A Court of Thorns and Roses // An Overdue Review

Four Stars—Great

I had meant to post my review of Sarah J Maas’ A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES sometime during Valentine’s week. I’d also intended to review A COURT OF MIST AND FURY and CRUEL BEAUTY during that same week so I could tie them all together with a neat little bow, which obviously didn’t happen. I finished ACOMAF on the last day of February and, as of writing this post, still have yet to read CB. 

Le sigh. 

When I do get around to reading CB (and since my Kindle reading habits have been sporadic and spastic of late, who knows when that will be?), I still hope to do a post comparing and contrasting ACOTAR and CB. I also plan to buy A COURT OF WINGS AND RUIN when it comes out, and I might even read and review it in a reasonable amount of time. We’ll see. 

For now, let’s talk about ACOTAR. 

The Set-Up.

While ACOTAR is primarily a “Beauty and the Beast” retelling (yay!), it also inlcudes elements of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” (a story that has haunted me for years) and “Tam Lin” (which I was less familiar with). When it comes to retellings, it can be difficult to process and repackage a popular, oft-retold story and still produce something fresh, which is why I think the combination of these three fairy tale storylines is one of ACOTAR’s greatest strengths. 

Feyre.

For whatever reason, I came into the story not expecting to relate to or appreciate Feyre all that much. I think this partially had to do with the fact that I knew ACOTAR is a romance (and if you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know that romance is usually a miss for me). But Feyre’s combination of tough and soft won me over. 

She sacrifices so much of her time and energy to support her family, which did remind me an awful lot of Katniss from THE HUNGER GAMES. Despite the similarities, though, Feyre is still her own character. She is practical, yet artistic, and she somehow finds a way to balance these two aspects of her personality. It can be so easy to see art as non-essential, the first thing to go when life gets hard, and I loved that it doesn’t get displaced in the face of Feyre’s abject poverty—that it’s recognized as a part of who she is. Also, I love that her relationship with painting mirrors her emotional state throughout ACOTAR and ACOMAF. 

Confession time.

Every time a book description mentions fairies/the fae, I find myself losing interest, even though I love books like THE PECULIAR and THRONE OF GLASS. I’m not really sure why this happens, it just does, and I almost skipped out on ACOTAR because it’s a) a romance and b) a book that heavily features the fae. However, I ended ACOTAR feeling more favorable to books of it’s ilk. I consider that a win. 

Content warning.

There is some sexual content, and I am squeamish, so that accounts for the dropped star. 

In Conclusion. 

I’m sad that I didn’t review this book right after reading it because, now that a fair amount of time has passed, my memory has gotten a bit vague on some of the nuances I wanted to discuss. The busier I get with writing, the more I find myself forgetting small details, like my name, or a book’s storyline, so I can’t give you as well-informed a recommendation as I had hoped. But I do remember that I very much enjoyed ACOTAR (especially the ending), and I will eventually want to reread it. 

What about you, my little coffee beans? Have you read A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES? Will I ever spell “thorns” correctly on the first try? (No. Because I always type “throns.” Don’t ask me why.) What are some of your favorite fairytale retellings? Have you read CRUEL BEAUTY/do you recommend it?