I read the ACOTAR series and I loved them. I understand the hate around Sarah J Maas and I would have felt uncomfortable reading her books if I knew what she had done but I read them before finding out her true colors. However I loved the characters and the plot even though some scenes were questionable. Is there any reason why people hate the book series?
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what did she do?
I think the hate is just loud. Plenty of people love the series. I think in general people might not like the series because they were unaware that it is heavily based around romance and relationships, they think her books are overrated, or they find them problematic in some way.
I personally found the main character to be insufferable. I just can’t stand when a hero is so stubborn for no reason to the point of not thinking logically.
I enjoyed them on first reading, but upon reflection Rhys isn’t all that great? He repeatedly puts Feyre in uncomfortable situations that she should need to give explicit consent to, and his characterization in ACOSF was a super iffy to me
I don’t hate them by any means, but they’re not as enjoyable to me as they once were
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Other than the problematic issues like lack of POC and LGBTQIA+ characters
– I hated her writing style and what she did with the characters e.g in the first book Tamlin is this good,loveable character but all of a sudden in the next book he is the bad guy
Rhys in the first book is a bad character but suddenly in the second book he is a good character with MASSIVE knowledge in feminism
– I hated Acomaf because of the huge massive info load , for me in books I love more of showing rather telling
Ps. I understand why people loved this book ..this book was
for those people who read books for enjoyment only and do not dive in to what the author is trying to depict
Sorry to be coming to this thread so late but i have to vent about this book. I had picked up this book on a whim and a friend really encouraged me to read it because they loved it. So I started reading. Please know that this is just my opinion and I don’t judge anyone that enjoyed this book.
I got to about chapter 16 and could not continue. The plot and the characters are all sooo unbelievabley cringey. There was one scene (Tamlin kissing Feyre’s bloody hands to heal her wounds) I read that literally made me laugh out loud and I just had to put the book down.
This book is Twilight meets Beauty and the Beast in the worst way possible. There is no substance. Every scene is just an exercise in bad romance writing. Apparently the author wrote the first draft in only five weeks and it really shows. The main character’s mood shifts inexplicably from one scene to the next completely unprompted to the point where she doesn’t come off as a believable character. One moment she has lovey dovey butterflies in her stomach (and seems to have no idea what that means despite being 19 years old), and two seconds later, she is pissed off and intentionally cutting her hands on rose thorns. It made no sense. Not to mention the fact that the author makes such a big deal out of her liking to paint. How *surprised* Tamlin is that a human would like painting and *oh my gosh isn’t that just so quirky*?
There’s way too much “telling, not showing”. In this book. There’s a whole scene where Tamlin just *tells* Feyre Lucien’s entire backstory instead of *showing* us Lucien’s backstory. It feels lazy.
I gave up and just read the plot synopsis for the rest of the book because I knew I probably wasn’t going to finish it. After laughing at multiple points in just the synopsis, I think quitting was the right decision. Now I don’t want to tell my friend how much I hated it.
Because it’s Twilight but fairies and the only people that actually likes the book are for guilty pleasure, which isn’t wrong of course.
Another thing is the constant recommendation saying “it’s one of the best books of x year” when it’s absolutely one of the worst in fiction history. I also don’t understand when people like it for the “plot” and “character development” when there’s none
I started reading this book because everyone was freaking out about it and I do love sci-fi/fantasy and sex scenes but good lord. The writing is terrible. Storyline full of implausibilities and cringe. For instance, how is it that Feyre’s family has been living in abject poverty for 8 years, and yet her sisters spend their days braiding hair and living like ladies while Feyre does everything? Not possible. And they make fun of her when she returns from a hunt with food even though they’re literally starving? A bridge too far. I guess creating catty drama between the sisters was more important than setting up a scenario that made any freaking sense at all. You can probably guess, I didn’t make it past the first chapter. If the author can’t get that right, it’s not going to get better. Maybe I’d be more impressed if I was under the legal drinking age.
I hated them because I am a fantasy reader. This is not really a fantasy book. It’s a romance book in a weakly built fantasy setting. I went in hoping for something like A Song of Ice and Fire or Stormlight Archives. This is not even close. Also I hate Feyre, she is unlikeable and deliberately contrary, which nearly gets her killed several times and she still doesn’t learn!! ACOMAF was better, but not good enough to continue the series.
