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
Volume: 1
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, NA
Release Date: May 5, 2015
Goodreads
ARC from sixappleseeds

A Quick Introduction: When Feyre shoots a wolf in the woods, she doesn't realise that it is a faery, or that it had friends- vengeful friends. Feyre fins herself spirited away to the realm of the faeries. She now lives on the land of the faery lord Tamlin, and she comes to realise that nothing is as it seems- not even her captor.

Out of Ten: 4/10

Review at a Glance: Weak writing and plot didn't make up for the frustrating aspects of this NA fairy story.

Review: I found that I really didn't like this one. I read and reviewed Throne of Glass last year, and, while I didn't love it, I didn't mind it. I've found that Sarah J. Maas's writing isn't something that I enjoy. A lot of the things that I didn't like in Throne of Glass were magnified in this one.

The characters simply weren't characters that I really felt anything for. They were characters whose story I didn't feel compelled to really put much investment into most of the time. Feyre was a character who I didn't really like, primarily because she wasn't someone whose thought processes I could understand. I really wasn't a fan of Tamlin, or of Rysand, both had traits that I think were supposed to be attractive but really, really weren't for me. There were weaknesses in the characterisation that made the characters feel inconsistent.

There was only one chapter where I really found myself engaged in the story (the worm chapter, for those who've read it). The rest dragged, with very little in the way of plot in a world that didn't feel particularly vivid, as it was less constructed and more simply infodumped. Sarah J. Maas writes wonderful action, and I just wish there was more of it.

This was one of those books that I would have been pretty neutral towards, except that there was one thing that really bothered me, which kind of spoiled it for me. What infuriated me that Feyre was constantly being blamed for things that weren't her fault. As in: "You didn't do what I told you, I assaulted you, and, so,  my actions are your fault." There wasn't any reason to withhold information, but they did it anyway, sometimes to force the lagging plot along. I am not a fan of the whole blame-the-person-assaulted-for-the-assault thing, so I really didn't enjoy that, nor did I particularly like aspects of how women were treated.

In the end, this wasn't the book for me, I wasn't invested in the characters, and really didn't love some of the narrative decisions. I think Sarah J. Maas's writing might not be my cup of tea. I'm still undecided as to whether or not I'll be continuing the series.