I have read this book before. I had not heard it.
ACOTAR 6 is coming, so I am doing the full reread. And because the Fourth Wing GraphicAudio turned me into an audiobook person against my will, I decided to do this one the same way.
Four and a half stars for the book. Five for the production, and I would hand over a sixth if the form allowed it.
One chilli for the spice, which I suspect is going to surprise some people, so we are going to deal with that properly further down.
This review stays spoiler-free. If you have already finished book one and you want the whole thing pulled apart, the plot start to finish and a guide to every character in it, that lives in my A Court of Thorns and Roses summary and character guide.
What is A Court of Thorns and Roses about?
Feyre Archeron is nineteen, and she is the only thing standing between her family and starvation. She hunts. She is good at it. That is the whole of her life.
Then she kills a wolf in the woods, and it turns out the wolf was not a wolf. Under an ancient treaty between the mortal lands and the faerie courts, a life is owed. Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court, arrives to collect it, and Feyre is taken across the wall.
What she finds there is a court wearing masks it cannot remove, a blight eating the magic out of the land, and a great deal that nobody will explain to her.
It is a Beauty and the Beast retelling with Tam Lin folklore underneath it, and it is the front door to the biggest romantasy series going.
Why I came back for the GraphicAudio version
Two reasons, and they are both practical.
The first is ACOTAR 6. If I am going to walk into a new book in this series I want the whole thing loaded properly, not half remembered from years ago and heavily contaminated by fan edits.
The second is that I know what this format does to a book I already like. Fourth Wing was my first GraphicAudio and it rearranged how I read. So the reread was always going to be an audio reread.
There is a third thing I did not expect. Book one is the book most people skim on a reread, because they are impatient to get to book two. Audio will not let you skim. You go at the pace the cast sets, and I noticed a great deal I had scrolled straight past the first time.
The GraphicAudio format: what it is and what it does
If you have not tried one, GraphicAudio is not an audiobook in the usual sense. It is a full dramatised production: a separate actor for every character, a musical score, and sound design running underneath the whole thing. They describe it as a movie in your mind, which sounds like marketing until you are twenty minutes in.
What it does to ACOTAR specifically is fix the book’s one structural problem. The Spring Court is meant to feel beautiful and slightly wrong at the same time, and on the page that can read as slow. With a score under it and different voices moving through it, the wrongness arrives much earlier.
The back half, once the story stops being a fairy tale and becomes something considerably nastier, is where the production really earns the five stars. Scenes I remembered as tense were genuinely hard to listen to, in the way the book always wanted them to be.
Cast and voice performances
The main cast:
- Feyre Archeron: Melody Muze
- Rhysand: Anthony Palmini
- Tamlin: Henry W. Kramer
- Lucien: Gabriel Michael
That last one stopped me. Gabriel Michael is Xaden in the Fourth Wing GraphicAudio. So the voice that did quite a lot of damage to me in Basgiath is Lucien here, and I spent the first few Lucien scenes doing a double take in my own kitchen.
It works, for the record. Lucien is the one person in the Spring Court who talks to Feyre like an actual person, and giving him a voice with that much warmth underneath the sarcasm is the correct call.
Main character vibes: Feyre Archeron
Feyre is a lot more prickly than the fandom remembers her being. She is hungry, exhausted, resentful, and extremely bad at accepting kindness, and none of that is softened for the reader’s comfort.
On audio that lands harder, because you hear how often she is rude to people who are being nice to her. It is the correct characterisation for someone who has been the only functioning adult in her household since she was a child, and it made me like her more this time, not less.
Tamlin on a reread
Here is the thing nobody warns you about with an ACOTAR reread. You are not reading book one. You are reading book one while knowing everything that comes after it, and that changes the entire experience of the Spring Court.
Details that read as protective the first time read differently now. Not because the book has changed, but because you have. I will not spell out why, because some people genuinely are starting here.
What I will say is that a reread is much more interesting than a first read on this particular point, and the audio gives you nowhere to hide from it.
The Rhysand situation
He is barely in this book. That is worth saying plainly, because if you have come to ACOTAR through fandom you would be forgiven for thinking he is the lead.
He is not. He turns up late, he does not have much page time, and almost everything people love about him happens in later books.
And yet. Every scene he is in, he takes. On audio that is even more obvious, because Anthony Palmini plays him at a completely different frequency to everyone else in the room. You can hear the series changing shape around him before the book admits it is going to.
ACOTAR spicy chapters: how spicy is it and where?
A Court of Thorns and Roses has four chapters carrying any heat at all: chapters 21, 27, 42 and 46. Chapter 27 is the main scene and the only properly explicit one in the book. Everything else is tension, a kiss, or a scene that sits somewhere between closed door and open door.
Is ACOTAR spicy, and how much?
Book one is a one chilli read. One. I know.
This is the single most misleading thing about the ACOTAR series, and it catches people constantly. This series has a reputation for being filthy. That reputation is entirely earned. It is just not earned by this book.
A Court of Thorns and Roses is a slow build with one real scene in it. The spice arrives properly in book two, and by the time you are a few books deep the difference is not subtle. So if you pick this up on the strength of what BookTok says about the series and give up at forty per cent because nothing has happened, you have not sampled the series. You have sampled the setup.
The reverse is also worth saying. If you have been avoiding ACOTAR because you were told it was too much, book one is genuinely mild, and you can make your own decision about whether to continue once you get there.
Which chapters are the spicy ones in ACOTAR?
The ACOTAR spicy chapters are 21, 27, 42 and 46:
- Chapter 21: the Calanmai chapter. More atmosphere and implication than anything on the page, but the tension is doing a lot of work here.
