A Court of Trash and Rubbish
Having read a bunch of 5-star reviews about a book series, I walked into Barnes & Noble excited to buy the series and begin reading it. This series was so popular and rated so well that it had its own little display table. I bought the books and walked out of the store happy, hoping that this would be my new favorite series. Little did I know, this book series would be one of the series I hated the most.
The book series mentioned above is known as A Court Of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) by Sarah J Maas. The premise of this book is that the main character, Feyre, unknowingly kills a fairie and in the world of ACOTAR, there is a land for humans and a land for fairies. What Feyre did is very bad, and she is presented with the choice to die or live as a human prisoner among the fairies.
The first issue that I had with this book series was the way that it romanticized toxic men. When I read the first book, about 75% of the way through, the infamous Rhys character is introduced. Long story short, Rhys begins helping Feyre survive these trials she has to go through -- only his way of helping her is not helping at all. He would essentially drug Feyre every night and treat her like a toy. He claims to have done this because he needs the other fairies to know that he is not helping her out.
The whole thing that makes this worse is that Rhys is Feyre's love interest. To have the love interest sexually assault the main character isn't romantic at all. However, the author and people on social media have done their best to romanticize this as much as possible.
This leads me to the next issue I had with this book series: the way the women in this book were treated and the way feminism was presented. I saw more of this issue prevalent when I read the second book in the ACOTAR series, A Court Of Mist and Fury, also known as ACOMAF.
In ACOMAF, the author tries really hard to present Rhys as a feminist and some type of saint. People claiming that Rhys is a "feminism king" do not know what feminism is. Feminism is respecting women. Feminism is respecting women even when you aren't attracted to them. Feminism is respecting women even when they don't have the same opinion as you. Rhys did not do any of that.
Besides Rhys, the way that the author wrote about other women through the perspective of the narrator, Feyre, is littered with internalized misogyny, leading me to believe that the author herself is not that good of a person.
The characters were annoying. The plot moved at the pace of a snail. The plot twists were basic. The books were long for no reason. And somehow, this book is still loved by thousands of people.
All in all, it frustrated me to see so many people on the internet hyping up this series for something I consider not even mediocre, but just plain bad. There are less-known series that deserve much more appreciation than this one. If I could tell people one thing about this series I would tell them this: do not read it.
Opinion by Lillian Coffin