A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) Review and Recap

A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) by Sarah J. Maas is arguably one of the most well-known books in today’s day and age. This is the book that will keep popping up in your TikTok and Instagram feeds. I’ll admit that it took me quite some time to finally commit to this series, but it is worth it in the end. The story is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, so if that was your favorite Disney movie growing up, you’re in for a heck of a ride!

Who should read this book…

Fantasy newbies. If you’re new to the genre and you like the concept of fantastical and magical elements, definitely give this book a go.

Perfect if you like…

• Magic
• Beauty and the Beast
• Spring and or flowers
• Painting
• A hint of a slow burn
• Fantastical world-building
• Action and adventure

Non-spoiler review

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Court of Thorns and Roses, more affectionately known as ACOTAR, is the first book in the widely known ACOTAR series. To be completely honest with you, this book is my least favorite out of the 15 books within the Maasverse. That’s not to say I don’t find it enjoyable; it just starts out slower (in my opinion) than the rest of Sarah J. Maas’s books. The first time I read it, I felt like I had to fight to get through the first 50 pages. I was also at a slight disadvantage, as I went in knowing many spoilers for the series, which dramatically altered how I viewed this first book. I honestly didn’t understand the hype of the series until I got to book two, so I can confidently tell you that IT’S WORTH IT. With book two under my belt, I have so much more respect for this book. I rated this book four stars because of my preconceived notions; since I mostly knew what to expect, it was a less exciting read. The story begins with nineteen-year-old Feyre hunting in the woods to feed her poor, starving family. The book, in essence, is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast – except Feyre is illiterate and not a bookworm like Belle. The plot moves at a glacial pace until midway through the book, where you shoot from 0 to 100 in the span of five pages. For this reason, I think ACOTAR is a fantastic book for fantasy newcomers. You are given time to adjust to the world-building and the characters before everything ramps up. So, at the end of the day, I think this book is worth the read because it allows you to experience a phenomenal series, but in my opinion, new fantasy readers will enjoy this book more than those of us who are well-versed in the common tropes.


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SPOiler Zone

Welcome, welcome to the ACOTAR recap. Fair warning: this will be a recap of the entire book, so there will be spoilers ahead (but no spoilers beyond book 1). You have been warned…

At the beginning of our fairytale retelling, you meet the lovely, grungy, half-starved Feyre, a cunning nineteen-year-old girl who is out in the woods hunting to feed her poor family. While she’s in the woods in the dead of winter, she finds a big bad wolf, and surprise, surprise – she kills it with her bow and arrow.

The beginning section details the border that divides the human realm from the notorious fae realm, where all of the big, nasty fae that love torturing humans live. We also learn that Feyre is the sole provider for her father and two older sisters, the sweet Elain and the sassy Nesta. Her father was once a wealthy merchant, but he lost all his money from a bad deal, and some thugs came to beat him up and shattered his leg, so now he can barely walk. When food ran out because the family’s only source of income was her father’s poor wood carvings, Feyre took it upon herself to keep her family alive.

Unfortunately, there was a consequence to pay for shooting that big bad wolf because, guess what – he was fae. Killing the wolf that was fae apparently broke the Treaty set between the human and fae realms, and since Feyre did the deed, she had to pay the consequence. A beast man shows up at her family’s cottage and tells her that she can either die out on the front lawn, or spend the rest of her life in the fae realm as her debt for killing the wolf. So, Feyre finds herself saying farewell to her crappy family and getting escorted through the wall and into Prythian.

The very moment Feyre finds herself in foreign, lush green lands, she wants to escape. We learn that the beast that took her is a High Fae shapeshifter named Tamlin. Upon arrival at Tamlin’s manor, we also meet the red-haired Lucien, Tamlin’s right hand and emissary, who is pissed at Feyre for killing his friend (the wolf). Every fae that Feyre meets is wearing some sort of elaborate masquerade animal mask.

