Hello Rad Readers!
This will be a review on all three books in the ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Mass. These books are: A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury, and A Court of Wings and Ruin.
I know what you are thinking, C8, didn't you just finish read SJM's 8 part series, Throne of Glass? Shouldn't you probably have given it some time before you went back into her work? Wasn't her last book that you read 950+ pages but likely could have been 500? So as to avoid a reading slump of boredom due to repetition, shouldn't you have maybe waited a while before you started reading her other books? Yes. Yes you are right. That is perhaps the measures I should have taken, but I did not.
So, perhaps my less than stellar feelings about this book are due to my own foolishness in sort of over doing it with her writing style and this world and her sorts of characters, but also, I never really got tired of the ToG series and I read those basically back to back, so I think that this series just wasn't really it for me.
I did find the first book, A Court of Thorns and Roses to be good, but the others just fell short for me. I was not into it. The first book was mystery and magic, it was entertaining and interesting, nothing fantastic, but it was a solid 3.5 stars. There was definitely a plot to follow, but as the series progressed it sort of just felt like Feyre was just following everyone around, she would have these random moments of courage and power or whatever you want to call it, and then go right back to her just super lame self. It made kind of no sense. She would be the picture of a damsel in distress (which is actually the worst thing in the entire world, and my least favorite character trait/trope ever, but I do not have enough time to get into thatttt...) and then randomly say something super cliche, a monologue on frustration perhaps, about needing to be strong-- she would then proceed to do maybe one kind of cool thing, everyone would make a really big deal out of it despite its rather unextraordinary reality, and then she would do nothing for ten chapters, and then repeat. It just was not good.
Getting through the third book felt like clocking in and out hours for a job. I found myself picking it up and then putting it down and feeling like I had just accomplished something becuase I just didn't really care to finish it. I put ACOWAR down, started reading a new book, didn't pick ACOWAR up for four days, finished the other book I was reading, and then after completely forgetting about ACOWAR, started reading it again... That is just messed up. ACOWAR was supposed to be the finale! The big deal! The grand slam! But... it just wasn't. I just didn't care or really understand a lot of what was happening. I felt like a lot went unexplained and the author kind of just hoped that we would understand along the way. I got the general gist of things, but the tiny details, I was completely lost on. Perhaps that was due to my over all lack of interest in it and thus that made me pick up less or remember less of the little things, but I also think it has a bit to do with a lack of explanation.
My main problem with this series was that I thought a lot of themes and little details that I did pick up on were a little problematic. To name a few, racism or at least a lack of representation... the lack of diversity in the cast of characters is an issue. The author said that the reason for this was becuase the setting was in Europe... but... wait... this is set in Prythian... which is literally a made up magical realm... where literal witches and Fae creatures exist. So... I'm just sayinggggg, if you can make up the existence of shape shifting creatures, you can include some multicultural representation.
Then you know, there was a sprinkle of sexism and misogyny here and there. I personally was not the biggest fan of that. I'm sorry-- actually, I am not sorry-- there is nothing endearing about describing women as some sort of object for men to gawk at. I did NOT miss the fact that it seemed that all of them men in this series were the ones that had the big life saving ideas or called the final shots. I didn't miss that every time Feyre tried to do something important she would just nearly get there and then some man would appear and save the day. I just do not rock with that at all. Let's also not forget about the romanticism of... oh, ya know, ABUSE! Uhmmmm OOPS, don't like that at all!
I was honestly very surprised at the issue that I took with this story, because I found the author's other works to be extremely progressive. For example, the main character in Throne of Glass is an extremely strong and smart female. She is the one that saves the day, she is not objectified, and she is not bossed around. So my distaste for these books really took me by surprise.
I know that I basically talked nothing of the plot, or any sort of character analysis, but I just simply do not think that such analysis is a necessity when I do not recommend this book.
Ultimately, after the first book it is just boring and problematic. 2/5 stars. :/
- C8 ;)