Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (Spoiler-Free)

3.5 stars! My feelings about this book are complicated. I'll try to do my very best to express each and every one of them. To begin, I think I went into this book with the wrong expectations. I anticipated a spellbinding fantasy full of political intrigue, complicated romance, dazzling galas, and gruesome battles. I eventually did get all of that-- but not until the last 100 or so pages of the book. Because these expectations hindered my love of the beginning of the book, I thought it would be a good idea to tell you what you should actually expect: You should go into this book in the mood for a character-driven, new adult romance. By the end, I was addicted because that's when the book became what I was expecting it to be, but before that point I was just waiting. Waiting for what?, you might ask. I was waiting for the character that I'm supposed to be obsessed with: Rhysand. Rhysand has a limited role in this book, and really doesn't come into play until those last 100 pages I was talking about before. I still don't know all that much about him yet, but I know that I should love him eventually. It was hard to get through the majority of this book knowing that I shouldn't like Tamlin (the first love interest). It felt like I was just trudging through an entire book to get to the good part. Luckily, the last 100 pages were awesome and that has really gotten me excited for book two, but the first 300 were rough. It wasn't necessarily bad, it was just hard to feel the need to continue reading when I felt absolutely nothing for Tamlin. I did love Feyre, the protagonist, so she is really what got me through it. Having read Throne of Glass, one of Maas's other books and loving it, I went into this hoping for that same addiction. I found that in those last 100 pages and I'm hoping book two continues bringing everything uphill. The ending felt like something epic, and I couldn't stop flipping the pages. A lot of the characters are super interesting and written really well-- characters like Lucien, Feyre, and Alis-- but others, such as Tamlin, were lacking. It was unfortunate that the character I was supposed to be the most in love with was the one I felt like had the same amount of personality as a concrete wall. I'm very interested to see what the next book in this series will bring to the table, so I hope that I can get to it soon.

Song I was reminded of while reading: Say You Won't Let Go