Hi ForeverBookers,
This review is coming a couple of days late because I’ve just had my COVID vaccine and I had to recover, anyway, I’ve just finished “A Court Of Thorns And Roses” or “ACOTAR” as it’s commonly referred to, by Sarah J Maas. It was a reread but I’m VERY glad that I did reread it. I’m going to try and reread all the books throughout this year to get ready for the now newly released “A Court Of Silver Flames,” which I’ll hopefully read at the beginning of next year (I already own it!) Anyway, I absolutely LOVED “ACOTAR” even more so, perhaps, than my other times reading it. I think it’s because I know what happens in the rest of the first trilogy. I already have reviews up for the other books, except, of course, “A Court Of Silver Flames.” I might redo or add to the “A Court Of Mist And Fury” review.
5 Stars!
The readathons I read “ACOTAR” for were:
The Cardcaptor-a-thon - The Light - Read a book with a light and/or bright cover - I class the red cover that ACOTAR has as a bright cover and the white text is light, even if the story isn’t that light.
Reading Rivalry - This works for page points because I read it over the two months.
NOTE: there are a few cases of bad language used in “ACOTAR,” as well as sexual references in the latter chapters. It’s therefore a book intended for older teens/adults, I’d say.
Spoilers Below
“Now I drew it, keeping my movements minimal, efficient—anything to avoid that monstrous wolf looking in my direction. The arrow was long and heavy enough to inflict damage—possibly kill him, if I aimed right.”
The story starts when Feyre, our main character, comes across what she thinks is a normal wolf in the forest. She shoots it and takes it home to her poor family to eat. She’s the breadwinner of her family. She has two sisters, Nesta and Elain, who are both older than her. They don’t seem to do very much in the story, though. Nesta has just more of a role than Elain but “ACOTAR”/”ACOMAF”/”ACOWAR”/”ACOFAS” are heavily focused on Feyre. If I was Feyre I’d be a bit put out by the fact that my older sisters did nothing, while I did everything for them, but that’s just me!
“It wasn’t that Elain was cruel. She wasn’t like Nesta, who had been born with a sneer on her face. Elain sometimes just . . . didn’t grasp things. It wasn’t meanness that kept her from offering to help; it simply never occurred to her that she might be capable of getting her hands dirty.”
This is Feyre reflecting on her second eldest sister, Elain’s attitude. Elain comes across as a little bit simple in the series. I actually forgot she was older than Feyre! I knew Nesta was the eldest of the sisters but I thought Feyre was the middle sister before this reread. Maybe when we get to Elain’s book, we’ll know what made her simple. Feyre doesn’t blame Elain for not figuring things out easily. She takes pity on her, if anything. Their father doesn’t seem to care very much about his daughters. They lost their mother when they were young, Feyre was eight years old, so her sisters would have been slightly older, and she didn’t care either. Their mother made Feyre promise to look after her family before she died. I have no idea why she made Feyre promise that and not Nesta or Elain but again, they’re just my thoughts.
“He’d become a little more aware now—sometimes offered signs of gratitude, sometimes hobbled all the way into town to sell his carvings—but not much,” tells us that their father didn’t do much to provide for his daughters. They’ve had to look after themselves, growing up.
Feyre hated her mother. This is reflected in “My mother. Imperious and cold with her children, joyous and dazzling among the peerage who frequented our former estate, doting on my father—the one person whom she truly loved and respected.” She died eleven years ago. In the tale of Beauty And The Beast, Belle’s mother died too, so there’s a similarity between “A Court Of Thorns And Roses” and the original tale before we even get into the fantasy elements. We don’t learn Belle’s relationship with her mother, we just know that she cared dearly for her father, something I’m not sure Feyre’s father deserved, anyway.
