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A review by justabean_reads
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
3.5
Was doing this as part of a group read for banned book week, because the Utah school board banned the whole series (More on why in a minute). Also, it's such a Romantasy touchstone, with so many imitators by now, that I wanted to see what the deal was.
It was a lot of fun! The romance tropes weren't exactly my thing (too heterosexual, for one), but I can feel ten thousand teen girls perking their ears up. The plot is kind of mashes up Beauty and the Beast for the first half, with Tamlin for the second half, plus or minus a bunch of other fairytales kicked into the mix.
Our grubby stabby heroine ends up living with this scary fairy lord for reasons. He wants her to wear pretty dresses in his pretty castle, and she wants to stab him in the face and go back to her family. I kept thinking of the commentary on Fifty Shades of Grey (I don't remember whose, sorry) about how part of the fantasy was about being made to get things you actually wanted. Because women aren't supposed to be the kind of bitch who wants pretty dresses and fancy castles, for Lo! she is too mindful, too demure (sorrysorrysorry, I know that meme burned out like a month ago, but it was all I could think of while reading the first half). Thus: Oh no! I must wear pretty dresses! And everyone will tell me how great I look! But it's not something I wanted, this just happened to me.
Once the Tamlin plotline kicks in, we get a darker and more explicitly sexualised version of the trope that had my eyebrows in my hairline and thousands of teen girls figuring out several kinks. I suspect the later half of the book is what got the series banned, much more so than the fade to black sex scenes. However, maybe the Utah school board just didn't like all the fairy magic and shit, and banning it is pointless one way or another.
Most of the book was pretty straight up, but I did end up liking how the storyline with the heroine's family worked out, as they seemed to be entirely useless, selfish and bad when we first met them, but turned out to have a lot more going on later in. Another interesting twist (which seems to have become something of a thing with romantasy heroines) is that instead of being incredibly bookish like Disney's Belle, the heroine is largely illiterate. Which absolutely bites her in the ass later on.
I don't think I'll read the rest of the series, but I enjoyed this one.
It was a lot of fun! The romance tropes weren't exactly my thing (too heterosexual, for one), but I can feel ten thousand teen girls perking their ears up. The plot is kind of mashes up Beauty and the Beast for the first half, with Tamlin for the second half, plus or minus a bunch of other fairytales kicked into the mix.
Our grubby stabby heroine ends up living with this scary fairy lord for reasons. He wants her to wear pretty dresses in his pretty castle, and she wants to stab him in the face and go back to her family. I kept thinking of the commentary on Fifty Shades of Grey (I don't remember whose, sorry) about how part of the fantasy was about being made to get things you actually wanted. Because women aren't supposed to be the kind of bitch who wants pretty dresses and fancy castles, for Lo! she is too mindful, too demure (sorrysorrysorry, I know that meme burned out like a month ago, but it was all I could think of while reading the first half). Thus: Oh no! I must wear pretty dresses! And everyone will tell me how great I look! But it's not something I wanted, this just happened to me.
Once the Tamlin plotline kicks in, we get a darker and more explicitly sexualised version of the trope that had my eyebrows in my hairline and thousands of teen girls figuring out several kinks. I suspect the later half of the book is what got the series banned, much more so than the fade to black sex scenes. However, maybe the Utah school board just didn't like all the fairy magic and shit, and banning it is pointless one way or another.
Most of the book was pretty straight up, but I did end up liking how the storyline with the heroine's family worked out, as they seemed to be entirely useless, selfish and bad when we first met them, but turned out to have a lot more going on later in. Another interesting twist (which seems to have become something of a thing with romantasy heroines) is that instead of being incredibly bookish like Disney's Belle, the heroine is largely illiterate. Which absolutely bites her in the ass later on.
I don't think I'll read the rest of the series, but I enjoyed this one.