Feyre gathers information where she can, trying to protect herself and gain a sense of her surroundings before she attempts to run away from this land of eternal spring. Tamlin and Lucien try to question her and get to know her, but she doesn’t trust anything or anyone. She doesn’t want to eat their food or wear their clothes. She has been taught her whole life that all fae are monsters with a deep interest in killing humans and inflicting maximum pain. 

Tamlin tells Feyre of a mysterious sickness, a blight, that is harming the lands and threatens the whole continent, including the human realm. This blight is also the reason they all have to wear the strange animal masks. Feyre corners Lucien and tries to get him to persuade Tamlin to let her go, but he is no help, saying that he would prefer to have her gone, but that there is no way. 

While Feyre is out with Lucien, they are attacked by a nasty creature called the Bogge. Later that same night, Feyre sees her father coming to rescue her! Except, no, it was just a magical hallucination, and Tamlin has to rescue her from attempting to walk into the deadly woods alone at night. She argues that she needs to return to her family because she is their sole provider and she made a promise to her dead mother that she would take care of them. Tamlin simply informs her that he has ensured that her family is provided for and will be able to survive without her. And then he runs out to the woods to hunt down the Bogge because he is the only one powerful enough to destroy it. 

Now knowing she can’t leave, Feyre works to write a letter to her family letting them know she is alright, but her illiteracy makes this challenging. Tamlin comes back from his hunt, and Feyre helps him bandage his hand, and he speaks more about the looming threat of the blight and how he is the only one who stands a chance of stopping it. 

Since Feyre still feels like she knows nothing, she asks Lucien how to catch the Suriel, a creature of knowledge that will answer anything if you catch it. Specifically, she wants to learn about the blight, how to stop it, and how to protect her family. When she captures the Suriel, she learns that Tamlin is the High Lord of the Spring Court (aka, where she has been this entire time). The Suriel also tells her to “stay with the High Lord” and begins telling the story of the King of Hybern, who hates humans, but then they are attacked by naga (more nasty monster creatures). 

Feyre frees the Suriel so it can run, and then fights off the naga the best she can. Ultimately, Tamlin swoops in to rescue/helps her defeat them. After the rescue moment, Feyre and Tamlin bond some more. They go on walks in the glen, talk a lot, and Tamlin fixes up the Spring Court art gallery for Feyre when he learns that she likes painting. Art was the only ounce of joy she got in the cottage with her family; she would paint wherever she could just to add a pop of life and color. Among their heart-to-heart conversations, Feyre reveals her feelings and trauma from her family and learns that Tamlin’s family was killed and that he was never meant to be High Lord. Somewhere along the road, Feyre finds that she is beginning to care for Tamlin (like a lot).

Calanmai approaches, where Tamlin will have to perform some mysterious Great Rite to keep the lands alive and healthy. Feyre is told to stay inside while they do ritual stuff and light big bonfires, but like the little rebel she is, she sneaks out. Feyre almost gets abducted by some creeps, but is saved by a handsome stranger and returns to the manor. Tamlin comes back from the Great Rite, where he had to get pretty dang close with another female, and then he comes back and goes all territorial beast man on Feyre. But of course, they make up the next day, and she shows him his painting, and they are all cute and nauseating. 

The squad discovers a nasty, dead head on a spike in the lawn, a gift from the evil Night Court. But this gift is quickly forgotten as Feyre gets to go to the Summer Solstice party, where she gets drunk, dances while Tamlin plays the fiddle, and then kisses him several times. 

The following day, while Feyre and Tamlin are flirting (and Lucien is third wheeling), Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court, and the handsome stranger who saved Feyre on Calanmai, pulls up. Tamlin and Lucien quickly attempt to hide Feyre, but fail. Rhysand, Rhys, taunts Tamlin with plot points Feyre doesn’t understand yet and takes her fragile human mind in his hands with his powers and scares the crap out of everyone before giving a big warning to Tamlin. 

