Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Release date: May 5, 2015
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1408857863
Pages: 416
Goodreads || Book Depository

Feyre is a huntress.

She thinks nothing of slaughtering a wolf to capture its prey. But, like all mortals, she fears what lingers mercilessly beyond the forest. And she will learn that taking the life of a magical creature comes at a high price…

Imprisoned in an enchanted court in her enemy’s kingdom, Feyre is free to roam but forbidden to escape. Her captor’s body bears the scars of fighting, and his face is always masked – but his piercing stare draws her ever closer. As Feyre’s feelings for Tamlin begin to burn through every warning she’s been told about his kind, an ancient, wicked shadow grows.

Feyre must find a way to break a spell, or lose her heart forever.

MY THOUGHTS

This definitely deserves a 5 star rating. A Court of Thorns and Roses is a wonderful story inspired by Beauty and the Beast, as well as other fairytales and folklore. It was a fantastic first book to a trilogy, with a really great fantasy world and unique characters. I thought this was a better first book than Throne of Glass (although I do still prefer that series just because I’ve spent more time in that world and with those characters). I’d categorise this as halfway between a young adult and new adult series. It’s definitely more mature than Throne of Glass and some other YA fantasy series that I’ve read.

The beginning of A Court of Thorns and Roses was a little bit slow but I didn’t think it was boring. The first part of the book was mostly dedicated to developing the relationships between the characters. It started to get more interesting as I found out more about the world and as Feyre and Tamlin, our two main characters, started spending more time together. And it got even more exciting and interesting when we got past the halfway mark. The pace of the book really picked up then and remained very fast-paced until the end of the book. The story and world were beautifully crafted and the action scenes in this book were as exciting as those in Throne of Glass. Sarah J. Maas is definitely not afraid of giving us bloody and gory descriptions.

While Feyre is no Celaena Sardothien, she was just as fierce and fearless. We get to see so many sides of Feyre and I think her character development is a noteworthy aspect of this book. I liked that the book was written from first person so that we were able to really get into Feyre’s head and it was a nice change from the third person narration that we get in Throne of Glass.

I also really liked the other characters in this book. Tamlin wasn’t the most unique male love interest, but he’s a sexy, muscly shape-shifter so I can’t complain. He actually reminded me a lot of Rowan from the Throne of Glass series in terms of physique and personality. A more tender and less snarky version of Rowan. I actually really liked the romance between Tamlin and Feyre. Some other reviewers have mentioned that they found it to be quite insta-lovey, but that wasn’t the case for me at all and I thought the romance developed quite naturally. I also liked some of the other side characters, like Lucien and Rhysand, and it was really exciting to learn about their Fae powers.

I thoroughly enjoyed the world in this book. The different Faerie courts were very interesting and original, and I can’t wait to see how this is developed in rest of the trilogy. This first book in the trilogy ended in a very satisfying way and I’m not sure what direction the next book will take but it’s definitely going at the top of my most anticipated reads of 2016 list.