A Court of Thorns and Roses

I spent a good portion of the latter half of A Court of Thorns and Roses imagining this story with more interesting characters. What would Miriam Black have to say to the High Lord of the Night Court? How would Kaz Brekker negotiate with a faery queen? Because while there are parts of this book that work, the rest of it does not because the characters are mostly empty shells.There is something very thrilling about the way Sarah J. Maas writes. I found myself getting sucked in very quickly, and even after I figured out that this was really more of a romance than a fantasy-adventure story, I still found myself falling into the swoon of it all. And believe me, it is a romance. Feyre is the sole provider of her impoverished family who one day has the misfortune of killing a faery disguised as a wolf while she was hunting. To pay her debt, she's whisked back to Prythian, the fairy lands, where she's supposed to live out the rest of her days in a super nice but kind of boring manor with a very good-looking faery named Tamlin and his snarky emissary, Lucien. Naturally, having not much else to do, Feyre and Tamlin fall in love. Feyre is plucky in that very standard Katniss Everdeen kind of way - she hunts because she has to but otherwise is a tender soul, not super intellectual, and she likes to paint. Honestly, she's not very interesting. At least with Katniss, you knew where her lines were, Feyre generally is whatever the plot needs her to be at any given time. Tamlin likewise is muscly, kind of socially awkward, and growls a lot. And that's about it. Every time I had to be reminded that he had muscles I rolled my eyes. Because that's what I look for when I read a fairy story - chiseled Adonis-creatures with superpowers.That is one of my biggest problems with this story, and maybe its more of a personal gripe - it's very unfaerylike. It doesn't possess any of that eerie mystery that you can find in [b:Ash 6472451 Ash Malinda Lo https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1286563960s/6472451.jpg 6550542], [b:The Darkest Part of the Forest 20958632 The Darkest Part of the Forest Holly Black https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397755014s/20958632.jpg 40214184], [b:The Replacement 7507908 The Replacement Brenna Yovanoff https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1360176667s/7507908.jpg 6911742], or even [b:Bone Gap 18806240 Bone Gap Laura Ruby https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1402928507s/18806240.jpg 26737294] which is not explicitly about fae. Tamlin and Lucien even make efforts to dismiss the typical fairy tropes - basically A Court of Thorns of Roses gives fae the Twilight-treatment. They're only magical so that the heroine has someone with super strength and eternal youth to ogle and make-out with. Shit, even Charlaine Harris had more authentic faeries than this. It's not until the last act that some of that faery atmosphere starts come out a little bit, when Feyre is suddenly surrounded by fae of different varieties, and has to bargain for her lover with a powerful faery queen.And that's the other thing - the actual conflict of the story. Nevermind the fact that Feyre is not allowed to know anything about the major conflict until over halfway through the book. We know nothing about the villain or what kind opposition they will prove to be. That was my biggest struggle in finishing this book. With Feyre's scant characterization, and not really knowing what she was walking into when she decides to fight for Tamlin (and basically the rest of the world, which is really not emphasized much, weirdly), there's very little to be excited for, frightened of, or intrigued by. Before a very wordy exposition scene, we only know the villain's name, and even after that I had a hard time understanding her abilities or this so-called “curse”. It made for a very frustrating final act, because I understood that Maas was trying to tell a dark story, and I could see clearly enough that Feyre was about to go through some shit. But since I was barely invested in anything that was happening, all that drama and pain felt useless.I will say that the conclusion was very satisfying. Maas hit the final notes really well, even if, again, they feel suspiciously Twilight-y. I can already smell the love triangle brewing. I am vaguely curious about the later installments of the series, but I don't think the characters have enough going on to keep me interested. I wish so much that A Court of Thorns and Roses was as fun as it seemed to be when I started it. Instead it was dark and heavy in ways that were more uncomfortable than dramatic, and went light in the areas that were actually important to making a good story.