73 pages • 2 hours read
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In this romantic retelling of Beauty and the Beast and the ballad of Tam Lin, Sarah J. Maas creates a richly imagined, high-stakes fantasy with a cast of compelling characters at its heart.
What Works and What Doesn't
A Court of Thorns and Roses is the first installment in a series that marks Sarah J. Maas’s first exploration of new adult/adult fantasy. It is followed by A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, A Court of Frost and Starlight, and A Court of Silver Flames. While the series’ second installment is considered its best, A Court of Thorns and Roses is a massive commercial success due to its immersive world-building, intricate magic system, romantic intrigue, and compelling characters. While Maas’s writing is criticized as repetitive and melodramatic, her style is simultaneously enthralling and easy to read in excess.
Set in a historical era of a fantasy world in which faeries and humans have endured centuries of conflict, the continent of Prythian is now divided by a wall that separates the faerie courts from the mortal lands. The novel’s protagonist—a 19-year-old huntress named Feyre Archeron—strives to feed her once aristocratic family after her father becomes injured and loses several merchant ships. However, after she kills a wolf in the woods that she suspects to be a faerie, a beast shows up at her ramshackle home, claiming payment for the life she took.
Feyre is spirited away to the Spring Court, where the beast reveals himself as High Fae—a powerful, shape-shifting noble of their ruling class—and the High Lord of the Spring Court, Tamlin. At first, Feyre is determined to return to her family, whom she is convinced are starving without her to provide for them, but she soon becomes comfortable and at home in Tamlin’s estate. The plot lulls into repetitive domesticity as Feyre is sequestered, with only walks in the estate’s gardens, tedious meals, and the occasional hunting party with Lucian to keep her entertained. However, even Feyre notices the whisperings about a dark force threatening Prythian: Amarantha, the self-appointed fae-queen of Prythian who holds court Under the Mountain. An accidental encounter with her lover, Rhysand—a High Fae and High Lord of the Night Court—forces Tamlin to send Feyre home for her own safety. However, Feyre is soon drawn back to the faerie lands due to her concern for Tamlin, whom she has come to love.
Soon, Feyre learns of the curse that keeps the High Lords and their courts trapped Under the Mountain with Amarantha. There, she must ally with Rhysand to survive and complete three tasks (or answer one riddle) to break the curse and end Amarantha’s rule.
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J. Maas
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The first installment of the A Court of Thorns and Roses series primarily introduces the elaborate world and magic system, as well as the core cast. Maas’s key strengths lay in her creation of compelling characters with complex emotional sides. Their internal conflicts are poignant and thus have a proclivity for eliciting intense emotions from readers, which is why her novels appeal to wide audiences and are considered easy to read in one sitting. Feyre’s frustration with providing for a family that doesn’t appreciate her enough is a relatable human experience; Maas effectively uses this to create a protagonist whom readers can simultaneously empathize with and root for in periods of conflict.
As Maas becomes more heavily invested in her fantasy worlds, her stories become more character-driven and motivated by love. Feyre’s driving motivator in the novel’s conflict is her love for Tamlin, which is strong enough to kill and die for. This focus on love as the ultimate power is apparent in every book Maas writes. In Throne of Glass, it is the protagonist’s love for her people that pushes her boundaries and leads her to victory. In Crescent City, it is quite literally the protagonist’s mantra that “[t]hrough love, all is possible.”
A Court of Thorns and Roses is criticized for its slow pacing and repetitive scenes at the Spring Court estate, but as the series progresses into the sequel and beyond, this issue loses traction. This repetitiveness and slow pacing of the exposition promises a satisfying payoff in the following installments.
Readers who love character-driven novels with introspective narratives and emotional stakes will enjoy the experience of reading A Court of Thorns and Roses. While Feyre is not perfect—rather, she is very much flawed—her appeal comes from her imperfections. Her prickly nature and independence are defense mechanisms that she has developed over the course of her life, and they provide for an unpredictable journey as she is integrated into the fae lands and exposed to an entirely new way of life. In contrast, readers who prefer plot-driven narratives, extremely complex worlds, multiple points of view, and minimal romance will not fall in love with this novel.
Spoiler Alert!
The final act, the large conflict, is where Maas shines in all her works. Maas’s highly critiqued, melodramatic writing style pairs perfectly with fast-paced, action-packed climaxes, offering the right balance of anticipation and foreboding. The intensity of the trials is met with equal intensity in the moments when Feyre confronts Amarantha for the final time.
The ending evidences the novel’s enduring theme—that love is powerful enough to defy even death. After completing all three tasks, Amarantha refuses to relinquish her control over Tamlin or release the fae courts from her curse. In her desperation to convince Feyre to admit she doesn't love Tamlin, Amarantha nearly kills her. But, as Feyre declares in Chapter 44, love is what she will not give up because “loving Tamlin was the only thing [she] had left, the only thing [she] couldn’t sacrifice” (401). This realization provides Feyre with the answer to Amarantha’s riddle.
Not only is love the answer to the riddle—and therefore the answer that breaks Amarantha’s curse—but it is also the answer to resurrecting Feyre when she dies at Amarantha’s hand. Through observing Tamlin’s love for Feyre, and the lengths she went to in order to prove her love for him, the High Lords are each inspired to gift her portions of their power, transforming Feyre into High Fae.
Maas leaves several open threads that provide readers with a compelling cliffhanger heading into the second installment. In exchange for Rhysand’s help, Feyre has bargained to spend time with him at the Night Court; Feyre’s new identity as a faerie provides internal shame and external conflict when posed with the issue of ever confronting her family again; and the trauma of her death and experiences Under the Mountain have altered her in ways she hasn’t yet begun to fathom, which will greatly affect her romantic relationship with Tamlin, risking the traditional fairytale ending they deserve.
By Sarah J. Maas