A Court of Thorns and Roses

By: Sarah J. Maas

Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda

Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

When 19-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin - one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world. As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow over the faerie lands is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it... or doom Tamlin - and his world - forever.

©2015 Sarah J. Maas (P)2015 Recorded Books

Entertaining!

Great adult fairy story. Wonderful twists and new ways to present an often done, overly familiar trope. I was surprised and delighted many times. Not your typical YA story. I'd actually enjoy a sequel to this story. Which is not something I say often. :)

36 of 39 people found this review helpful

loved it!

I always enjoy the retelling of beauty and the beast and this version was different from all the others. One of my favorites.

11 of 12 people found this review helpful

I REALLY thought I was going to love this one.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Yes. I think the second half of the book is redeeming enough to make it worth the listen.

Any additional comments?
The first half of the book was a boring 2 stars. The remaining story was a much better 4-5 stars, so I'll settle with a rating of 3.The writing, as mentioned by most readers, is really good. Except for a few things that irked my Inner Nazi. Like the fact that people breathe words throughout the whole book:

"Please," I breathed.

Or the repeated use of strange expressions:

My insides turned watery.

Or lines that make you want to gag and roll your eyes:

"You look lovely," Tamlin murmured, and something in his soft tone made me want to purr.

And the fact that everybody likes to constantly respond with nonchalant shrugs.

Anyways, on to the story...

The beginning started out great, with a kick-butt Katniss--I mean, Feyre, hunting and providing sustenance for her useless father and sisters. She skewers a wolf for its pelt and then a fae beast-man comes to take her to the world of the faeries as payment for it. And then the story goes downhill. Except it rolls down a rather flat hill, and it doesn't pick up until past the midway point.

I don't know if this is intentional or not, but the romance between Tamlin and Feyre takes center stage, leaving the dark, interesting and mysterious fae world doom and gloom curse as a meager subplot. I wouldn't have minded the romance as the main plot if it hadn't been so stale. There was zero chemistry between Tamlin and Feyre. Zilch. Nada. And I think that is partly due to Tamlin's blahness. He is a handsomely-masked dude with the hair and build of a model. And he's a beast. A vapid beast, who is oh-so-kind-and-courteous; nothing but a gracious host to our feisty heroine who hates his guts for a few pages. It was really hard to swoon over Tamlin when all he made me think about was Aslan the lion from Narnia.

I was totally robbed of an awesome, bitter Beast who could have warmed up to conflicting feelings of love. But nah. All we get is a Mr. Niceguy who has a temper that only applies to the villains of the story. So yeah, the whole romance thing with these two was a drag to get through. I also didn't like the subtle signs of insta-love from Tamlin, who grits his teeth when he asks Feyre if she is in love with anyone (on her first day at his manor).

Once we get past the lovey-dovey, falling in love phase, things finally start to get interesting. We finally find out what is really going on and the truth of the curse, and things get serious for Feyre as she takes matters into her own hands to save Tamlin and his world of butterflies. This 40 or 30% of the story was SO GOOD! I was hooked all the way to the end. Another great thing about this latter half of the story: We are introduced to Rhysand. Holy Mother of The Cauldron. Now THAT is a character I can swoon over. Here's to hoping Feyre dumps Tamlin's boring tush for this saucy chap in book 2.

131 of 153 people found this review helpful

Bad ending and Immaturity

I would like to say that while I realize that I'm not the target audience for this book, I'm male and not a teen, I truly enjoyed the first ten hours of this book. The opening was well written and thought out and set up a character I could sympathize with and understand and cheer for. It was interesting with a different set up than usual. I was already thinking of ways to afford the rest of the series a third of the way in, shifting my purchasing plans around to make room for more. Mean finally a main female lead that isn't drowned in her emotions, is practical and mature, and I don't have to read Ilona Andrews hurrah!

Then the rest of the book happened.

