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bailugs's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
smeagol357's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
queend1827's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Violence, and Sexual content
mulhollen's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
rplotz's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
vaddia99's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
For any average reader looking for an honest review from neither a hater nor a die hard: Here it is, but god I'm sorry for how long its going to be.
I started reading this extremely trepidatiously as I do not enjoy Y.A., nor do I enjoy romance, nor do I often enjoy fantasy. I'm pretty solidly a horror/classics/sci-fi kind of person, but everyone and their mother has read this series and I honestly was kind of tired of going "Oh... It's not really my thing." only to then have to explain what "my thing" is to the confused and horror stricken faces in the room.
That being said it was both better and worse than I expected. In full honesty I hated it in the beginning. The only saving grace for this book was that Lucien was there and that I was listening to it on audiobook in environments where I could not freely change out of it-effectively holding myself captive to listen to it. I'm glad I did though. Everyone I knew said it gets much better very late into the book, normally I would not subject myself to consuming what is essentially a full sized book before this absolute tome decided it wanted to be actually good, but once again I held myself captive.
Now as far as better and worse:
Worse is not really the books fault but my own. I've been so deep in my own niche that I forgot how prevalent the "I'm not like other girls" trope is and when you haven't consumed anything like that in over ten years the sudden exposure to early novel Feyre who has ABSOLUTELY TERMINAL "I'm not like other girls disease" was maddening. I legitimately wanted her dead for the first half of the book. I was praying that one of her idiotic exploits would be her end and they'd switch narrators (I knew I wasn't that lucky). She does get much better though! I left the novel feeling absolutely neutral to her which is a massive step up from praying she dies.
My other large complaint is that I have no issue with most of the writing until Maas has to describe colors. The novel goes from normal and cohesive narration to using entire paragraph or throwing down the thesaurus just to describe a color. I understand that its a quirk of Feyre being an artist but I'm not sure if it pisses me off because 1. I'm colorblind and the more she describes a color the hazier and less understandable her descriptions become for me; 2 I am an artist myself and I know many artists we do not know color names like that, and the few that do only know branded color names not colloquial because it is only useful when purchasing premixed paints (which is just as pretentious of an activity as describing colors like Maas does); or 3. She is illiterate who the hell taught her "Periwinkle", "Lavender", "Onyx", "Emerald", "Obsidian" etc etc etc...
Other than that the novel was just as insufferable as the main character until about 60-65% through and then suddenly its as if a butterfly RIPPED out of its cocoon, or maybe that Maas finally decided on what kind of story she wanted to write. It suddenly becomes much more tolerable, and as does Feyre. The action picks up, the story fleshes out, Feyre begins acting like a real person and not a twelve year old that decided she hates pink for the first time in her life (The tween misogyny era). From there it gets really good. Maas retroactively inserts as much meaning and foreshadowing as possible by shoving twists and double meaning into the end to make up for the absolute NOTHING that happened for the first half of the novel, and honestly I didn't hate that.
I'm not sold on the series as it has a large hole to climb out of in regards to the first half of the book and I'm really not fond of any character besides Lucien but I'm leaving it optimistic for not only the rest of the series but I think I might have enjoyed Throne of Glass more (as I really do not care for the romance bit. It's kind pointless to me and a little gross. I really don't need to hear about my 3 least favorite people trying to bang).
Now for shits and giggles I'm gonna give my opinions on the characters just so me and my buddies can laugh if I change my opinions later.
Feyre: Hated her at the beginning. Every action and line from her was like nails on a chalkboard to me. By the end I was completely neutral to her. However, I am a notorious main character hater so neutral is not bad.
Tamlin: Literally don't care. I thought he was okay at the beginning and I think my interest in his character ebbed away every time he "growled in pleasure".
Lucien: So fun, so compelling, so relatable. The most human and fleshed out character from the beginning and stayed that way the whole time. My favorite.
Rhysand: Pits of hell for him. I hate this guy and I hate his good guy act. I do not believe he can ever redeem himself in my eyes.
Nesta: I think there is more to her and we are cursed by only having Feyre'sextremely misogynistic and self-absorbed viewpoint.
Elain: I don't care.
Dad: Equally do not care.
Alis: On par with Lucien as the best character.
Amaranthe: Bad Bitch. Such a fun villain. The eye ring was such a fun touch. Also the voice actress they choose for her for the Graphic Audio version was incredible she sounded so nasty and so pretty.
