A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Reviewed by Arthi J.
Grade 11

Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don't feel anything at all.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas is a fantasy novel, loosely based off of the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. It is set in the world of Prythian where humans and a different species, called fae, live with nothing but a wall separating them. Long ago, these faeries fought against the humans in a large scale war, and it resulted in very little land being left for the humans. The fae have special strengths and abilities, and their world is separated from the humans with a great wall due to lasting tensions and resentments from the war. Their own lands are divided into courts--Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Dawn, Day, Nightmare--each of which are led by a High Lord.

 The human and fae worlds have had little to no interaction since the great war. However, that all changes when nineteen-year-old huntress, Feyre, kills a large wolf in the nearby woods, and a beast-like creature arrives at her family’s cottage, demanding retribution for the fae life she unknowingly ended. According to an old treaty between the fae and humans, written at the end of the war, Feyre has two choices: either be killed or spend the rest of her human life imprisoned in the Fae lands. And so, she is dragged away from her home, family, and everything she’s ever known to live in a dangerous, magical land with her captor, who she later discovers is not an animal, but in fact Tamlin, the High Lord of Spring Court. As she dwells in his estate, her feelings towards Tamlin transform from icy hostility to a fiery passion as she learns more about this beautiful world and uncovers the hidden truths beneath every lie and myth she has ever been warned of. But, with a mysterious “blight” quickly damaging and taking over the fae world and beginning to seep into her own, Feyre must find a way to stop it--or risking losing everything she loves.This is a book of magic, love, fate, power, revenge, and so much more as Feyre comes to know her captor and the strange world she now lives in.

This is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. I never expected what was going to happen, and it had the most complex characters that I loved to read about. It was a bit slow at first, but then sped up and became much more interesting later in the book. I’m not a huge romance person when it comes to reading, but this was a truly wonderful exception and I think that Sarah J. Maas did a fantastic job in building her characters and the unique world surrounding them.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes magic and romance, along with some drama and excitement. A Court of Thorns and Roses is a magnificent book with many twists and turns, and I am so excited to read the second book, A Court of Mist and Fury and later Throne of Glass, another renowned series by Maas.