The last four hours of the book was a chore to get through. Our fierce, practical, strong, observant, hardened and smart heroine, became a dithering, weepy, witless child! I'm sorry this is one of my pet peeves, someone who has gone through the losses, the poverty, and hardships that the main heroine had, someone that has had to take care of a family that neglects and hates her in the face of sheer poverty; wouldn't break under the comparatively tiny difficulties she faced in the end. Once more, there was far too much virtue signaling in the end, if I had heard the paraphrase of "oh what have I done" before the last hour trudge I wouldn't have been able to finish the book. Honestly the heroine is someone whose used to having to do what you have to do to survive, putting your emotions aside and paying the cost and moving on; not dickering and self tormenting simply to seem virtuous and likable. Mean, I know women that have been through poverty, abuse and so on, they wouldn't even blink over the 'hardships' the main had to face in the last four hours; nor would they sit around and wait for someone to save them without trying everything they could to fix it themselves. Another star gone.
Not to mention forty minutes on dickering on a choice that really wasn't a choice and should have been handled in ten.
Beyond that the male characters are the typical meat puppet stand ins that exist to make the main character have plenty of love interests, to save her when she gets in over her head or does something stupid and make her seem more valuable than she would be in reality. Really it's good there were only three males, because all of them were blah and stereotypical. Honestly Tomalin is basically Beast from Beauty and the Beast, Lucian guy with a razor tongue that's really a nice guy and Reese is your atypical bad boy that isn't that bad. They have no personality, desires, dreams, triggers or depth of any sort. Since this also a put of a peeve for me that's another star gone.

As for the narrator she did a fantastic job bringing the characters to life and she is a large part of the reason why I enjoyed the first 10 hours and was able to make it through the last four.

Honestly, if not for the strength of the first five hours, I would have given this book a 2 or even 1 star. Still, if you can handle another, how this character that goes from strong to weak, smart and resourceful to weepy and stupid, a plot twist you could see a mile away, a lover interest based solely on the male's hotness and being a decent person since he as no personality, a riddle that given a certain emotions popularity was simple to solve; than you might like this book. As for me I'm getting a refund and nixing my plans to buy the rest of the series.

54 of 63 people found this review helpful

LOVED IT!!!

Which character – as performed by Jennifer Ikeda – was your favorite?

I thought narrator did a great job with the story. The voices of Feyre and Tamlin were good, my only complaint is that sometimes the narrator struggled to fully differentiate the voices of the secondary characters like Lucien and Alis.

Any additional comments?

This was such a great, complete story. I was completely drawn in right from the beginning. The book has slow and fast paced parts, but hardly any parts that are boring. I found this book by chance and I am so glad that I did! This book has no insta-love between the characters, thank goodness. It can hard to find books with somewhat believable relationships between the characters. The secondary characters are interesting and have depth.

The world that the story takes place in is interesting and lays the possibility for an overall good series.

My only complaint with the story concerns my confusion for why Feyre, the main character, ignored the warnings of others multiple times and did some silly things that would cause her to have to be rescued. I also felt that maybe the reader was not always being informed about the full extent of some of her thoughts and feelings in some parts of the book. But these things are small, and can be attributed to human imperfection.

Overall the book is great and I enjoyed that it was new adult rather than YA, I haven't really had the opportunity to read a new adult book since its a smaller genre. Being 20 years old, I appreciated that the main character was close in age to myself and didn't have the immaturity found in a lot of YA books. The content was somewhat similar to YA, but a little more mature.

25 of 31 people found this review helpful

Read the book instead

I LOVE this story, but the narration nearly ruined it for me. I could tell the narrator's voice just wasn't the same as how I would have read it in my head. I stopped listening to the audiobook and bought the actual book - and then read through all three in the series in a week. I'd definitely recommend skipping the audiobook and reading it instead.

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Wonderful

A great reimagining of Beauty and the Beast. It's by far my favorite retelling. A well earned romance, great world building, and a plot that keeps you guessing.
I believe this is the first book in a series (cannot wait for the sequel!) but I appreciate how this book is a complete story on its own. Too many books end on cliff hangers nowadays, A Court of Thorns and Roses is a breath of fresh air.

