It’s the last time I’m taking a book suggestion from TikTok. People made it seem like it was a beautifully written sexy masterpiece. It wasn’t nearly as smutty as TikTok made it seem and I found Sarah J Maas’s writing to be cliche and juvenile. Everyone says the first book was the least interesting and to keep reading the rest of the series, but my disappointment wasn’t about not keeping my interest.
SJM used the same descriptive metaphors and phrases over and over and over again it was so exhausting to read. By the end of it I was physically rolling my eyes each time I read “I could never paint it” or “cords of muscle” or “buttery yellow” or “jade colored eyes”. The “I could/would never paint it” was especially annoying. The whole painter/artist thing she had going for Feyre was so forced. It was obvious that SJM knows nothing about painting and just thinks it sounds romantic and cool. I’m a painter myself and it was just so cringy. Like come on, Feyre has a dying Faerie screaming in agony in front of her and she’s thinking about painting? It’s like if someone wrote a book about a football player with no knowledge about football. And when someone dies in front of the main character they start thinking about football. That’s how ridiculous it was to me. And come on, the answer to the riddle is LOVE? Jesus Christ.
I could keep going on about all the things that made ACOTAR so bad, but I’ll stop now before I write a whole book about it.
I don’t know why I finished this book.
by pnutbutterfuck
50 Comments
I read it on a recommendation. It is just too YA for my personal taste. I finished this book, but I’m not interested in reading anymore of this series.
I haven’t ready her books but they’ve always been described to me as kids books with sex in them to make them “adult”.
I dont known if people on tiktok actually have read these books because they really werent “sexy”. The first books was for a younger audience but definitely aimed at high school girls for the series. Fayre doing stupid shit at even less of a good time is a common theme in this book, its chaming to a teenager but not as a grown adult.
I only made it through the first one and I was so bored it took me two tries. I have also tried Maas’s other two series and they are also bad. I don’t understand the hype at all.
I love these books but Feyres stupid painting is the cheesiest, stupidest part of the series lol
WithCindy on YouTube has a series reviewing the books! 10/10, check it out. They are hilarious videos to commiserate with!
To me, Sarah J Maas is like watching trashy reality TV. The writing/plot line/character development isn’t great but it is entertaining to some degree and it can be mindless fun. Don’t expect it to be pulitzer prize winning work 🤷♀️
I went into my read through of the series not taking anything seriously and just let myself enjoy the parts of the books that got my attention. SJM does make some interesting characters later on (the bone carver, the weaver, suriel, Amren, etc.) and sometimes the banter between characters is good. She also writes trauma very well with Feyre in the following book. In that regard, its fine when you know you’re reading “book candy”.
Her smut scenes in the ACOTAR series are on and off written “well”, I don’t mind reading these types of scenes as long as they’re there for a reason (showing the relationship growth between characters, how they interact in intimate scenes, to make the reader have a reaction (embarrassment, joy, disgust, etc.) But later on, and especially in the newest installment, the writing is just awful and uses cringe phrasing or words that make it difficult to get through.
I also find she has a bum leg of picking favourite characters and never letting consequences have lasting or dire effects so I couldn’t take any of the high stake conflicts seriously. She writes the beginning of plot lines and introductions to secondary characters well too, but I find a lot of them take a nose dive when she needs to sustain them or wrap them up.
it was good but also trash. second book is better but still trash. like… it’s objectively not good but also i loved it ??
If the title format is:
**A ___ of ___ and ___**
the book will be bad.
I couldn’t even read through it. Way too cringey stuff for me.
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…”the male” and “the female” used over and over again to the point where it was actually distracting me from the rest of the poor writing. Awful.
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Also finished it – no idea why.
These books are some of my favorites, but I read to enjoy, and I love trashy novels.
Long live my hate for Sarah j Maas. I hate her books. I hate them with passion. Years ago I picked up A court of thorns and Roses and was massively disappointed. All I got was a Mary Sue character and other hot, perfect characters who want to be with our Mary Sue.
I was stupid enough to order the second book since TikTok told me it would be so much better. No. It was not better. Same shit. Never again.
