A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
It's a bad book. I'm super not a fan. I actually stopped reading after Chapter 24 (Page 220!) because it's just not good.
I've heard this book is quite popular and a lot of people really love it. First I'll bash the failures of the fantasy, then the failures of the romance. I'll spoil some major plot points in the first 100ish pages but it really doesn't matter because this book doesn't care about its plot.
If you are a fan of this book or series, you may not want to finish this post. I respect that people have different tastes, and I don't want to ruin it for you if you've already enjoyed it. I'm not very nice with my criticism. I also will preface this by saying that, despite my heavy criticism, I don't want to discourage anybody from being creative. You do you. And I hope Sarah J Maas keeps writing if she enjoys it.
It starts off really strong. She's hunting in the woods. The fantasy components are strong, the old timey bow-hunting era setting is strongly built, and the story feels extremely compelling. She kills a wolf that was hunting the deer she was after. We found out soon after that this wolf definitely was a faerie (or fae, i'm not sure the difference) when a High Fae shows up at her cabin (where she lives with her two sisters and her dad) and says, basically, "come with me to Pyrythian (fairy realm to the North) or die." She goes to Pyrithian.
Everything up to here is really strong, and I was very excited for this book.
One of the first scenes in Pyrythian, she's sitting with that High Fae (Tomlin) and his lackey (Lucien) and the conversation quickly turns to her human love-interest Isaac. Tomlin is basically like "You really prefer human men over us fae who are so much hotter?" And she's like "Yeah bro".
It's stupid and shallow and uninteresting. And I don't really mean its shallow in the "objectification" kind of sense, but that it's shallow in terms of character development, and an immortal man with hundreds of years on him thinking his hotness is the most important thing for a woman he just kidnapped ... is just insecure baby teen shit. It's shallow in the sense that he's not mature, and does not feel like a realistic person.
So that scene annoyed me, but I still had hope, because the fantasy components had been so strong thus far.
The story continues, we learn more about the lands of the Fae - dangerous faeries abound, there is a "Blight" spreading across Pyrithian. Tomlin is doing his best to take care of it and reassuring Feyre (fay-ruh) to "not worry" and basically just sit tight..
We get a couple good action scenes over the next hundred or so pages. But the majority of the chapters are fairly benign conversations between Feyre & Tomlin or Feyre & Lucien. She's finding herself attracted to him and wondering what he's thinking and ...
Romance isn't really my genre, I don't think. So that's definitely a vote against this book for me personally.
But my issue isn't so much with the fact that it is a romance. It is that the romance is utterly ... not compelling. There is no real tension, no real conflict. The characters are also not remotely compelling. They lack depth of character, and the romance lacks depth of intimacy. It's basically just ... Feyre is stuck in this magical land ... it was once perfect and beautiful, and she gets a taste of that ... and if she sticks close to Tomlin, she'll be safe. He's her savior (even though he's her captor). And the whole thing just feels bland and inevitable.
It's really hard to communicate what is so poor about the romance, and I feel like my words aren't doing its badness justice.
And then my biggest issue. I could deal with a bland romance, and some badly written characters (they are all badly written) ... if the book seemed to actually care about the world it built and the fantasy plot it established.
We do continue to see issues come up from this Blight that is spreading. And throughout the story, we're uncovering more and more details about it. We progressively learn more about Tomlin's magic, and other faerie magic. The book ... I guess it gives nods to this larger plot, but it just doesn't seem invested in it. I don't know how to explain it so that it makes sense ... but it's like the book only really cares about the romance, and all the faerie-human politics, and conflicts between faerie factions, and the Blight ... it's just a background for the romance.
I would completely respect this book if it ... if it were better. I could read the romance and get interested in it. I like sexy scenes. But the characters lack depth. The romance lacks true intimacy. The connection between Feyre and Tomlin feels extremely superficial. The fantasy components were really strong at first, and there is a taste of a meaningful fantasy plot.
But the romance doesn't feel like it is happening within the confines of the fantasy plot. It's not like the world is progressing toward this badness, and our characters are facing it together & bonding meaningfully within it. It feels like the characters are bonding superficially while the world goes on in the background.
I'm just so not a fan.
And if you made it this far, let me recommend to you my FAVORITE author N.K. Jemesin. My favorite series starts with The Fifth Season. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms starts another favorite. And Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse is another amazing fantasy book (series).