A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES: A Book Review

It’s Hunger Games meets Beauty and the Beast!

Listen. If you want me to read a book, put it on sale. Chapters was getting rid of the hardcover edition since the paperback was recently released, so how could I pass that up? I’d been in the mood for a fantasy story, and I can never say no to fairies.

By the end of the first chapter, I felt like I was rereading The Hunger Games. Feyre is not Katniss Everdeen by any means, but the first chapter feels like maybe she is. Now, I love Feyre and I think she’s kickass, even if she’s a bit dense. I love the way she claims her sexuality and her desires, and I love how she makes every decision based upon how hard she can smash the patriarchy and everyone who constantly tries to enforce no on her (seriously, does she obey anyone???). But I’m telling you, starting off with this hunting-in-the-woods-to-save-my-family thing feels very, very familiar.

Now. The characters in this book are great. I kind of fell in love with all of them, even if I didn’t want to? Even the characters I felt like maybe I should like, I absolutely loved. There’s some very sexy men, and interesting men, hiding in these pages for sure.

The problem, then, is the plot.

The Beauty and the Beast undertones are very obvious, which makes it pretty easy to figure out the plot and the game that’s being played. Unfortunately, I found that this also makes the first half of the book very unenjoyable. I was so bored. I get that it’s world-building and relationship establishing, but I have read many books that do the same things in a much more interesting way. In fact, I found myself forgetting things that had happened mere pages before because I found it so dull. I struggled through the first half, but I still kept reading because I could feel something going on that I couldn’t quite see yet…

And then the last 150 pages change everything.

The last bit of this book is an exceptional improvement on the first half. So much so that I would give it a 4 maybe even 5 star rating. It’s that good. I don’t want to spoil it, but if the last half was as interesting as the first, this would have been a much better book. Feyre is still dense, but she’s dense and badass and she’s actually able to use her head and becomes even more badass.

Goodreads claims that the sequel is one of the best books of 2016 and I’m ready to believe it: A Court of Thorns and Roses shows high potential, and if the sequel continues on where the first left off, then I am in for a very, very good book.

3 stars out of 5 [but 4.5 for the last 150 pages]