I got the first book from 2 of her series (this one and the one about the girl in prison who end up in a hunger games type deal… I dunno the real plot, I only got about 2 chapters in before DNF) and both were dreadful!
The worst part isn’t that they are YA, it that the general public accept such terrible writing as part of the YA genre.
The only reason these books get popular is because the MC is so bland and vaguely described that the reader can insert themselves into the MC and live vicariously through the story.
I am recently getting back into reading and after several attempts with different books, it was ACOTAR that pulled me in. Now, I am not proud of it. But something about the writing style (very simplistic, moves quickly) was more accessible to me than the other books I have picked up. But, to be honest, I find it terrible. I am almost done with it at this point and I have no idea why I have lasted so long. I agree that it’s like trashy TV. And it isn’t nearly smutty enough. Especially after everyone on TikTok was hyping it up for the “smut.” What, a couple of kisses and a half-assed sex scene? Where is this smut I was promised? I’m not even into hulking fairy dudes but I came for the smut and read through almost the entire book and I have still not seen any smut.
I also was really not into it and couldn’t finish it. I gave up when the male love interest chomped down on the ridiculously named Feyre’s neck, and it was supposed to be sexy. Instead it made me immediately give up on both the book and the author. It was so ridiculous and awkward, on top of all the book’s other flaws.
I hated it. I went into it expecting a hot read but found it pretty dull and basic. I seriously dislike Feyra. Haven’t brought myself to even try the next books
I’m still pushing my way through this book. The writing isn’t for me and SJM is known to be problematic, I just found this out. The names are really throwing me off too, I have to re read each sentence most of the time because the name just doesn’t make sense in my brain.
Almost like she thought the plot of 50 Shades of Grey was great to emulate. And just the plot, not the smut. Painfully predictable, infinitely forgettable.
Tiktok thinks kissing is smut 🙄
Ugh sooooo bad, I could barely finish the first book. And then I was like what the hell did I just read. I won’t be reading the rest of the series.
Lol the entire series is trashy romance. The first book was so bad, it felt like reading a cringe wattpad novel.
I honestly think the main appeal to Sarah J Maas’s work is that she started them as a teenager, like 16 iirc? And added the last book when she was in her 30’s. So in a way, her story and her protagonist actually grow with her. I can see why it would be popular on Booktok. There is some charm in that.
However I confess that I haven’t read her books myself. I am *not* the audience, and I read one page from *Thornes and Roses* and did not pick up the book lol.
A good friend telling me these books were “life-changing” and “keep getting better” is the main reason I have trust issues
my issue with it was that it was so boring. it was a slog to get through, it felt like nothing happened the whole book until the very end, and I only remember 3 character names and nothing else about either plot or characters.
I found it completely disappointing and boring. I LOVED the Throne of Glass series (though I completely skipped Tower of Dawn because…Chaol) but ACOTAR was so disappointing that I was completely put off her writing completely.
I thought they were among the worst books I’ve read in years.
imo the books after are much better, that was is boring but i agree that her writing is pretty juvenile. i never really liked her writing itself but i like the story content if yk what i mean so i enjoyed the books after that. i lowk wish she was just a better writer LOL
The second book is better, trust me, but the entire ACOTAR series was a dumpster fire. If you are looking for a slightly better fantasy-adult book, try Crescent City.
I wasn’t disappointed because I went in expecting it to be amusingly bad.
Also I can’t discuss ACOTAR without reminding everyone that Feyre suffers grievous bodily harm, gets extorted into being a guy’s mind-controlled lapdance machine, and murders two innocent people all because she couldn’t solve the world’s easiest riddle. And then she solves the riddle.
Yes! I’ve read the first three in the series because I can’t just not finish it, but they get worse imo. I felt lied to after reading them because of all the hype. The way SJM writes these books makes me believe that she either 1) believes her readers to be idiots or 2) is an idiot herself. They are juvenile (in prose and plot), boring, and predictable.
I was. I read so much of the book and couldn’t see a single genuine emotion from any character… It was not my thing.
