We usually start off our reviews with quotes from the book, but not this time. Not for this series. “A Court of Thorns and Roses” is perhaps the most well-known book within the reading community so it hardly needs an introduction. Considering we wouldn’t recommend this series to our worst enemy, we won’t be elaborating on anything more than our reading experience.
The first book of the series is a retelling of the classic “Beauty and the Beast” but poorly executed. Several fans of the series believe the first book is not the best, the rest of the series gets better. Hence, we continued reading all the books in this series, which we regret everyday. At its core, this is a story of the main character Feyre’s romance, and honestly, that’s hardly grounds for criticism. Romance is often seen as a frivolous genre, but books don’t have to be incredibly meaningful to be good. However, Maas absolutely abuses this factor and goes about exploring female desire in a quite dangerous manner- a lot of sexual and romantic sections of the book have questionable consent, which is conveniently explained by twisted lore about faeries and mates and so forth. Not to diminish the problem of dubious consent in this book, but the world-building of “A Court of Thorns and Roses” is perhaps the laziest we’ve ever read. It simply exists to explain or propel the romance plot and any attempt to grow beyond just an ex machina is shoddily written.
A relatively small instance of lazy world-building is the map of ACOTAR’s fictional world Prythian, which is simply a reworking of Europe and the United Kingdom in reality. When compared to other series in this genre, it is disappointing that there is hardly any effort put into world-building. Even the Fae species that Maas has created have nothing really new- granted in a genre saturated by mythical creatures and godly beings, it is difficult to always innovate. We could sense a very Tolkien-esque feel to the description of faeries, which would have been fine, except that there is not much else from Maas that makes them any different from Elves in Lord of the Rings. The only huge distinguishing feature we could feel is that faeries are immortal, ethereal and extremely sexually frustrated. The magic system in the books is seriously underdeveloped and unlike most YA series that see a gradual deepening of its lore, ACOTAR remains almost stagnant, with an ever growing number of plotholes.
Moving on to the characters, who while not being stereotypical YA tropes personified, were very much flat. Throughout the series, there is a real push to create an ensemble cast but we found most of the non-lead characters forgettable. Sadly, it is these characters who are the sprinkles of diversity in the series, which just goes to show how even when included in books, minorities are relegated to being sidekicks and underdeveloped extras. Honestly, the entire series reads like a predominantly white fantasy with a few stereotypical portrayals of people of colour and other minorities. This lack of diversity is often excused by readers because “the plot is good.” ACOTAR definitely fails both counts, but added to this is the sidelining of POC and minority characters. In lieu of the barrage of criticism Maas received for her lack of representation, more and more of her characters have been written as racially ambiguous. By assigning stereotypical ethnic features to certain characters, Maas tries to bandage the problem of representation in her books and ends up tokenising them. Representing diversity in writing respectfully is not hard. It is frankly the bare minimum to be asked of Maas considering the empire she has made off these books.
“A Court of Thorns and Roses” has the most inconsistent style of writing we’ve seen in any of these uber popular series. It makes us wonder, what exactly is the reason for the huge commercial success of these books, given that the writing itself is poor? The plot hardly warrants the vast amount of descriptions Maas uses, and even the useful information the author wants us to have is enveloped in layers of unnecessary sentences. The number of ellipses and m-dashes that Maas uses is honestly unbelievable and contrary to the function of punctuation, make the books unreadable. The best romance in this entire journey is actually Maas and her love for m-dashes, not Feyre and Rhysand. The entire series romanticises highly abusive relationships by layering it with soft erotica, which is also poorly written. Some of the descriptions Maas uses in the steamy scenes of the series are so bad they’re funny. The book exudes the idea of exploring female desire to an audience that is predominately identifying to more feminine roles. Instead of being a genuine foray into normalising female sexual independence and positivity, it ends up normalising extremely toxic behaviour from the main romantic couple. This is where our biggest concern with the series lies. “A Court of Thorns and Roses” is marketed and has received its huge commercial success as a YA fantasy series. Given the graphic content, abuse and violence the series contains, however, it is highly problematic that it marketed to young adults. Sure, adults read YA books all the time, but the target audience for whom this series is marketed include minors. We are all for sex positivity but the romanticised abuse and flawed notions of desirable qualities in partners is hardly something an audience aged 13-19 should be exposed to.
Please note, this is our reading experience and in no way to shame people who have read and enjoyed the series. Sarah J. Maas would not have a publishing deal if her books were not addictive in a way, so if you like the sound of this series and want to read it, we wish you a great reading journey! We do feel, however, that as young people, we need to use critical thinking when it comes to series like “A Court of Thorns and Roses.” Only by drawing light to the problems of this series can we hope for the books we read to represent who we are, and while it is okay to enjoy things just for the sake of it, we should definitely recognise the flaws it has.
Comments