If anyone is a part of the YA Fantasy scene at all, you know about Sarah J. Maas.
She became a serious sensation after she came out of College at Hamilton, New York where she majored in creative writing. In 2010 she emerged with her first book deal with Bloomsbury. Her debut series Throne of Glass was written on FictionPress.com originally. She had started writing the series at age 16, the drafted original name for the series was Queen of Glass. The story was actually based on Cinderella and the premise of, What if Cinderella was not a servant, but an assassin? And instead of going to the ball to meet him, but to kill him?
Then came Sarah’s next series, A Court of Thorns And Roses (that’s a friggin mouthful innit) that was written in 2009, but didn’t hit the shelves until 2015. The book I’m going to review here is the second book in that series!
*** S P O I L E R S F O R B O O K 1 ***
★★★★★ / ★★★★★
This book is without a doubt the best piece of young adult literature I’ve ever read. I finished all 626 pages in a weekend, I couldn’t put it down for the life of me (which kinda sucked because I was supposed to be on vacation), but it was time well spent!
I disliked the first book in the trilogy, like, a lot actually. There was a lot of abuse and manipulation going on between the main character, Feyre and the love interest Tamlin who is a Fae king and basically abducted Feyre from her human home, and Feyre is a human child at this time, she’s a young girl no older than 16 or 17. Tamlin and all of the court kingdoms are put under this curse by this witch that lives under the mountain. There was a ball that she threw decades ago which everyone attended, it was a masquerade ball and everyone wore a mask. The curse was placed on all of the court royalty from all the season’s courts (there are so many, I won’t even begin to list them). Feyre’s love interest Tamlin gets captured by this queen along with the court royalty again, and Feyre must go through these trials to save Tamlin & the life of everyone she took, but in order for her to win, she had to earn the favor & assistance of Rhys, another Fae prince (unknown to Feyre at the time) who was kept by the queen of the mountain as her sex slave to be raped over and over. Rhys agrees to help her win, if he can win a favor from Feyre, to be collected at a later date. Feyre reluctantly agrees and the deal is sealed with a tattoo placed upon Feyre’s left arm.
The pace of this book changes drastically in the second book. After Feyre saves Tamlin’s life under the mountain and all of the courts are freed. Feyre and Tamlin have a date they’ve chosen to get married, Feyre has seen Tamlin for the controlling, thankless, spineless ass that he is, and she begs for anyone out there to save her. As you might expect, Rhys comes to the rescue and saves her from being married to him. In short, Rhys and Feyre fall in love and agree to fight the forces of evil together, we meet various other side characters, we learn more about Rhys’ past and Feyre’s two older sisters get very involved in the story as well.
Since this is the book that I’m reviewing, I’m not gonna be super spoilery even though I totally was for book 1 just now but, maybe I’ll put a spoiler alert for book 1…
But my main point with this book, is that you gotta friggin read it, even if the first book is a flaming garbage can of abuse, triggers and lies. I knew what I was in for with the first book, and a small part of me still enjoyed it, a LOT. So don’t take everything I say here verbatim, if you enjoy the book anyway, hey sure. Nobody should be judged for the type of literature they enjoy. Judge the people that don’t enjoy it at all!
That’s the lesson we can take away from this, KILL THE NON-READERS!
(Image from: https://awayinneverland.blog/2016/05/08/a-court-of-mist-and-fury-by-sarah-j-maas/)
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