Feyre can’t read, it’s revealed. This is very much different from the original Beauty And The Beast story, in that Belle, the heroine, loved to read, at least in the Disney film. “It wasn’t entirely my fault that I was scarcely able to read. Before our downfall, my mother had sorely neglected our education, not bothering to hire a governess,” shows this. Feyre’s mother was selfish this also shows. Feyre’s parents had lots of money before their downfall and yet, neither of them bothered to find a teacher to teach their daughters. That equals very poor parenting to me, but it all plays into the story.
Chapter six is where we see the magical aspects come into play, where Feyre is introduced to the faerie realm, or Prythian, as it’s known in the book.
“The estate sprawled across a rolling green land. I’d never seen anything like it; even our former manor couldn’t compare. It was veiled in roses and ivy, with patios and balconies and staircases sprouting from its alabaster sides. The grounds were encased by woods, but stretched so far that I could barely see the distant line of the forest. So much color, so much sunlight and movement and texture . . . I could hardly drink it in fast enough. To paint it would be useless, would never do it justice.”
Feyre is shocked by the beauty of Tamlin’s estate in Prythian, the land of the fae. Tamlin is the High Fae Lord that took her from her father and sisters because that wolf she killed at the beginning of the story was Anders, an emissary or worker and friend of Tamlin’s. Feyre’s family used to live in a manor when they had money, when her mother was alive but not even that compares to Tamlin’s home. This also shows that Feyre loves to paint. She can’t read or write but she understands art.
Prythian is separated into Courts, rather than countries. There are the seasonal Courts, the Dawn, the Day and the Night Court too. Tamlin is the High Lord of the Spring Court. The Spring Court is cursed, though. Every fae being there has a mask attached to their face that they can’t remove.
We’re introduced to a few different characters here. Lucien, Tamlin’s right-hand man, who wears a fox mask, Alis, a maid of Tamlin’s, who was originally from the Summer Court, as well as a couple of nastier creatures like the Suriel, the naga and the Attor. The cast of characters is small in “ACOTAR”, but it grows more in the other books, I believe.
When talking to Lucien in the manor, Feyre asks “so there are faeries who will actually answer any question if you trap them?” Maybe they’d know how to free me from the Treaty’s terms.
“Yes,” he said tightly. “The Suriel. But they’re old and wicked, and not worth the danger of going out to find them. And if you’re stupid enough to keep looking so intrigued, I’m going to become rather suspicious and tell Tam to put you under house arrest. Though I suppose you would deserve it if you were indeed stupid enough to seek one out.”
This is significant because we see just HOW put out Lucien is here. He wants Feyre gone but he doesn’t want to incur wrath on his friend, Tamlin or Tam as he calls him. But of course Feyre does seek out the Suriel, anyway.
“A face that looked like it had been crafted from dried, weatherworn bone, it’s skin either forgotten or discarded, a lipless mouth and too-long teeth held by blackened gums, slitted holes for nostrils, and eyes . . . eyes that were nothing more than swirling pits of milky white—the white of death, the white of sickness—the white of clean-picked corpses,” is what the Suriel is described to look like. It sounds disgusting to me, but it’s helpful to Feyre, or is it, you’ll have to read to find out...
“I tucked away my fear. “Everyone at the Spring Court is stuck wearing a mask, and yet you aren’t,” I said cautiously. “Are you not a member of the Court?”
“I am a member of no Court. I am older than the High Lords, older than Prythian, older than the bones of this world,” the Suriel gives information to Feyre about himself, here. I don’t believe he’s an evil character. A trickster character, would be a better way to describe it, or a character that doesn’t give things away. The Suriel goes so far as to say that Feyre will need to “stay with the High Lord, and live to see everything righted,” but is this a lie or the truth? Should she do it or get away while she can? You’ll need to read to find out...
“When we’re done ripping off your skin, you’ll wish you hadn’t crossed into Prythian,” he breathed into my face, the reek of carrion shoving down my throat. I gagged. “We’ll cut you up so fine there won’t be much for the crows to pick at,” is what one of the Naga say to Feyre. The naga are “faeries made of shadow and hate and rot.” They’re not nice, as the quotes above display. The naga don’t have a huge role to play in “A Court Of Thorns And Roses.” They’re used as a scare tactic, rather than being an actual threat in the book.