Just read it and found this thread, so I’ll add my thoughts as well:
– Feyre is a budget Katniss Everdeen. A “we have a Katniss at home” Everdeen lmao. We are supposed to believe she is such a great survivalist but she goes on to make the dumbest choices throughout the book. This one fire night really made me cringe. She’s told to remain in her room, ventures out and almost gets gang-raped by three fairies, then gets rescued and returns to her bedroom only to SNEAK OUT again that same night because she wanted a midnight snack. Y’all I could not stand it 😂 also it was ridiculous how easy everything came to her – like summoning the Suriel. She had Mary Sue and self-insert written all over her character. For that reason I disliked the first-person perspective because I felt like I was trapped inside the mind of a goldfish. No thoughts, just vibes.
I just didn’t enjoy the general writing, there were a lot of strange metaphors like Feyre’s bowels turning to water (?) that took me out of the scenes + lengthy exposition delivered through monologues by random side characters. Pretty much all characters were flat and one-dimensional. The villain was pretty much a cartoon character, the whole trials and riddle thing made no sense to me, she had no reason to even grant her the trials and the riddle was beyond stupid because you could figure it out immediately and we are told Feyre spends days trying to find the answer. It’s just beyond frustrating to watch.
Well I just want to add fuel to this bonfire:)
This might be the single worst book I’ve ever read. For ref, I’m a 20-some girl who enjoys fantasy and mystery..
Pros:
– Fantasy
– YA, wanted something easy to read to replace Netflix
– That’s really about it!
Cons….
– First 40pages is digestible but after that, it becomes a pretty cringey rendition of a much worse beauty and the beast X high fantasy
– If you’re ONLY looking for an ansty, fan service YA book, then this might work out.
– It’s 80% the main character psycho analyzing if the guy has a crush on her, 10% beauty and the beast, 5% high fantasy, 5% world building
– No prose as all, had me wondering if an AI wrote it
– 50% of fanfiction online is better, I wish I was exaggerating
– Not sure how this has such high praise and reviews? This coming from someone who once read and enjoyed Twilight and The Hunger Games:)
But I guess take this with a grain of salt because I stopped a third of the way through.
I know this is an old thread but I’m really not feeling this book. Anything better out there?
I just started A Court of Silver Flames today. It has been a huge struggle to continue this series.
Every character’s narrative voice is almost a carbon-copy of each other. If there is a POV it’s constantly full of self-doubt, whining, and trauma dumping. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the trauma is valid and real, but as a reader, I don’t want to be reminded every other paragraph what they went through when they were younger. There are better literary devices to showcase some form of coping or PTSD. Across 6 books, it’s always been Telling instead of Showing.
The next issue I have is the lack of a coherent plot. I understand this is primarily a romance, so I tend to let that slide in favor of strong interpersonal relationships. I think this is where SJM truly has strengths as a writer. Her interactions and dialogue between characters really shines and almost juxtaposes the bad worldbuilding and narrative voice. I firmly believe that if she didn’t have best sellers, she would have been a better screenwriter than an author.
The last issue I have is with how the main cast of characters are presented and interact with the world. Feyre and Friends all have really high official positions of power and leadership. We rarely see them doing anything related to those positions. If we do, the characters are often the ones performing duties expected to be accomplished by lower officials. One character is a general, but you never see him drawing up battle plans, assessing reports, handling military logistics, etc.. Instead he occasionally drops down to the actual person running the army and reminds them to train the females before personally training the main character of whatever book you are on. These characters don’t actually perform their roles in the capacity they are presented with, and that’s if they are working at all. Many of them seem to just hang out around Feyre and Rhys.
i mean, i like it the same way i enjoy fast food, i suppose. and that thought is enough to send a chill spider-walking up my spine lol.
i hate how no one talks about feyre herself being childish and problematic. Tamlin had trauma and suffered too….and when she irresponsibly wants to put herself in danger so often…I don’t blame him fully for becoming like that…i mean what would you do to protect the ones you love? Yes it got toxic but still…not to mention…she FAKE AF…like book 1 you are all oh High Lord Tamlin i want you all over me and suddenly she is like EW you won’t let me ignore queen responsibilities and go d*e hunting monsters? F*ck me Rhysand I love you even though you used to be disgusting and scary to me?😮why is no one EVER picking on Feyre?
