May 2024: A Court of Thorns and Roses

There Must Be More Than This Provincial Life

I started this blog to help keep me motivated in my mission to revive my reading habit from my youth. And as a young adult, one of my all time favourite book series was The Twilight Saga.

In 2008 Edward and Bella's love story was one of the most important things that had ever happened to me. I had Twilight posters in my room that I used to say goodnight to. Breaking Dawn was the book I would bring on long holidays, no matter how many times I had already read it. I've been a fan of genre fiction for as long as I can remember, but I could probably trace my love of vampire fiction specifically back to this phase of my life. I didn't, however, come away from The Twilight Saga with a love of pure romance fiction.

I enjoy pure romance stories, but given the choice, I prefer that little something extra that comes with a fantasy romance.

Perhaps Stephanie Meyer ruined me for all others. But when I think about the romances that have had the most impact on me over the years, they have all had some kind of fantasy or science fiction twist to them. Buffy's love triangle with vampires Angel and Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the iconic romance between Princess Leia and Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy, the office affair turned genuine relationship between Jack and Ianto in Torchwood. Even my favourite Korean drama, Goblin, is an urban fantasy romance. I have consumed and enjoyed pure romance fiction in the past, but given the choice, I prefer that little something extra that comes with a fantasy romance.

By May 2024 my reading mission was going much better than I thought it would; by the beginning of that month I had already read 13 books, exceeding my personal goal of one per month well in advance. I had managed to squeeze in quite a bit of variety in that time as well, ranging from the horror classic The Shining to the sugary sweet shoujo manga A Sign of Affection. But looking back now, towards the end of 2024, I'm surprised that I didn't immediately gravitate towards the fantasy romance that I had loved reading so much when I was a teenager.

A Court of Thorns and Roses was the book series that changed that. Most of the others in my book club are big fans of the series author, Sarah J. Maas, and often raved about her books in our meetings. So when I stumbled across the first book of the series on sale when buying groceries in early May, I couldn't resist seeing what all the fuss was about.

Tale As Old As Time

Feyre Archeron is a 19-year-old huntress, trying to survive in a world that has been split into faerie lands and human lands. On the brink of starvation, she kills what she thinks is a large wolf in the forest near her home. But the wolf was really an immortal faerie in disguise, and before long a terrifying beast appears before Feyre demanding justice for its comrade's death.

Feyre is taken north to the faerie land of Prythian by her captor, whom she discovers isn't a beast at all, but a beautiful fae lord called Tamlin. As she is forced to adjust to her new life as the only human in Tamlin's court, she finds that Prythian is very different from the scary stories that she heard growing up. She even finds herself warming up to Tamlin himself.

However, this budding passion is threatened by a darkness that shrouds the whole of Prythian. Even though she has only just been thrust into the world of the faeries, Feyre must venture even further into enemy territory and fight to save the entire realm.

New and A Bit Alarming

Sarah J. Mass is something of a pioneer of the new adult genre of books that has become increasingly popular in the last decade. Simply put, new adult books bridge the gap between the young adult and adult genres. Protagonists will typically be in their mid 20s, and as such their stories will deal with topics relatable to readers of a similar age, including university, employment, and serious relationships.

I would argue that the space the new adult genre occupies is a gap that desperately needed to be filled. Young adult stories like Twilight resonated with teenagers like me because the characters involved were people we understood. Supernatural elements aside, Twilight is about shy, awkward Bella Swan trying to juggle life at a new school, keeping her divorced parents happy, and falling in love for the first time - all problems that a real girl her age might also experience. And as a teenage reader, I wanted to consume fiction by authors that I felt understood me. I couldn't fathom reading something more "serious" or "grown up", having empathy and understanding for characters that didn't feel like a stand in for myself. If the books I'd been reading had grown up with me, if the characters had gone from studying for their exams and falling in love for the first time to having a career and dealing with bad boyfriends, like I did, maybe I wouldn’t have abandoned reading the way that I did when I hit university age.

Maas, along with many of her peers, handles the transition from young adult to new adult by injecting familiar stories with more mature themes; by taking the recognisable and nostalgic and recontextualising it to make it relevant to an aging audience. Maas' first series, Throne of Glass, began life as a Cinderella retelling, and A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) borrows from tales such as Beauty and the Beast, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and Tam Lin. She has found a lot of success with putting a more adult, high fantasy spin on beloved fairy tales - "more adult", of course, translating to "more sex and violence". Maas herself has said as much of the inspiration for the ACOTAR series:

" I got the kernel of inspiration by wondering: "What if 'Beauty' was a huntress?" (And then promptly asked myself: "What if the 'beast' was a shape-shifting, very sexy Faerie lord?" Because that's obviously what a normal person would think/wonder.)"Interview: Sarah J. Maas and Heather Lyons on fairy tale-inspired stories by Vilma Gonzalez

There's an almost endearing kind of edginess to this practise, reminiscent of movies like Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) or Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010). There's often an assumption that adding darker themes to classic children's stories inherently makes them deeper or more meaningful. But if those darker themes are handled poorly, it can make the resulting story feel almost more juvenile as a result - like a child playing dress up in their parents' clothes.

I think that A Court of Thorns and Roses largely escapes this edgy trap, perhaps because it draws inspiration from several stories rather than just one. The parallels to Beauty and the Beast are the most prominent in the book, but outside of following the same major plot beats (Feyre is captured by Tamlin after slighting him, the two slowly fall in love, and that love is key to breaking a curse), Maas avoids simply playing the fairy tale's greatest hits.

