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

Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1)
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Release Date: May 5th, 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Genre: YA/NA, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 419 (Paperback)
Rating: 4/5

Feyre’s survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price …

Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre’s presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.

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I was a little nervous about reading this book because I’m not usually a fan of faeries, but I definitely had nothing to worry about. The writing in this book was, in typical SJM style, absolutely gorgeous.

For me, the highlights of this book were the strong, beautiful writing, and the expert world-building. I’m really intrigued by the intricacies of the faerie lands that we were shown just a small section of in this book. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I’m looking forward to seeing that other court that Feyre will supposedly be spending a bit of time in during the next book…

One of the reasons I didn’t give this book five stars was that the characters felt cliche and familiar. A lot of the time, Feyre seemed a lot like Celaena from Throne of Glass; Lucien seemed very similar to Dorian, too. Don’t get me wrong, the characters were great and had plenty of personality, but they were just a little unoriginal. It also took me awhile to actually like Tamlin – he had the whole pained immortal thing going on, and it reminded me too much of Edward Cullen.

The second half of the book, where Feyre finds out a lot about the High Fae and all the politics and such, was rather interesting. Though I was a little disappointed to find out that it was a ‘chosen one’ situation with Feyre and Tamlin. Also, the trials were a little underwhelming – they were exciting, sure, I just expected more. And don’t even get me started on how easy that riddle was.

As I mentioned earlier, one of my favourite parts of this book was the world-building. SJM is great at building worlds. Everything we needed to know was revealed slowly and deliberately – there was very little info-dumping to be seen. Some of the descriptions of the Spring Court were simply gorgeous and extremely vivid, so that was a definite highlight of this story.

Basically, this was a great book, though it didn’t necessarily blow me away with it’s originality. I mean, I know that it was a retelling of sorts, but the cliche characters let it down a little. I know I’m giving a lot of criticisms, but overall, I really enjoyed this book. SJM has a writing style that I absolutely love, and she is definitely a wonderful storyteller. Since I didn’t have many expectations for this book, I wasn’t too disappointed as a whole. Criticisms and all, I still really enjoyed it and I’m super excited for the sequel!

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