I feel like I have been here before.

An incredibly popular piece of fiction that is mostly popular with women. It's written to appeal to the female gaze and does not shy away from a female exploration of sexuality. Those who enjoy the novel are mocked and the novel given the title of “killing literature.” This isn’t the first time that the ACOTAR crave has been compared to the Twilight craze and it's not gonna be the last. But it really does feel the same. I wondered if ACOTAR was just getting shit on why booktubers and booktokers alike simply because it was the popular dumb girl thing to hate. How dare women have hobbies, am I right?

I did read Twilight as it came out while I was in middle school. It was kind of an easy way to make friends. But then the movies came out. And it was no longer cool to like those things. So entering high school, I dropped those interests and jumped on the bandwagon of making fun of it.

I think I have grown up a lot since then. I think we have all seen the Lindsay Ellis’s apology video to Stephanie Meyer, where we all collectively agreed that “yeah maybe hating on Twilight was a little bit about misogyny.” So when the hate around A Court of Thorn and Roses started making the rounds on Booktok I was sceptical. There was no way that this was “the fairy porn that was ruining literature as we know it.” I knew eventually I would read it.
So before I started the book, here is what I knew:

1) I had tried to read The Assassin's Blade by SJM but didn't get super far as I was not really enjoying it.
2) It was loosely based on Beauty and The Beast. A friend told me this and basically that in order to enjoy it I need to drop this idea entirely and not take it into consideration while reading it.
3) I knew the main male love interest would not be the same going into the next few books.
4) There were some characters with bat-wings.
5) There weren't actually that many sex scenes and weren’t as explicit as, say, Fourth Wing.

Actually Reading or Review? Section? IDK

Writing: One of the things I first notice about ACOTAR is that it is actually written fine. There are even some good descriptions of the setting and internal feelings of the characters. She definitely has a style and loves to use some words in a pretty unique way but thats just style not bad writing. I don't think anyone is gonna be raving about her prose but like its serviceable. I am not offended by it. Its also really easy to read. No barrier of entry here. Its very accessible to those who maybe haven't picked up a book in awhile. 

Plot: The book is split up into two parts. The first half is the romance and Beauty and the Beast retelling. This part is boring. In Beauty and The Beast, the audience already knows about the curse and how to break it, which is what causes tension in the story. I feel like the books biggest flaw is its first person narrative being fix on Feyre alone. I think if the reader knew about the curse from a 3rd person narrative or if we had swapped over to Tamales POV every once in awhile it could have created more narrative tension and made the slower parts of the book feel less so. Because this first half is SLOW. Under normal circumstance, I would have DNF-ed. The second half of the book has plot and high stakes, and is generally just a lot more interesting to read. 

Characters: I do not like or care for the main couple. I don't hate them they are just kind of boring. Feyre is always talking about her duty to her family and how much she loves them. However, I never felt any real conviction behind those words. Why the hell does Feyre love her family so much? From the time we spent with them none of her sisters seem to like her and her father is an enabler. You think she would be resentful. Kind of wish the book had shown more of a loving sister relationship and a love for her father so Feyre's desperation to contact them and make sure they were safe was more compelling. It would have made her motivations more understandable and feel more dire. Feyre is also a stereotypical " I'm not like other girls" main character which I can not stand. She literally complains about having to wear a dress because shes not like the other girls she loves pants. Hard eye-roll. Tamlin is just kind of here. Because we don't understand his motivations though out the narrative, I had a really hard time latching onto his character. If we had swapped to his POV once or twice and got to see him talk ing about the curse or id we knew about it before hand like I mentions, maybe he could have worked. The two characters were tolerable because of Lucien. Lucien had so much CHEMISTRY with BOTH Tamlin and Feyre. It was ridiculous. Lucien is like obviously Tamlin's best friend and the book often talks about their past interactions of how Tamlin was there for Lucien during his hardest times. There is even this one line when Tamlin says some shit like, "I claimed Lucian as my own." SIR. And then Lucien's relationship was with Feyre is built up just as much as Tamlin's. They go hunting, riding, they talk, they banter. He literally saves her fucking life in that dungeon. I thought they were for real gonna kiss. I was convinced that the book would start steering into a Tamlin/Feyre/Lucian triad ending. Which could have worked so well for the bland main couple and made their dynamic so much more interesting. Also he has a cool fucking robot eye. Whats not to love. Oh and then I guess Rhysand is there. IDK he seems like the "lovable asshole" type but I mostly just got the asshole vibes. I did not like him. I liked Tam better than I liked Rhysand but trust me thats like comparing two pairs of khaki pants.

Fairy Porn: I wanna comment on this part. There are in whole two sex scenes and only one of them is even close to being "explicit." Its very romance novel surface level descriptions. Its like, "oh the fires burning inside of me as we touched, it was ecstasy" and then the scene is over or some shit like that. It is by no length of the imagination, porn. There is no way this is the fairy porn ruining literature? Anyone who says that is off their fucking rocker. Maybe the books get way more explicit as we go on but this was nothing. Honestly, I was reading WAY harder stuff when I was in my teens on fanfiction dot net.

Overall Reading Thoughts

At the end of the day, ACOTAR is general fare YA that is okay. Its like the equivalent of eating toast. I love bread but I'm not seeking it out or writing home about this BOMB ASS slice of Wonder bread I ate. Bread is just fine and so is ACOTAR.