Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

A Court of Thorns and Roses has certainly gained a lot of attention since it was published in 2015 and it is not difficult to see why. There are certainly some dark--and sexy--themes in this supposedly YA level fantasy novel. 

Feyre is the youngest of three daughters and somewhat neglected by her father and sisters. Despite their indifferences, she fine turns her skills as a hunter so that she may keep her poor and starving family fed. On a hunt one day, she kills a massive wolf. Soon after a creature appears at her door, declaring her a murderer. And to pay for the life that she has taken, she must follow him into the neighbouring lands, where she will be his prisoner. Only being a prisoner amongst some beautiful, magical and cursed fae doesn't quite involve what Feyre expects because ... yes, you guessed it, this is a retelling of beauty and the beast.

This one is a light, guilty pleasure read that gives the reader everything that is promised on the cover. Feyre makes for an interesting heroine, a human girl whose imprisonment isn't quite what she expects. I wasn't quite sure what to make of her beast, the brooding Tamlin whose very survival relies on Feyre, yet he isn't exactly forthcoming on the details. Initially, it appeared that a love triangle may have developed with Feyre torn between Tamlin and Lucien, but from the moment that sexy bad boy Rhysand appeared on the scene, it was obvious that Tamlin was going to have a very different rival instead.

Overall, this is a bit of entertaining escapism, though I would be hesitant to hand it to a younger teenager, in part because of the heavy sexual content, but mostly because for a book that has themes of true love, it certainly sends some mixed messages about what love and what a healthy relationship looks like. So not great for young and impressionable teens, but for older teens who know the score and are looking for a bit of escapism, this one is fine.

Recommended. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more