YES. However, the fandom swears book 1 is the absolute worst and they get a lot better. I’ll be plunging into the second soon.
I could not finish the book, abandoned it less than 1/4 of the way through.
I told my sister I had picked that book up because I wanted to know what “the kids” were reading these days and her first reaction was “people still read her?” And her second reaction was “stop at the second book” so apparently it goes even more downhill from there according to one redditors sister
I read the first three books for the funnies and then it stopped being funny when Feyre >!tried to forcibly out Mor because Feyre had a tantrum about being scolded for wandering off into a fucking battlefield without telling anyone.!<
Why does she always say something was torn into ribbons??? I wish she varied up the imagery
The riddle is stupid, Rhysand is stupid, everything is stupid and Feyre even more. I honestly started to read the book, really, really wanting to like it. Because i love series, i love reading a shit ton of books in the same universe, and considering ACOTAR is a trilogy, i really wanted to like, but honestly, i found it very boring. Feyre is a bland protagonist, i thought she had more chemistry with the love interest friend and the whole premise of the book is stupid. Sarah J Maas writing is filled with repetitive words and phrases, and not even the smut is good. I found to be a really boring book, and i didn’t even bother to read more of the other books because i knew she would butcher Tamlin character in favour of Rhysand, what i think is ridiculous.
I personally enjoyed ACOTAR, but I also came in with low expectations (ie., I’d watched WithCindy’s reviews about the series at some point and expected it to be kind of schlocky). When a book is hyped up a lot, I hesitate to read it because I’m afraid of being disappointed.
I’m on A Court of Mist and Fury now and yeah, I enjoy it, but I can understand why other people don’t. There are definitely a lot of eye-rolling moments (a lot of which, so far, is Rhys putting Feyre in dangerous situations and then having a shocked Pikachu face . png when she gets mad at him for it).
I got a third of the way in and haven’t been able to finish it. I really want to give it a good try, but life is too short to waste on books I feel meh about, and I’ve moved on to books I’m enjoying more.
Two words: *watery bowels*
I bought the first book on audible based on the 36,000 five star reviews. I have forced myself to listen to TEN HOURS of this crap and I can’t do it anymore. Awful waste of time. Juvenile. Repetitive. Easily figured out. Frustratingly stupid characters.
oh thank god it’s not just me. I don’t know if I can trust booktok smut recommendations anymore and I hate that I wasted an audible credit on this. I was 100% just here for the smut and there was next to nothing. I literally saw a tiktok of woman basically saying she was pregnant because she was so hot and bothered from reading these books….I’ve never been so disappointed by a book. Like the book might have been fine had I not seen so many people proclaim about how steamy it was, but I also probably wouldn’t have bothered with it because I only downloaded it cuz I was in a smutty mood lmao
I also thought this was going to be a magical book, but it followed the same stupid fantasy genre plot line. Mortal must change the rules / mix up the immortals like shut uuup. If Feyre asks Tamlin if there’s anything she can do to save or help him I’m gonna lose it, she has literally no power why does she keep asking like she can do ANYTHING except be his escape?? Also the masks are random and goofy like what
These books came so highly recommended. I’m currently on the third and continually just roll my eyes and say, “this is dumb” or “gee, I wonder what happens next,” or “wow…. didn’t see that coming” and then keep reading.
Particularly the first book, I found to be a smattering of stolen plot lines and ideas. But I suppose they worked in other books, so why not here?
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Also… watery bowels? Really?!
Glad to find this thread because I just finished the first book and was so disappointed. The repetition of phrases was exhausting and the cliche predictability of the riddle was ridiculous. Within the first minute of Amarantha saying the riddle I was thinking “if it’s something cliche like love I’m going to throw this book”
I didn’t like it because the romance felt like it came from nowhere. One minute she was a slave and the next she love him. Weird and abrupt
How is someone falling for a woman who murdered and skinned their friend, and admits to doing it out of race hate. Struggling to finish because I can’t get over it. I feel like a better author would have toned that WAY down. Like maybe she thought it was a wolf and leave the skinning part out.