There are obvious changes that distance the book from the 1991 Disney adaptation of the fairy tale, which is the version that the majority of readers will be most familiar with. The decision to make Feyre a huntress, for example, leads to a much tougher, far less open character when compared to the empathetic and friendly Belle. Feyre, shaped by harsh winters hunting for food for her family, is certainly not as quick to open up to Tamlin as Belle is to the Beast, and the “enemies” period of their enemies-to-lovers story goes on for longer as a result.

The curse that has been placed upon the court that Tamlin rules - the Spring Court - is also quite different compared to the one seen in Beauty and the Beast. Instead of being transformed into 18th century antiques, all of the denizens of the court are instead cursed to permanently wear ornate masks, and if Tamlin isn’t able to get a human to fall in love with him, he and the entire court will fall under the rule of Amarantha, a wicked fae from the neighbouring kingdom of Hybern.

Be Our Guest (Or Else)

The biggest departure is the final act of the book, and what Feyre must do in order to save Tamlin from Amarantha’s curse. Unlike the Disney movie, where all Belle has to do is realise that she’s come to love the Beast, Feyre must endure weeks of imprisonment, starvation, and torture at the hands of Amarantha. She must survive three dangerous, gruelling trials set by her to earn enough of her favour that she’ll lift her curse and let Tamlin and the Spring Court go free.

It’s certainly a finale with much higher stakes than Disney’s version. But it was at this point that Maas started to lose me. The first two thirds of the books tell a fantastical enemies-to-lovers story, with beautiful faerie princes and sprawling kingdoms full of lush rose gardens and sparkling lakes. The world of Prythian was always harsher than Belle’s 18th century France, but it was still something a reader could aspire to escape to. The trials of Amarantha, by comparison, are a bracing reality check, and doused a lot of the affection that I’d developed for the story.

It’s such a sharp shift in tone that it bordered on cruel. It almost felt like Maas was mocking me for finding the story that she was telling me aspirational, and that the rug-pull of the finale was to remind me that the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the page.

In a few areas in the book, Maas falls into the "edgy" trap and makes the story arbitrarily, nonsensically darker.

That mean-spirited nature is at its most prevalent in the finale, but it’s pervasive throughout the book. One thing that consistently bothered me about the Spring Court was how eagerly everyone who lived there shamed Feyre for her ignorance of their ways. Tamlin, his second-in-command Lucian, and all of his staff are almost gleeful when they insult Feyre for being a “stupid human”, and blame her for anything that goes wrong. This is in spite of the long history of the fae deliberately spreading misinformation about themselves in the human lands, in order to keep humans from seeking them out. Feyre is ignorant of the fae because of the fae themselves, but they still treat her as if it is her fault.

In the initial stages of the story, when Feyre has been taken prisoner as punishment for killing a faerie in wolf form, this attitude makes sense. It’s only natural that she wouldn’t be welcomed in such circumstances. Belle was welcomed as a guest, but Belle didn’t murder a shapeshifting coat rack before taking up residence in the Beast’s castle.

But at some point, the hostility should melt away, as Tamlin and the rest of the Spring Court get to know Feyre as an individual. Especially since, as it is revealed later, the entire Court knows about the curse and how it can only be broken if Feyre and Tamlin fall in love. In that case, one would expect Tamlin’s staff to be rolling out the red carpet for Feyre just like Lumiere does for Belle - it’s certainly what I would do if I was in their position. The continued derision that Feyre is subjected to doesn’t make sense given the context of the curse. It’s more “mature” than a musical feast, I suppose, but it doesn’t feel natural. It’s one of the few areas in the book where Maas does fall into that “edgy” trap, and makes the story arbitrarily, nonsensically darker.

Without the sharp turn the end of the book takes, it probably would have been easier to write this cruelty off as just a quirk of the fae; an arrogance of the immortal that isn’t uncommon in other fantasy stores featuring similar creatures like elves. I was really enjoying the slow burn romance between Feyre and Tamlin, in spite of the red flags I was noticing along the way. I found the increased animosity in the early stages of their relationship much more realistic under the circumstances, and it greatly increased the satisfaction felt when there are eventually romantic and intimate moments between them. But the third act of the book irrevocably burst that bubble for me.

Bittersweet and Strange

The highest compliment that I think I can pay A Court of Thorns and Roses is that it's a fantastic jumping off point for the rest of the series. I'm finding reviewing this book on its own awkward in the same way that I found reviewing the first volume of A Sign of Affection awkward; I like the series a lot, but a lot of what I like about it doesn't manifest until the next installment. There is much about this volume that I haven’t mentioned (if you’ve read the full series, you’ll notice that I have entirely ignored characters like Rhysand, Nesta, and Elain) because none of those things are particularly important to this story.

There is a lot of world building and setting-up that happens in A Court of Thorns and Roses that I didn't fully appreciate until I continued the series. And I think recommending a book because the ones that come after it are good is not a particularly strong endorsement. However, book 2 in this series, A Court of Mist and Fury, was one of the best books I read in 2024, and I can at least attest that all of my issues with this book were addressed in the next one.

If my misgivings about the book - the unexpectedly dark third act, the victim blaming, and so on - are discouraging you from giving it a chance, I understand that, because I struggled with them too. But for all the discomfort I felt reading these things, Maas has created a really interesting world, and the events of this book are essential to bring it to life. While this installment of the story might be weaker due to this bootstrapping, it does wonders for the overarching narrative, and it was enough to convince me to continue into those better sequels.

Then again, I used to say goodnight to Twilight posters. So take my opinion on high quality fantasy romance with a grain of salt.