I’ve come to realize that most of my reviews start with “this book is a best-seller” or “this book was on a top fantasy/YA/scifi list” etc… The words that kept coming up for this series were sexy and addictive. Yes, and yes. So I went ahead and bought the four book series knowing that if it really was as addictive as everyone said it was, I would plow through the entire series in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I got bored with book one and set it down for about a week before I finally got around to finishing it. It was just…okay. However, since I have the rest of the series I’m going to give book two a chance for the reasons I mention below.
Summary:
Come and listen to a story about a girl named Feyre,
Freezing in the woods, barely kept her family fed,
Then one day she was shootin at some food,
And up through the trees came a wolf that was actually a faerie in disguise but she shot it and skinned it and then its boss showed up and tore a hole in her house and said if you don’t come live with me in faerieland I’m going to kill you and I know your family is starving but don’t worry about it I’ll take care of it and aren’t I scary and evil and monstrous and my home and estate are beautiful but don’t look or touch or smell or see anything because you’re a weak human and you’ll die a horrible death but don’t listen to anything I tell you and almost get killed and you hate me and I resent you for killing my friend and you’re really cute but I’m bad at talking to women, I mean humans, and you’re always planning ways to escape but maybe….
(Mild spoilers)
I’m totally in love with you but I have to send you away and then you realize that you are totally in love with me and then everything goes to hell but everything’s okay in the end except for all of those other dead faeries because love.
(End of Spoilers)
The good:
- As other reviewers noted, the world-building is interesting. The differences between the world of the humans and the world of the Fae reminded me of when Dorothy stepped into Oz and everything was instantly rendered in technicolor.
- There was a lot more talk about how sensual and attractive Rhysand is vs how evil and disgusting he is. I think this is a pretty clear sign that we’re gonna get some sexy times involving a certain human and a faerie bad boy in the next book. If not with her then definitely with someone at some point. A sexy, powerful, conflicted, immortal batman? Yes, please.
The bad:
- The love story was boring. Yes, it is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast so I get it. But I would have been more interested in her hooking up with Lucian and teaching him some manners. Tamlin is too perfect and stoic and noble and blah blah blah too boring.
- It was hard for me to root for Feyre. Girl, you’re in a whole new world and you just want to ignore direct advice from everyone? Sure! Go get yourself killed. She wasn’t lured to Fire Night by magic. She just hated being left behind and said fuck it, I like to party too. Let’s go! *facepalm*
- We find out pretty early on that Feyre is mostly illiterate. I am not looking forward to future montages of her learning to read and then turning into Jessica Fletcher as she solves the mystery because her “magical power” is….wait for it…reading!