I started reading this extremely trepidatiously as I do not enjoy Y.A., nor do I enjoy romance, nor do I often enjoy fantasy. I'm pretty solidly a horror/classics/sci-fi kind of person, but everyone and their mother has read this series and I honestly was kind of tired of going "Oh... It's not really my thing." only to then have to explain what "my thing" is to the confused and horror stricken faces in the room.
That being said it was both better and worse than I expected. In full honesty I hated it in the beginning. The only saving grace for this book was that Lucien was there and that I was listening to it on audiobook in environments where I could not freely change out of it-effectively holding myself captive to listen to it. I'm glad I did though. Everyone I knew said it gets much better very late into the book, normally I would not subject myself to consuming what is essentially a full sized book before this absolute tome decided it wanted to be actually good, but once again I held myself captive.
Now as far as better and worse:
Worse is not really the books fault but my own. I've been so deep in my own niche that I forgot how prevalent the "I'm not like other girls" trope is and when you haven't consumed anything like that in over ten years the sudden exposure to early novel Feyre who has ABSOLUTELY TERMINAL "I'm not like other girls disease" was maddening. I legitimately wanted her dead for the first half of the book. I was praying that one of her idiotic exploits would be her end and they'd switch narrators (I knew I wasn't that lucky). She does get much better though! I left the novel feeling absolutely neutral to her which is a massive step up from praying she dies.
My other large complaint is that I have no issue with most of the writing until Maas has to describe colors. The novel goes from normal and cohesive narration to using entire paragraph or throwing down the thesaurus just to describe a color. I understand that its a quirk of Feyre being an artist but I'm not sure if it pisses me off because 1. I'm colorblind and the more she describes a color the hazier and less understandable her descriptions become for me; 2 I am an artist myself and I know many artists we do not know color names like that, and the few that do only know branded color names not colloquial because it is only useful when purchasing premixed paints (which is just as pretentious of an activity as describing colors like Maas does); or 3. She is illiterate who the hell taught her "Periwinkle", "Lavender", "Onyx", "Emerald", "Obsidian" etc etc etc...
Other than that the novel was just as insufferable as the main character until about 60-65% through and then suddenly its as if a butterfly RIPPED out of its cocoon, or maybe that Maas finally decided on what kind of story she wanted to write. It suddenly becomes much more tolerable, and as does Feyre. The action picks up, the story fleshes out, Feyre begins acting like a real person and not a twelve year old that decided she hates pink for the first time in her life (The tween misogyny era). From there it gets really good. Maas retroactively inserts as much meaning and foreshadowing as possible by shoving twists and double meaning into the end to make up for the absolute NOTHING that happened for the first half of the novel, and honestly I didn't hate that.
I'm not sold on the series as it has a large hole to climb out of in regards to the first half of the book and I'm really not fond of any character besides Lucien but I'm leaving it optimistic for not only the rest of the series but I think I might have enjoyed Throne of Glass more (as I really do not care for the romance bit. It's kind pointless to me and a little gross. I really don't need to hear about my 3 least favorite people trying to bang).
Now for shits and giggles I'm gonna give my opinions on the characters just so me and my buddies can laugh if I change my opinions later.
Feyre: Hated her at the beginning. Every action and line from her was like nails on a chalkboard to me. By the end I was completely neutral to her. However, I am a notorious main character hater so neutral is not bad.
Tamlin: Literally don't care. I thought he was okay at the beginning and I think my interest in his character ebbed away every time he "growled in pleasure".
Lucien: So fun, so compelling, so relatable. The most human and fleshed out character from the beginning and stayed that way the whole time. My favorite.
Rhysand: Pits of hell for him. I hate this guy and I hate his good guy act. I do not believe he can ever redeem himself in my eyes.
Nesta: I think there is more to her and we are cursed by only having Feyre's
Elain: I don't care.
Dad: Equally do not care.
Alis: On par with Lucien as the best character.
Amaranthe: Bad Bitch. Such a fun villain. The eye ring was such a fun touch. Also the voice actress they choose for her for the Graphic Audio version was incredible she sounded so nasty and so pretty.
artfullysinful's review against another edition
4.0
Book is pretty good, really enjoyable read and a nice start to the series.
Docked a star however cause of one of the parts of the curse that made me roll my eyes (spoiler: the stone heart).
Overall a really good beauty and the beast retelling that had me hooked and I understand all the hype now.
Docked a star however cause of one of the parts of the curse that made me roll my eyes (spoiler: the stone heart).
Overall a really good beauty and the beast retelling that had me hooked and I understand all the hype now.