The significant events happen at around half way into the book when we meet our other main character, Rhysand. He’s dark and brooding. If I had to compare him to a character from another book or series, I’d say Damon from the “Vampire Diaries” is the most like Rhys, or at least the Ian Somerhalder depiction of him!
“The ground welled up beneath me, and I reached up for my knives, but sturdy hands grasped me under the shoulders before I could draw them or hit the grass.
They were strong hands—warm and broad. Not at all like the prodding, bony fingers of the three faeries who went utterly still as whoever caught me set me upright.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you,” said a deep, sensual male voice I’d never heard. But I kept my eyes on the three faeries, bracing myself for flight as the male behind me stepped to my side and slipped a casual arm around my shoulders.
The three lesser faeries paled, their dark eyes wide.
“Thank you for finding her for me,” my saviour said to them, smooth and polished. “Enjoy the Rite.” There was enough bite beneath his words that the faeries stiffened. Without further comment, they scuttled back to the bonfires.
I stepped out of the shelter of my savior’s arm and turned to thank him.
Standing before me was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.”
is when Feyre is being picked on by three male faeries at a fae celebration. Rhys happens to save her, as Tamlin isn’t there. Rhys knows the three faeries weren’t playing nice but lets them go. I’d like to see him do a lot worse to them, but we’ll see if they pop up in future books. Feyre is clearly shocked by Rhys’s looks here. She also notes he has “strong hands—warm and broad,” too. I think I could tell from this point onward that Rhys would be a love interest for Feyre the first time I read “A Court Of Thorns And Roses.” Also, she thinks he has a deep, sensual voice. I don’t think she would say that about a villain. She’s not simple minded like Elain, after all.
“Everything about the stranger radiated sensual grace and ease. High fae, no doubt. His short black hair gleamed like a raven’s feathers, off-setting his pale skin. and blue eyes so deep they were violet, even in the firelight. They twinkled with amusement as they beheld me.
For a moment, we said nothing. Thank you didn’t seem to cover what he’d done for me, but something about the way he stood with absolute stillness, the night seeming to press in closer around him, made me hesitate to speak—made me want to run in the other direction.
He, too, wasn’t wearing a mask. From another court, then.
A half smile played on his lips. “What’s a mortal woman doing here on Fire Night?” His voice was a lover’s purr that sent shivers through me, caressing every muscle, bone and nerve.”
This is Rhys’s continued description or how Feyre at least sees him. We see the events of “ACOTAR,” and the next 2 books, plus the first novella through Feyre’s POV, so they’re very much slanted to her needs and likes/wants. Feyre is at a loss for words over what to say to her saviour. When Rhys speaks, however, it does something to Feyre. The word “caressing” shows this. Again, I don’t think Feyre would be outsmarted by someone like Rhys, although he IS a fae. I think she’s smarter in her mind’s eye, even if she can’t read or write well.
The last thing, I think I want to say is about the final chapters of the “ACOTAR”. The reader is taken along with Feyre into the darker world of Prythian, to Under the Mountain, as it’s known in the book. Here, she must overcome three challenges so she can save Tamlin’s Court, Tamlin, himself and herself from the evil and spiteful Amarantha. Can she? What troubles does she run into along the way? You’ll need to read to find out...! Also there’s a lot more of Rhys in the last chapters of the book!
I LOVED rereading “A Court Of Thorns And Roses.” I haven’t given too much away above, I don’t think because it’s best to uncover the secrets and mystery for yourself in this book, especially at the end, hence why I’ve just wrapped it up in a couple of sentences. I’ll get to ACOMAF later in the year, like I said above, maybe in the summer!
I’m going to read a very long book next so it will take me a while to get through, just fair warning, but I’ll speak to you then...
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