REVIEW A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas

 

I see this book everywhere -notably Target - and my daughter was asking about it recently so I thought that I would get it out of the library to read it. Feyre (pronounced Fay-Ruh) is a teenage human who has a very difficult life - she is the main support of her family and when she kills a wolf, she is dragged into a world that she literally didn't ask to join by the other main protagonist - Tamlin. Maas takes it from there and gives us a re-telling of the Beauty and the Beast story, complete with toxic and abusive relationships and gory battle scenes.  

I'm not a fan of this series and I certainly wouldn't let my almost 14 year old daughter read this book.  I think it provides a really unhealthy view of relationships and love that could be dangerous for young adults.  It wasn't very creative in its re-telling of the story that we all know, simply adding sex and gore in the hopes that we wouldn't notice the lack of creativity and lack of character development. I struggled to maintain interest in the story, the characters and, ultimately, the ending of the novel was the best part for me.  I likely won't be reading the rest of the series and I certainly won't encourage my daughter or son to read these books.

As a warning, if you have experienced abuse at the hands of a loved one or intimate partner, I would really think hard about whether this book is one you should read as there is a lot of things that occur in this novel that are very triggering.