With Rhys’ threat looming, Tamlin decides to send Feyre back to the human lands. The two spend the night, one last night, together, and Tamlin tells Feyre he loves her before sending her off to return to the human realm. He sends her away for her safety because he knows he can’t protect her from the blight, and he hates the thought of her being hurt. 

Feyre returns to the human lands to find her family restored to their former glory, with money and support (all from Tamlin). Tamlin placed a glamour, an illusion, over their memory so they don’t actually know where Feyre was, and they still believe the glamour. But no matter how good her mortal life is now, Feyre feels hollow without her Spring Court man. She discovers that her mean and cold sister, Nesta, wasn’t actually under the glamour’s spell, and that beneath her cold exterior, she cared and went out to search for Feyre beyond the border. So, Feyre confides in her older sister about everything that happened and finally understands the depth of her love for Tamlin. 

Things ramp up when Feyre hears that her neighbor, Clare Beddor, and her entire family died in a horrible fire. Feyre freaks out because Clare Beddor was the name she gave Rhysand in place of hers, so now she knows that something is going on in Pyrthain, and she knows she has to go back for her man. So Feyre loads up and heads back to the Spring Court manor. She heads home. 

And THIS is where the entire plot of the book is revealed. Feyre arrives at the manor to find it empty except for Alis, her helpful maid. It turns out the blight was actually this mean lady, Amarantha. Amarantha was a soldier for the King of Hybern, but she had an especially big grudge against humans because her sister was killed by a human who claimed to love her. So she came to the courts of Prythian as a representative of the King of Hybern, saying she wanted to increase trade and communication, but in reality, she was just plotting to take over the continent. 

So one day, Amarantha did it, she betrayed the King of Hybern and all the courts and single-handedly dragged everyone important Under the Mountain – a little lair underneath the central mountain of the continent. She tricked everyone into drinking a potion that stole most of their magic, so she held all of the power. Under the Mountain, she ruled over them all cruelly and worked to gather her forces to destroy the wall to the human realm so that she could overtake and pillage the realm as revenge for the death of her sister. 

Eventually, Amarantha decided she wanted Tamlin, as she had grown to lust after him. But Tamlin refused, saying he would sooner marry a human than touch her, and Amarantha got all mad and made a cruel little game and plan for him. She cursed him at a masquerade ball (which is why everyone has masks) and said that if he could get a human girl who killed a fae to love him within the next 49 years, she would restore his power. **Enter Feyre’s plot line.**

Alis basically guilt-trips Feyre and is like, ‘If only you told him you loved him, everything would be fine!’ But Feyre is done playing games and running away, so she decides to go after Tamlin, Under the Mountain, and confronts Amarantha. When Feyre enters the tunnels, she is taken by the Attor, Amarantha’s head lapdog, to Amarantha herself. She finds Tamlin, who shows no reaction to her presence, and sees Clare Beddor’s body mutilated and nailed to the wall. 

Despite her fear, Feyre manages to strike a deal with Amarantha. Complete three tasks, and Tamlin is hers. His curse will be broken, and they will get to leave free. She must complete the tasks or answer Amarantha’s riddle, where the curse will be broken instantaneously. And so Feyre accepts, and her horrible time under the mountain begins. 

Feyre gets beaten up real good by the Attor and is thrown in a musty dungeon cell, where Lucien comes to heal her. He tells her that Tamlin is trying to act like he doesn’t care so that Amarantha won’t see what affects him most. It is the best way he can think of to protect everyone, mainly Feyre. Also, the shady Rhysand (aka Amarantha’s whore) is back. Rhys appears to be under Amarantha’s finger, but Feyre isn’t convinced because he lies and says he doesn’t recognize her when she knows he clearly does.

So Feyre just gets to live in a gross little cell until her first trial, a fight with the Middengard Wyrm, a giant slimy blind thing with rows of teeth that eats flesh and leaves behind bones. The entire court watches and places bets on how long she will last, but Feyre surprises them all and lays a trap that gets the wyrm killed. But now she is deeply wounded and sent back to her cell, where she is slowly dying from her injuries.