27 of 34 people found this review helpful

Fun retelling of a classic!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes! I couldn't stop listening and finished in only two days! It's an imaginative retelling of Beauty and the Beast in an incredible world full of faeries and terrifying creatures. The narration was wonderful!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes! I finished in two days with almost non-stop listening.

9 of 11 people found this review helpful

Loved it

What a great story! It was romantic, but not a romance. Great plot. Excellent characters, and a decent ending. I recommend it!

9 of 11 people found this review helpful

Loved the story, not the narrator (sorry!)

I really liked the story (it pales next to the throne of glass series to be honest) but it still was very original and the character development was wonderful.
I just couldn't get on board with this narrator. I kept looking at other reviews and no one mentions it at all so it's probably just me.

19 of 24 people found this review helpful

My fav novel to read but not to hear

I read this book when it came out as I am a huge Sarah j Maas fan so I wanted to listen to it for it to come alive and I have to admit the woman's voice was rather dull but as the story it self it is one of my favourites with a kind of beauty and the beast twist.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Epic Beauty and the Beast retelling

I loved the story, especially as I knew it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I thought the descriptions of the two worlds were really detailed and the characters were well constructed and layered. I wasn't as keen on the narrator for this book, sometimes she spoke too slowly for me, which made it difficult to get into at first, but once you're wrapped up in the story you don't notice as much. I liked Feyre, she isn't always a likeable character but her flaws made her more interesting and relatable to me. If you like Throne of Glass give this a try. I wonder whether I would have loved it more if I'd read the book and not listened to it.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

awesome!!

If you could sum up A Court of Thorns and Roses in three words, what would they be?

entertaining, worthwhile and fandabbydosey

What was one of the most memorable moments of A Court of Thorns and Roses?

Cannot really say without spoliers, but when she enters the fae worlds was were the story really got going:)

Have you listened to any of Jennifer Ikeda’s other performances? How does this one compare?

no I have not, but she did a good job :)

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

i almost did!!!

Any additional comments?

a wonderful crafted story with a great narration and if you enjoyed any other Maas books you will love this one. Even if you have not, its well worth a listen :)

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Amazing!!!

Meant to have this just for walking too and from work and ended up finishing it in two and a bit listens!

Well read too, lovely relaxing voice and great variation on the voices of different characters, only annoyance she kept pronouncing shone as shown, what is that all about?!!!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Unexpectedly brilliant!

I wasn't too sure about this title at first as its a little out of my comfort zone and I'd never heard of the author. However I was blown away by the story and the narration was first class. Would definitely recommend

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Okay start, but ultimately disappointing.

This book started out quite well and seemed promising, however it very quickly went down hill. The story is just so long winded and rambling, and the main character became increasingly annoying. I kept listening, kept hoping the story would pick up again but after listening to 11 hours of I finally gave up.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great listen! Thoroughly enjoyed this book

SJM has a gift for bringing the fae to life to depict a different dimension and the strife between the fair folk and humans. She creates a world where I am transported from reality as with the throne of glass I loved farer I loved tam and I loved lucian. A kinder lovelier heroin than throne of glass I hope there are more books in this series

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Bloody awful

Would you try another book written by Sarah J. Maas or narrated by Jennifer Ikeda?

I have read her books before but this is a soppy romance, rather than a science fantasy novel. So perhaps

Has A Court of Thorns and Roses put you off other books in this genre?

Yes.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

The story was ever so slowwwwwwwly drawn out and the narration matched but that is not the fault of the narrator.

What character would you cut from A Court of Thorns and Roses?

Most of them

Any additional comments?

Don't waste your money

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Snoozeville...

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I absolutely adore Sarah J. Maas's other books - and this one might be great as well, but...

The narrator has a voice which sends me to sleep, and I just can't get through the story. It is slow, low and monotonous - she makes the Speaking Clock sound animated.

I'm going to ask for my money back, as there is no way I'll ever make it through the story with this snooze-worthy narrator. If you suffer from insomnia, though, then this is the recording for you...

4 of 6 people found this review helpful

Ok for a young teenager.

The accent of the narrator jarred terribly with the overall feel. Very immature feeling book.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful