Leisure Reading

Fae Fantasy

A Court of Thorns and Roses

by Sarah J. Maas

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever. *
 

Reviewed by Erin Elizabeth Whitaker - Student Success Librarian for Information Literacy

For me the A Court of Thorns and Roses series was an instant obsession. I had been in a reading rut for some time and escaping to Prythian was just what I needed. There’s magic, Fae, romance, and riddles—what more could a person want? In the first installment, the eponymous A Court of Thornes and Roses, the reader is introduced to Feyre and her family, who live along the border wall that divides the human and Fae realms. After Feyre kills a wolf while hunting for her starving family's dinner, she is spirited away to the land of the Fae by a mysterious creature. It just so happens that this beast is actually a Fae ruler who's under a curse that only Feyre can break. But, as always with the faeries, nothing is as it seems. If you're into romance, fantasy, and fairy tales, this retelling of Beauty and the Beast lives up to the hype!

If you’re a TikTok user who’s ever found themselves on “BookTok”, you’ve no doubt heard of Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series. If you’re on the fence about reading it, now is the time to jump in—the series has a lot of titles already released, but is ongoing. Maas has promised a crossover with her other series Crescent City, so there’s plenty of opportunity to stick with your favorite characters through many books. And it’s those characters that really make the series. While Maas is a good world-builder, she excels at writing interactions between characters and exploring and developing their relationships.

You can find this book in the Hodges Library Leisure Reading Collection found in the Miles Reading Room on the first floor. Check it out and let us know what you think of the book! Make sure to tag your responses on social media with #utksharedshelf so we can see what you think! 

* Book Description and image provided by Goodreads