A Court of Thorns and Roses Review

So I won’t lie, I bought this book when it first came out so you can imagine how long it’s sat on my shelf gathering dust. (Almost 4 years!) I do vaguely remember picking it up at one point and I think I got a couple of chapters in before I put it down and just didn’t pick it back up again. I’ve never been a massively huge fan of fantasy stuff and really the only reason I picked this up was for the whole Beauty & the Beast retelling vibe it had going on. I don’t have a problem with fantasy but normally I find the worlds are often too big and the lore too complicated for me to keep up with. Couple this with the fact there’s usually too many names of people and places I need to remember, that I actually forget, means I get halfway through the book and just feel a little lost, I don’t enjoy it and stop reading.

However for some reason, when I picked this up again, I actually found it really easy to get stuck into. I’m now thinking that it was just my idea of fantasy that was making things so difficult to begin with. The more I read, the deeper I fell into the world and the characters themselves. The reason for this? The writing. I honestly cannot remember the last time that I felt so enthralled and invested in a book! So much so, that as soon as I finished this one I brought the next two and pre-ordered the companion novel on Amazon. I don’t really think there was any part of this book that I didn’t enjoy. I did find the ending with the final three tasks to be slightly tedious and have dragged a bit, but not enough to turn me off or put the book down. In fact, I still found myself spending every spare moment I had picking it up; before work, on the bus to work, during my lunch, on the way home, before bed, I couldn’t put it down!

To start with Feyre didn’t really do it for me, I found her a little boring. For me, there wasn’t a lot of depth to her in the beginning. But her unwavering commitment and fearlessness for the ones she loved very quickly won me over. And the more I think about it, I think it may have been the fact that not a lot happens in the beginning that put me off, not Feyre herself. Her relationship with Lucien is one I thoroughly enjoyed seeing play out, oftentimes more so than her relationship with Tamlin. The banter between her and Lucien was something I recognised with my friends and I, so it made for very comfortable reading and didn’t feel forced like it sometimes can. What I truly loved about Lucien, is even though from the beginning despite her being mortal, he knew she wasn’t someone to discard easily.

If you don’t want to be spoiled, look away now! I never expected Feyre to become a High Fae, and when it happened I wasn’t sure how exactly I felt about it. I thought she was going to die for the majority of the final chapters, so it was a shock for that not to happen. However, once I started to read the second one, it started to grow on me and I really liked what it did for her character. I’m glad that it wasn’t a cut and dry ending, had she died I think that would have been the case. After finishing this one, I was so eager to find out what would happen with all the other courts and Feyre herself, and find out how she would deal with the grief of killing innocent people with the reward being her immortality that I dived into the next book the day after I’d finished this one. We are left with so many questions about the other courts, the possiblity of Feyre having her own powers and to see what other evil is lurking.

I found this so easy to follow, there wasn’t an overload of history or lore to remember like I’d imagined which I think also helped keep me interested from start to finish. It felt great to get so caught up in a story after having had little to no interest in picking up any kind of book for the longest time. I would definitely recommend this to fantasy and non-fantasy lovers alike. The charcaterisation and storytelling is enough in itself to keep you hooked and coming back for more.

Have you read this book, or even the whole series? Did you love it as much as I did, more? Let me know in the comments below and why not recommend me something you’d think I’d like to read!