** TV Announcer Voice ** This re-reading was brought to you by the PSYC 3XX term paper. Because — as bad as marking 57 undergrad essays is — it’s not as bad as almost being eaten by the middengard wyrm.
deep sigh.
If you haven’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses yet, you should probably give it a go. While marketed as a young adult book, Thorns definitely falls into the new adult category — and, even then, the material is pretty dark. (Like, really dark. It prompted a half-hour long conversation between myself and the bookstore clerk about book marketing strategies.)
The book follows Feyre, an impoverished human hunter who’s dragged into to the world of fairies after not-so-accidentally killing a wolf. The story is roughly divided into two parts: in the first, we see Feyre recovering from years of poverty and neglect; in the second, Feyre gets tossed into the brutal world of fairy politics.
A fellow PhD student recommended this series to me about a year ago — and, since then, I’ve re-read/re-listened to the book … many times. The writing is simple and the plot is straightforward, and I know things well enough by this point to be able to listen while working on some other task. There’s something about the story that’s so compelling — something that I just love coming back to.
Feyre is a flawed and sometimes irritating character — but also exceptionally empathetic. Her process of healing/discovery is slow, often interrupted, and organic: similar to what we’d expect of a real person faced with horrendous circumstances. She’s not an empty shell who wanders the pages à la Bella Swan.
If you’re some who’s already read book #2, can we just take a moment to appreciate: “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
I’ve just been given another 120 papers to mark, so I guess it’s on to A Court of Wings and Fury.
The Details:
- The Book: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
- Published: 2013, Bloomsbury
- My Copy: VIRL
- Read date: March 31 – April 2, 2019
- Rating: ★★★★☆
- You should read this if you like … arms-length Beauty & the Beast retellings
- Avoid this if you dislike … triggers. triggers everywhere.
The Geeky Jock 