The Court of Thorns and Roses
“The Court of Thorns and Roses” was recommended by several of my college students as the new great fantasy trilogy. A must-read if you will. Goodreads has almost 2.5 MILLION ratings with a 4.2 start average out of five, so it’s obviously a good book to most people.
But I just didn’t like it!
*gasp* I know, I know, not a popular opinion, but to me, this book was just “meh.” Not good, not bad, just average. It’s the first of a four-book series (and I could see Sarah J. Maas, the author, adding more to it past those four), but I won’t be reading any of the subsequent books. I’m just not interested in investing any more time with these characters.
Trying to analyze why, I think it may be a combination of a few things. First, I found the first probably half of the book to be recycled from other popular fantasy-type characters. Feyre, the main character in this book, has definite parallels with Katniss Everdeen of the popular “Hunger Games” series. Both are young women who are living in extreme poverty with a largely absent parent and their sister(s). Katniss had one sister; Feyre has two. The other people in their house are incompetent for some reason, so it falls on the Katniss/Feyre character to hunt in the nearby woods to bring home food, without which the whole family would starve. But the parallel goes even further: both women use a bow and arrow to hunt. Just noticeably too similar for me. Then the book shifts. Feyre is forced to go north of the wall (slight “Game of Thrones” reference here) to a place of Fae, where fairies and other fantastical creatures dwell. She is taken to the home of Tamlin, a character I can easily relate to “Twilight”s Edward. Tamlin isn’t a vampire, but still a beautiful human/beast, who of course, the human Feyre is attracted to. As she’s constantly told, Tamlin is “old,” as in almost-timeless, she’s not; Tamlin is jaded, she’s innocent; Tamlin could hurt her, but she likes him too much to stay away. Again, the parallels here were a lot for me to swallow.
To give Maas credit, her storyline after this did evolve into a more unique plot. And after reading some spoilers on Goodreads, I understand the next three books really do have some interesting twists and turns, just not enough to entice me to read them after the sour taste these recycled characters have left in my mouth.
I think the other reason I didn’t like this book as much as I was expecting to is just because of the hype. After hearing so many people recommend this book, I was expecting something spectacular, so I’m not sure any book could live up to that. For me, “The Court of Thorns and Roses” may have been a victim of its own fame.
All in all, I’m hesitant to recommend this book to others, but who knows? You may end up liking it, especially if you are a fantasy or YA fan. Just a final beware: this book series does get steamy in some places, so don’t go in expecting a PG or G rated fantasy novel.