Since jumping wholeheartedly back into genre fiction a few years ago, I’ve understood that my corner of speculative fiction isn’t necessarily representative of fantasy full stop. And one of the best examples is the staggering popularity of Sarah J. Maas, whose works are almost never recommended in my circles. But this year’s Book Bingo has a Romantasy square, so I decided to take the opportunity to see what all the hype was about with A Court of Thorns and Roses.
A Court of Thorns and Roses leans heavily into fairy tale setup, with a poor woman providing for her father and sisters by what she can hunt, before a mistake in the woods leads to her imprisonment in the estate of a shapeshifting Faerie trying to hold back a curse. If it all feels very Beauty and the Beast, that’s surely intentional, but as the story progresses, it branches out into a different direction, with a deadly conflict among the Fae and the lead uniquely positioned to turn the tide.
The writing style is not especially ornate or vibrant, but it flows nicely and keeps the reader moving through the story, which is especially important during a first third of the book that leans far too heavily on the source material. Plenty of plot points and character reactions to them don’t really hold up to scrutiny, and it feels like the reader is being asked to import their reactions from the familiar Beauty and the Beast-style setup rather than truly engage with the details of this particular telling.
But a quick pace and approachable storytelling soon brings the tale into fresher territory, with hints that all is not as it seems and explicit recontextualizing of some of the elements that initially didn’t sit quite right. The central romance provides a through line that never goes away, but the development of an external plot helps the story find its footing as something distinct from its inspiration. The writing remains easy to read, but the plot provides an additional source of tension and a whole lot of narrative momentum, and some of the sketchiness from the first third disappears into what finally feels like a full-fledged story, leading to a middle third that is truly the strength of the novel.
The final third ramps up the danger and excitement, but unfortunately, it introduces one element that undercuts the rest in a couple of important ways. For starters, it’s sufficiently predictable to rob some of the tension from what should be a tense and action-packed conclusion. The lead is still put through a physical and emotional wringer, but it’s easy for the reader to see how she’ll get out again. There’s certainly still tension in the moment, but also a feeling of meaninglessness that comes from being able to predict how it will end.
But the worse sin is that that same predictable escape undercuts an intense moral dilemma that serves as the story’s ultimate climax. The lead is given an impossible choice, but there’s an obvious way to avoid the choice entirely, which makes the climactic scene feel more frustrating than anything else. At the same time, it prevents the story from ever reckoning with the consequences of that choice—where the narrative ought to linger on the most intensely shocking scene of the story, it quickly moves on to something less difficult.
After digging through a few other reviews, it looks like this series has become a megahit mostly on the strength of the second book, so if I’m not wowed by the opener, I may not be the only one. And the middle chunk of this book shows enough promise—with easily flowing writing, an engaging plot, and romantic tension—to make a second-book leap seem plausible. But with a sketchy first third and a shallow anticlimax of an ending, it’s not a series-starter that in itself gives much reason to be excited about the next book.
Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for First in a Series, and it’s also a Romantasy with a Disabled Character, Dreams, Reference Materials, and a significant segment Under the Surface.
Overall rating: 10 of Tar Vol’s 20. Two stars on Goodreads.