You wanted to read the book, you were excited to crack it open, you came into it with good faith and anticipation… but you ended up dnf-ing it. Which book and why?
Mine was The Maid by Nita Prose. It was for my book club and looked like a fun murder mystery. Instead I got instant manic-pixie-dream-neurodivergent-girl vibes, and I noped out before the crime scene was even found.
Started reading ACOTAR and thought the first chapter was really interesting, but something inside me was suspicious of something idk. So I looked up the book and when I found out it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast I immediately dropped it lol, I hate fairy tale retellings.
I got through the 1st ACOTAR book (idk how) and made it about 1/4 of the way through the second. I had to quit when the main character met an even sexier fae than the uber sexy fae she was already with. Truly an awful book, imo.
Starting it this morning for the book club my sister and I do. This is discouraging, though I didn’t expect much from it anyway.
I mean, if it’s any consolation, it’s a really famous book series and many people love them. Retellings just aren’t for me.
ACOTAR is easily the weakest book in the series. SJM is not blind to the creepy/predatory nature of the Beauty and the Beast dynamic. Every time she writes a protag or love interest that makes me raise eyebrows or I outright hate, she manages to 180 them completely by the end of the book.
I keep seeing this, but if I have to slog through garbage to get to anything resembling “good,” I’m just skipping it altogether. I read ACOTAR and I wouldn’t read another page by Maas unless I was being paid.
Definitely agree with this, the first book definitely wasn’t a 5 star for me but the rest really hit in the right spot.
Same. The first chapter was neat, but then it immediately just felt… amateurish? I don’t know. I think of it as a bad-YA feeling (as opposed to good YA, which I know there is a ton of). I looked it up and read that it was basically horny fairy fanfic and returned it to the library.
To this day I can’t understand the draw of those books. I think there was just a market for a YA romantasy series and it released at exactly the right time.
I started this over the weekend and I have to say…I’m quite enjoying it 😂 I’ve been reading a lot of HEAVY books recently and this is a simple page turning palate cleanser I need at the minute.
I wholeheartedly agree. I read such a heavy book that made me bawl on the bus before finally caving to my friends and starting ACOTAR. It has been an easy palate cleanser and the following two books are so much better.
Love palate cleansers! Not every book has to be a revolutionary introspection into life lol. This year I binged Vampire Academy and it was so fun!
It is such a palate cleanser. I was an avid fanfiction reader as a young teenager and I was a sucker for all the cheesy romance tropes. SJM books satisfy that same itch. I know her books get a lot of hate for being bad writing, cliche, etc. but I indulge in them when I just want to read something and not be able to put it down because I must know what happens next because the cliffhanger or the horrible sex scenes or the tension leading up to them is so unbearable (cringing).
Idk they all got 5 stars from me simply because I couldn’t put them down and because the characters were so fanfiction-y.