thinking “ah! I know this trope and so I know basically what the plot is!” you are probably correct.
But.
Nothing is ever quite that simple. From the particular details of what it takes to make things better, to the absolutely delicious character of the guy you instantly know is bad news, this is superb execution of the genre.
Review of 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I enjoyed this book so much, just tore through it! I read it right on the heels of Throne of Glass and while I enjoyed that book, you can just see how much Maas has improved as a writer. I'd also note that while Throne feels very YA in plot, characterization, tone, etc. Court could easily have been marketed as adult fantasy rather than YA (which is probably why I liked it more).
The plot is an interesting mash-up of the traditional version of Beauty and the Beast and the ballad of Tam Lin: Feyre (= Fair = Beauty, btw, took me a while to pick up on that) is the youngest daughter of a failed merchant, and while hunting to feed her family she kills a giant wolf she knows is one of the Fae. As a result, the high lord Tamlin, in the form of a huge beast, …
I enjoyed this book so much, just tore through it! I read it right on the heels of Throne of Glass and while I enjoyed that book, you can just see how much Maas has improved as a writer. I'd also note that while Throne feels very YA in plot, characterization, tone, etc. Court could easily have been marketed as adult fantasy rather than YA (which is probably why I liked it more).
The plot is an interesting mash-up of the traditional version of Beauty and the Beast and the ballad of Tam Lin: Feyre (= Fair = Beauty, btw, took me a while to pick up on that) is the youngest daughter of a failed merchant, and while hunting to feed her family she kills a giant wolf she knows is one of the Fae. As a result, the high lord Tamlin, in the form of a huge beast, breaks into their home and demands that she come back into Faerie with him. Feyre is suspicious, but after days/weeks of Tamlin being nothing but kind to her she starts to trust and eventually love him. But then the larger plot kicks in and we find out that the Fae are being oppressed by a Hybernian High Queen, who has a special need for Tamlin. Tam sends Feyre home, where she finds herself and comes to terms with her mean older sister before returning to Faerie to save her love. To do this, she has to pass three trials and/or answer a riddle, while acting as a servant in the court in the meantime. After coming close to death, she accepts the help of Rhysand, the queen's (secretly reluctant) bad-boy boy-toy and assistant, and finally beats all three trials and solves the riddle, freeing Tamlin who then goes on to free everyone else from the queen's tyranny. Sadly, none of the trials involves holding onto Tamlin while he changes into his beast form, which was a disappointment as I was waiting for that Chekhov's gun to go off. There's also a strong Howl's Moving Castle influence, in that Feyre has to figure out a mystery contract that the people involved can't tell her about, a contract that turns out to involve Tamlin, who's been casually called stone-hearted, literally having a heart of stone.
Have to talk about Lucien, Tamlin's right-hand man. In any other book I suspect he would have been the love interest, as he's charming and has his own tragic past, but who can over-charm/over-tragic Tamlin? Feyre starts to trust him much earlier than Tamlin and I could read a whole book of the two of them being buds.
And Rhysand. Ah, Rhys. We first meet him as a terrifying threat capable of reading or shredding Feyre's mind; at the court, he's a somewhat ambiguous figure who offers Feyre a deal that's better for her than it needed to be: he will heal her if she will spend two weeks with him out of every month. She haggles down to one and they agree. He then proceeds to treat her as his property, a toy to play with in front of the court and Tamlin, in a particularly iddy turn of events. It turns out that he was doing it all to make Tamlin angry enough to take down the queen once he was freed, although I think this is reaching a bit for justification of iddiness. Yeah, I checked Wikipedia and I know the series is overall Feyre/Rhys and not Feyre/Tamlin. I literally cannot imagine how this works given everything Feyre and Tamlin just went through for each other ... but Rhys is pretty spectacular, and I have already ordered the next book from the library to find out.
Review of 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
I just finished TOG yesterday and was excited to start AOC and... it definitely didn't disappoint. At first, I wasn't really drawn into the story and it was a little boring. However, it got a bit more interesting about one-third through, and by the time I was two-thirds of the way I couldn't put it down!
To be honest, the love plot is a bit cliche, yet sweet. I love how Maas included Rhysand, he adds a hint of a love triangle that I would love to see pan out a bit. Maybe it's just that Tamlin and Feyre seem like an average fantasy couple, or maybe it's because I feel like Rhysand could use someone like Feyre in his life. I definitely want to see more of him. The way he was... horrible (*couch, not the word I want to say) and was revealed to actually care …
I just finished TOG yesterday and was excited to start AOC and... it definitely didn't disappoint. At first, I wasn't really drawn into the story and it was a little boring. However, it got a bit more interesting about one-third through, and by the time I was two-thirds of the way I couldn't put it down!
To be honest, the love plot is a bit cliche, yet sweet. I love how Maas included Rhysand, he adds a hint of a love triangle that I would love to see pan out a bit. Maybe it's just that Tamlin and Feyre seem like an average fantasy couple, or maybe it's because I feel like Rhysand could use someone like Feyre in his life. I definitely want to see more of him. The way he was... horrible (*couch, not the word I want to say) and was revealed to actually care about her and his people was a really nice character plot twist. I love it when dark characters end up being a bit light and get some love too.
I can't wait to read the next book later tonight (or right now, who knows)!