Rhys finds her in her miserable state and strikes a bargain to help heal her. After all the trials and when they all go free, Feyre will have to spend one week every month in the Night Court with Rhys. With the terms agreed, Rhys heals her, and Feyre lives to see another day.

She then becomes more involved with Rhys, as she is essentially his champion now. He manages to get her better meals than stale bread and gets the guards of her cell to stop messing with her. But then, he starts to have her dressed up and painted like a doll before parading her in front of the court, where she gets drunk on faerie wine every night and has to dance before them all like a puppet. She’s just glad that she manages to black out once she has the wine, so she doesn’t remember most of the misery of the situation.

The second trial arrives and breaks Feyre more than anything. She must answer a puzzle etched on the wall and pull the correct lever before deadly spikes crush her and Lucien. But since Feyre can’t read, she practically falls apart in the middle of the trial. Thankfully, Rhys helps her cheat, guiding her to the correct lever and speaking to her mind to help her stand tall before the court, only for her to crumble from her own feelings of inadequacy once she reaches her cell. 

Another month passes of Feyre being Rhys’ pet at parties until the last day before her final trial. Feyre is gradually accepting that she won’t be leaving alive. She can’t figure out Amarantha’s riddle, and she realizes that even if she wins the final trial, she never clarified in her bargain with Amarantha WHEN they could all go free. At the last party, Tamlin sneaks to make out with Feyre one last time, and they are nearly caught. Rhys finds them, and Tamlin runs away, but then Amarantha enters the hall, and Rhys kisses Feyre to try and cover up for what she and Tamlin had gotten into.

At the final task, Feyre is asked to stab three innocent faeries through the heart. The first two are unmasked, and she battles with herself but kills them, in hopes that she can defeat this final trial and their deaths won’t be for nothing. But the last she must stab is, gasp, Tamlin! In a twist, Feyre does stab Tamlin through the heart, but because he has a literal heart of stone, he lives.

But just as Feyre thought, she didn’t specify when Amarantha would let everyone go, so Amarantha charged to finally kill Feyre. She demands that Feyre admit that she doesn’t love Tamlin, but Feyre won’t. So Amarantha slowly breaks her bones and tortures her. Rhys cries out Feyre’s name and picks up her forgotten dagger, attempting to kill Amarantha, but fails. While she is tortured, Feyre finally uncovers the answer to the riddle that will free them instantaneously: love. But then Amarantha snaps her spine. 

With Feyre answering the riddle, Tamlin’s full power was released, and he destroyed Amarantha where she stood, shredding her to pieces. But Feyre is still on the ground, dead. All the High Lords gathered around her and gave her an ounce of their power each, and this restored her to life and made her High Fae. 

So everyone made it out. The idea of fulfilling her bargain with Rhys looms, but Feyre and Tamlin leave Under the Mountain together and head back to their home in the Spring Court in an attempt to heal and forget the pain.

Additional details that weren’t in the recap:

• Lucien is the youngest son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court, and he hates his family because they killed his lover because she was ‘lower’ and forced him to watch, so he ran off to be Tamlin’s emissary
• Amarantha carved out Lucien’s eye and scarred his face
• Amarantha had a necklace of Jurian’s finger (the human that killed her sister) and a ring of his eye that held a sliver of his consciousness/soul
• Someone sent music to Feyre’s cell after the second trial, and it kept her moving forward
• Tamlin never showed any affection or recognition toward Feyre Under the Mountain until the very end

I truly have a great deal of thoughts on the ACOTAR series and this book in particular. I rated it four stars because I wasn’t a fan of the entire plot getting revealed in that one chapter with Alis. It just felt like it came out of nowhere, and then all of a sudden, the plot went in so many different directions. I still have so much respect for this book, but mainly in the context of the series, not so much as a stand-alone book (sorry peeps). Regardless, my love for A Court of Mist and Fury is infinite, so you’ll be hearing from me about that very soon.