A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1)
Sarah J. Maas
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only 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 Feyre 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.
Excerpt taken from the book cover.
UPDATE: After doing a reread of this 2/2021, I realized this is an incomplete content review. I did this back when I was still trying to figure out what I wanted in content reviews and I must have not finished it. It gives you a good idea of what is in the book but this is probably only about halfway through the book.
Language
D***- 20
Bas****- 10
H***- 16
S***- 9
A**- 3
B****- 1
Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking
Wine is a common drink throughout the book. A young woman gets drunk a few times from faerie wine which makes her dance and not remember a lot of the night. She is forced to drink the wine while a prisoner, probably so she will be more fun and have no memories. At one point she looks forward to the reprieve it gives her.
Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty
A young woman takes “stolen hours” in a barn with a village boy she does not love. They are “hungry, empty, sometimes cruel and never lovely.” Her sister refers to that time as, “…rutting in the hay… like an animal.” They spontaneously meet in the barn with “a rush of shedding clothes…” and it was little more than “a release, a reprieve, a bit of selfishness.”
There is talk of if she is using birth control. Due to her lack of money, she has her lover take a contraceptive brew.
A young woman takes her clothes off to go skinny dipping. She pauses before getting in and lets a young man study her while in her undergarments. Then he undresses and they jump in.
A young man kisses her hand “…in a way that made heat begin pounding in my core, between my legs.”
During the Great rite, a young man couldn’t find a certain young woman to mate with. Magic made him pick another. “She asked me not to be gentle with her…I would have been gentle with you, though. I would have had you moaning my name through it all. And I would have taken a very, very long time.”
A young man bites a young woman’s neck and holds her in place but doesn’t pierce the skin. He kisses her neck with his lips and tongue. “Heat pounded between my legs…I wanted the hardness of his body crushing against mine; I wanted his mouth and teeth and tongue on my bare skin, on my breasts, between my legs…”
Kissing is common throughout the book. It usually involves crushing bodies, grabbing each other’s hair, moaning and tongues. They also suck on fingers and lead into sex. “He eased me onto the bed…I urged him–faster, harder. His mouth explored the curve of my breast, the inside of my thigh.”
“He could have had me right there, on top of that table. I wanted his broad hands running over my bare skin, wanted his teeth scraping my neck, wanted his mouth all over me.”
Someone who can read minds hears her thoughts. “She’s wondering about the feeling of your fingers on her thighs–between them too. Why did she wonder if it would feel good to have you bite her breast the way you bit her neck?”
Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood
A young woman has to hunt to feed her family. While hunting, she encounters a large wolf stalking the deer she is about to shoot with a bow. She shoots the wolf twice to protect herself and save the deer for her family. Blood sprays onto the snow and stains his maw. The wolf twitches and whines as blood gushes from his wounds. She skins the wolf and carries the doe.
A young woman’s father is beaten by creditors for money owed. His daughters watched and his leg is permanently damaged. They heard his screams, and crunch of bone while one daughter soiled herself and vomited.
Whores are talked about frequently, sometimes it is used as an insult (Faerie-loving whore) or referring to a love slave.
Characters talking about a young woman missing and potentially eaten by the faeries or drowned in a pond.
Children are told many stories about faeries and their ability to turn bones to dust.
Humans at one time were slaves to the faeries.
A Martax is a faerie creature with a body as big as a bear, head of a lion and 3 rows of teeth. They would “leave villagers in literal ribbons.”
A mercenary was bitten by a creature that poisoned her and left many scars.
A beast comes to find who killed a wolf. He is angry and yelling that they are murderers. He is as large as a horse, feline-like and has elk-like horns. Large claws and fangs are also described. It swipes at a young woman with it’s paw and teeth. It’s exposed fangs make her wonder how they would feel on their necks before they died.
A Bogge is a cold, vague shimmering creature that is invisible but whispers threats such as, “I will grind your bones…drink your marrow… feast on your flesh…”
A Puca is a creature that shape-shifts into a young woman’s father to trick her into leaving and would have “devoured” her.
A young woman dreams of when she shot a wolf but pictures it as a faerie. Blood splatters and a thud of his body is heard. “…then my hands were warm and sticky with blood, then his body was red and skinless, steaming in the cold, and it was his skin– his skin–that I held in my hands…”
A young man comes back from killing a creature, he is bleeding profusely, dripping blood on the floor and leaving a trail in his wake.
There is a painting on the wall of the faerie-human war. It’s of the battlefield where the mud is bloody and humans were “slaughtered.”
A Suriel is a creature that looks “like it has been crafted from dried, weather-worn bone, its skin either forgotten or discarded, a lipless mouth and too-long teeth held by blackened gums, slitted holes for nostrils, and eyes that were nothing more than swirling pits of milky white…the white of clean-picked corpses.”
A young woman is chased by multiple naga, they are wanting to eat her. They are covered in dark scales with serpentine features and male humanoid bodies with “flesh-shredding talons.” She shoots arrows, and their blood sprays. They talk of ripping off her skin, and not leaving much of her behind. They want to make her bleed “nice and slow.” A young man finds her and “disembowels the naga in one deep, long swipe. Blood and gore dripped” from his claws.
A young woman dreams of ‘…a pale, faceless woman dragging her bloodred nails across my throat, splitting me open bit by bit… every time I tried to speak, my blood bubbled out of the shallow wounds on my neck, choking me.”
A faerie is found with his wings ripped off by a woman faerie. Blood gushes and drips onto the floor. A young woman needs to hold him down while he is screaming so they can try to help him. The faerie dies and she is standing in a pool of his blood.
A young man’s father executes the faerie he loves because she didn’t live up to standards. The brothers held him down while his father made him watch. Later his brothers sought to kill him, he killed one, another young man killed another.
An Attor is an invisible creature that has large wings.
In the voice of the Attor, A young woman hears the “screaming of human victims, the pleading of young maidens whose chests had been split open on sacrificial altars.”
Three faeries surround a young woman and hold her while she begs to be let go. They imply raping her.
The Great Rite is where magic takes over the High Lord’s body and controls of him. He then searches for a maiden and their coupling will release magic on the earth where it regenerates life for the year. After he chooses his maiden, the other male faeries are free to do the same thing as it also helps the earth.
A young woman finds a bloody male faerie head on top of a statue. She stares at the “…still-screaming head, the brown eyes bulging, the teeth broken and bloody.” The faeries who did this “delight in torture of every kind and would find this sort of stunt to be amusing.” She cringes at the “thick, wet sounds of flesh and bone on stone as he yanked the head off.”
Potentially Intense Themes
Some faerie creatures are potentially scary. Their descriptions are scary but also the things the creatures do, like eat humans or rip off their flesh are intense.
The Fae rites and rituals are unusual for humans (finding a mate).
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