Summary

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas is an interesting twist on the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. The story follows Feyre, a mortal young woman who kills a wolf in the woods and is taken from the Mortal Lands and brought to Prythian, the territory of Faerie. There, she is to live out the rest of her days in exchange for taking the life of this wolf while slowly learning that not everything she was taught about faeries is true. As Feyre grows feelings for Tamlin, the faerie that’s taken her in, she becomes aware of a slow spreading sickness that has been plaguing the fae lands and threatens everything she loves.

Plot/Structure

The overall structure and pacing of the story is a bit of a mess. The first two-thirds of the book are dedicated to building the romance between Feyre and Tamlin. As this is happening, we are given very small snippets and drops of foreshadowing for what the “conflict” is really about, but that alone was not enough to make the content compelling. Feyre needed to play a more active role in this section. Instead, everything drags on while we’re given a half-baked romance between two people with not much chemistry at all. The entire main “plot” is then told rather than shown through an entire chapter of exposition and of all people, we learn this information from a side character that has no influence on anything. Chapter 32 is pretty unforgivable and is in no way an acceptable form of delivering information. Any finesse for delivering a story is thrown out the window and on top of that, there is way too much information given here. Instead of having a “pull the rug out from under the readers” moment or a big “everything you’ve known has been a lie” reveal that shocks the audience, it has the opposite effect. Especially when this information could have been naturally woven into the story and slowly uncovered by Feyre herself. The last third of the book has the most action and more interesting environment but everything is rushed. We blow over the span of months in only a few chapters and the end of the story suffers very heavily for it. Under The Mountain isn’t given any time to be developed as a unique lair full of intimidating creatures readying themselves to go to war with the Human Realms. There’s no attention given to the things that were established beforehand, leaving us very confused and unfulfilled when everything is “resolved” so quickly.

Worldbuilding

Despite this world having sectioned courts, kingdoms, and a map, the worldbuilding was extremely lacking. The majority of the book takes place in a single court but even then, there was little done to make the Spring Court feel at all part of the “Faerie Lands”. The occasional monstrous faerie slipping into the domain was not nearly enough. Everything basically amounts to a manor in the middle of a forest with a few people around. The rest of the worldbuilding relied too heavily on a single info dump as our main character, Feyre looks through a map of the lands. It felt unnatural and like it was only inserted for the audience’s sake. Even with the amount of detail Feyre views the world in, it still felt shallow and didn’t have much that set it apart as a fantastical place. It is also unclear what the power structure looks like in the Mortal Lands. Who’s in charge of the village? How is the rest of the Mortal Realms structured past the sea? All of it is incredibly vague and a little confusing.

Characters

There are only 5 characters that I can really speak significantly about.

Feyre – Feyre’s agency in this story are two dramatic ends of a spectrum. Things either just happen to her and force her in a direction or she is presented with a situation, goes through the effort of breaking down why she should not pursue an action, and then does it anyway. The second line of thinking would have been much more preferable if there was any consistency in her logic. A stubborn, hot-headed protagonist that is clever and actively pursues answers to things that don’t make sense would have been quite enjoyable to read. But Feyre doesn’t do this. She’s selectively clever and does not own her own actions, which creates a disconnect and makes her incredibly frustrating to follow. I did, however, really appreciate the artistic lens that Feyre views the world through. It was a lovely throughline for her character and I wish that the other aspects of her character were as consistent.

Tamlin – Despite spending two-thirds of the story building Tamlin up as the main love interest, we still don’t get a solid sense of who he is as a person. There are many moments where his actions are very strange and he doesn’t feel real; moments where he is withholding information that has nothing to do with his inability to speak about the “curse”. Along with this, he completely drops off as being a character in the last third of the book and is reduced to a plot point. Even if he’s practically on a leash and is trying to “protect” Feyre by showing no emotional reactions towards her, it makes us lose any investment in why Feyre is fighting for him in the first place. During the party before Amarantha’s final task, Tamlin had a moment to slip away and be with Feyre but he doesn’t speak once. It’s completely physical which sends a specific message that I’m not sure is the intention. Overall, he has a “nice guy” personality while simultaneously trying to be dark and secretive but it felt very confused a majority of the time. He did not leave a lasting impression nor make me fall in love with him as a character. 

Lucien – Lucien was fantastic. From the very beginning, he’s full of personality and has very real emotional responses to the situations that he is presented with. He’s also so incredibly loyal as an emissary and friend and I appreciate that he doesn’t hide who he is. It was also a lot easier for me to get behind Feyre’s interactions with him because she bounced off of him much better than she did with Tamlin in certain situations. This made it really easy for me to become invested in him and feel scared for him when the stakes were raised towards the end of the book. It also made me really appreciate the slow friendship that he and Feyre were able to build.

Rhysand – Rhysand was a fun breath of fresh air. He’s a charming, self-obsessed, sharp-tongued jerk and I absolutely love everytime he opens his mouth to talk. He’s by far more compelling than Tamlin or Amarantha. He plays the role of the villain in order to achieve his goals and he seems like the only person who has any real semblance of a plan on how to deal with his problems. The few problems I have with him involve his pre-established relationships that we are again told instead of shown, mostly with Amarantha, as that relationship is pretty much non-existent. This was a missed opportunity to show more of who he is outside of his interactions with Feyre. But I suppose there will be plenty more opportunity to do this in future books. I’m looking forward to learning more about him as the series progresses and can easily see him become my fave. 

Amarantha – Amarantha is not a character, full stop. She is a plot device. Everything she does is only to service the “plot” of the story and she has no real defining characteristics or personality. Her actions are quite illogical for someone who, we are told, is an evil mastermind who is everything wrong with Prythian. Everything we’re supposed to know about her, we’re told through exposition and we’re hardly given anything memorable from her direct presence. Lethal General? The final confrontation between her and Tamlin isn’t even a fight. She just dies. Cunning? She offers Feyre a simple riddle that would destroy everything she’s got a hold on for no good reason. Amarantha needed to be introduced earlier in the story, even if we didn’t know who she was. Overall, she’s a huge disappointment considering she could have had a lot of potential had she been written properly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this series is off to a very shaky start and the only real driving force to get me to continue it is the fact that so many people love what happens next. The “plot” of the first book is resolved and there’s really only two characters that I want to read more of. I’m pretty open-minded however, and am excited to be surprised by what comes next. There are 5 books out from this series and I can only really recommend this book to those that are ready for a big commitment. The characters really seem to be the main selling point and I’m looking forward to falling in love with them.