I’m on like chapter 20 of the audiobook version and thought “I’ll give this a whirl” because book tok had been raving about it and I too know people who loved it but oh man… I thought I was going crazy because the writing comes off as genuinely cringey far too often and the main character being so stubborn for the sake of being contrarian is insufferable. 100% agree with the poster who said it gives off Twilight mixed with Beauty and the Beast in the worst way possible (I read Twilight when I was in jr. high school then tried to read the first book again in college and simply could not get past the second chapter). I’ll probably keep going since I’m just listening to the audiobook version until my next actual book comes in the mail, but I’m so glad I found this thread because I now feel much less alone with my thoughts on this book thus far 😅😂
I have found my people ❤️
These books are so bad. Apart from all the valid criticisms already detailed here, they desperately need just a good edit.
How many body parts must tighten in these books? How many times must we hear about someone’s mouth becoming a thin line? Ahhhhhhhhh I die.
Glad I found this before investing in the series 🙃
This book is written like a parody of how fanfiction is written, and it’s written so poorly that it’s an insult to fanfiction. Hell, I can think of at least 3 smutty fanfics better than this, with much greater attention to world building, character development, and a compelling romantic subplot. One of them is just a A/B/O AU with extra steps, one of them is from the Sonic Fandom, and I’m 75% sure one of them was written by a 15 year old.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with reading brainrot and senseless whatever the hell –one of my favorite books is The Playground and the setting building sucks while a lot of gross things happened for no reason– but this by no means is even close to one of the greatest books written. If I was a writing professor, I’d bring this book in to class to highlight all the ways you SHOULDNT write a story. How you shouldnt rely so heavily on similies, or a thesaurus, or how you should write about things you understand to at least some degree like how anorexia works, or what it’s like to have a disabled parent or codependency issues, or what it’s like to be poor. How you should build your environment and never assume your audience can picture your fantastical area in your head down to a T. How to SHOW what a character is like and not TELL us what a character is like. How to make a character believable and not be a super badass skinny girl who’s not too skinny but just the right about of skinny and doesn’t need to eat for weeks on end and still have enough energy to go hunting which she taught herself how to do since she was 11, and she comes from a poor family who’s so poor they have to drink hot water from a chipped –not broken, chipped– mug to at least get the sensation of a nice cup of tea, as all poor people do. Said family consists of a lazy father who woke up one morning and decided to be disabled and unable to provide for the family if he wanted to and two awful older sisters who’s supposed to not only read her mind and treat her with more respect without her asking, but shower her with praise everytime she comes home with a deer neither of them asked her to go get. And oh gee life is so miserable but she can’t leave her home because she made a promise to her dying mom to watch over the family which she can’t break or else the world will explode and is not at all something she hides behind so she can complain for the sake of complaining.
Awful.
Don’t get me wrong, these people are real, I knew one, but they’re very unlikable and I don’t care about their life.
I normally don’t care cause I live by a ‘don’t like don’t read’ standard of living, but my best friend wanted to start a book club with this book, and I can’t convince her that this book is not my cup of tea and I’d rather peel my nails off than finish it without her saying I just need to give it a few more chapters before it gets good and I’M the problem if I don’t like it. She swears up and down this is a well written masterpiece and I just need to give it a chance to grow in my heart. I know it won’t get good, I know the author already demonstrated the highlight of her writing skills, the “give it til season 4” excuse for something I don’t like is and always will be bull crap, and I wont be able to live by my code of contact for an unbearable God knows how many months, so thank you for this forum so I can take out my frustration.
Just finished the book. One thing I really disliked or found sad is that she becomes immortal in the end. Many of these fantasy books first make being human out to be something special, because she was so taken and appreciative of the beauty she saw around her, but in the end (the same with twilight) it’s like “no, being human sucks, having to die and stuff, let’s make the main character immortal and beautiful and strong. Who’d want to be human anyway?
For me it’s the tragedy and beauty of being human and putting your life on the line for the ones you love and having to enjoy every day like it were your last. But I understand it might leave a bitter aftertaste knowing the female hero has to die before her mate.
Still. I wish the portrayal of being human as something so inconvenient were dialed down. We might be “weak” in many ways but I don’t see a need to always replace humanity with immortality if we feel just as strongly or even more as those fantasy creatures on the book.