Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Published: 2015 (Bloomsbury USA)
Genre: Fantasy
Summary
Feyre’s survival is based solely on her ability to hunt and kill for food and trade. So when she sets sights on a deer being pursued by a large wolf, she must decide to kill the predator along with the prey. But the wolf was no mere wolf. It was a fae from the feared country Prythian and now Feyre must pay the price by living with one of the High Lords for the rest of her life for killing one of them.
But as she lives with him, her fear and anger turn into passion as she learns that there is more than meets the eye and that both human and immortal lands are in mortal danger…
What I Think
Fairy tale retellings and fairy/fae stories in general aren’t my thing, so I was pleasantly surprised when I read this book. It’s more adult, more focused, more deep. If you took Hunger Games/Twilight/Beauty and the Beast and other stories mixed together, you’d get this book. I enjoyed the darker side of the story and Feyre’s will to survive in a world unlike her own.
However, there are a lot of dead spots and I found it a struggle to get through it at times. In these dead spaces, I was intensely reminded of Bella in Twilight — Feyre isn’t allowed to help the Fae defeat the evil queen even though their survival rests on her. They don’t tell her anything and force her to stay inside even as she tries to help them. For these reasons, I docked my rating a couple stars.
Ashley French 
Both my daughters love this author.
She’s a good writer and I enjoyed the story a lot — just not my usual read and some parts could have been cleaned up a bit.