- Chapter 27: the main event, and the only genuinely explicit scene in the book. If you are listening rather than reading, this is the one to plan around.
- Chapter 42: a kiss at a party, with the heat sitting in the language rather than the act.
- Chapter 46: sits between closed door and open door. Not skipped over, not lingered on.
On GraphicAudio the usual caution applies. A full cast production makes everything more present than text does, so chapter 27 is a headphones chapter rather than a car speakers chapter. Given how much of this book is not spicy, that is a short list of moments to manage.
Favourite moment
Two, and they are both audio moments as much as book moments.
The first is the first proper Rhysand scene. “There you are.” Three words. I knew it was coming, I have known it was coming for years, and Anthony Palmini still delivered it in a way that made me put down what I was holding.
The second is the music that plays while Feyre is in the cell. This is the thing a print reread cannot give you. On the page it is a scene you get through. With a score under it, it becomes something you sit inside, and it is the single best argument for doing this reread as a GraphicAudio rather than a paperback.
Most unhinged moment
The worm.
I have read this book. I knew it was there. I knew roughly when it was coming. And the production went completely silent, held it for a beat, and then hit me with it, and I physically jumped.
Anyone who saw that happen would have laughed at me, and honestly, with me. That is a sound design decision made by someone who knew exactly what they were doing, and it is the moment I stopped thinking of this as an audiobook and started thinking of it as a production.
If ACOTAR had a scent
Mandarin, rose jasmine and a sensual musk. A rose-heavy garden at night, warm and lovely and just slightly too still.
Which is the Spring Court exactly. Beautiful, generous, and quietly wrong in a way you cannot name for about two hundred pages. A book called A Court of Thorns and Roses deserves a rose scent, and it deserves one with something darker sitting underneath it.
If ACOTAR was a drink
The Spring Court Faerie Wine, obviously, and I am not going to pretend that was a difficult decision.
A white sangria with pear, peach, grapes and elderflower, with edible flowers floating in it. Named for the faerie wine that nobody in this book should have drunk. Full alcohol-free version included, which is more consideration than Feyre was shown.
If ACOTAR was a snack
Pressed Flower Shortbread. Buttery, sandy, six ingredients, with real edible flowers pressed into the top before baking.
It looks like something served at a court that wants you to be impressed, and it takes almost no skill, which is the kind of deception this book would approve of.
Read ACOTAR on GraphicAudio if:
- You are rereading before ACOTAR 6 and you want the whole world loaded properly
- You have tried to reread book one before and skimmed it
- You liked the Fourth Wing GraphicAudio and want the next one
- You are new to romantasy and want a slow build rather than immediate heat
- You think you are not an audiobook person. That is what I thought too.
Avoid or pause if:
- You want the spice immediately. It is not here. It is two books away.
- You need a fast opening. The first third is deliberately slow.
- You want a standalone. This is the opening of a long series and it does not resolve.
- You startle easily and you are listening through headphones. See above, re: the worm.
- The back half of this book goes to some genuinely dark places. Worth knowing before you start.
Quick answers
What order do you read the ACOTAR series in?
Publication order, and it is the right order: A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, then the novella A Court of Frost and Starlight, then A Court of Silver Flames. Book six is on the way.
Do not skip the novella. It is short, it is quiet, and it sets up the book after it.
Can you start the series at book two?
People suggest this because book two is where the series becomes itself. Do not do it. Book two only lands the way it does because of what book one spends its time building, and skipping it removes the entire foundation.
Is ACOTAR suitable for younger readers?
Book one is marketed as young adult and reads that way, at one chilli. The series does not stay there. It moves firmly into adult territory from book two onward, in both the spice and the violence. Judge the series, not the first book.
What should I read if I loved ACOTAR?
Fourth Wing is the obvious next step and my romantasy starter guide covers where each one sits. If you specifically want the audio experience, do the Fourth Wing GraphicAudio next. You will also get Gabriel Michael back, in a very different job.
EmberSas ratings
- Book: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ / 5
- GraphicAudio production: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5
- Spice: 🌶️ / 5. One. For book one. This is not a typo.
- Tension: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 / 5. Doing almost all the work.
- Audio immersion: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧 / 5
- Emotional damage: 💀 / 5. Book one is the calm one. Ask me again after book five.
- Jump scare rating: 😱 / 5, entirely attributable to one worm.
- Reread value: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5. Better knowing what is coming.
- Headphone requirement: one chapter. Chapter 27. Otherwise you are fine.
Review Snapshot
- Book: A Court of Thorns and Roses
- Author: Sarah J. Maas
- Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses, book 1
- Format: GraphicAudio dramatised adaptation, full cast
- Cast: Melody Muze, Anthony Palmini, Henry W. Kramer, Gabriel Michael
- Overall rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ / 5
- GraphicAudio rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5
- Spice rating: 🌶️ / 5
- Spicy chapters: 21, 27, 42, 46
- Why I reread it: the run-up to ACOTAR 6
Final verdict
A Court of Thorns and Roses is the book people are most impatient with, and I think that is unfair to it. It is doing a job. It builds the world, it builds Feyre, and it sets a trap that does not spring until the next book.
Listening to it rather than reading it fixed my impatience entirely. I could not skim, so I did not, and the back half hit considerably harder than I remembered. Three words from Rhysand landed like I had never heard them. A cell scene became the best thing in the book because of a piece of music. And a worm made a grown woman jump in her own house.
Four and a half stars, not five, because it is still the setup book and it knows it. Five for the production without hesitation.
One book down on the reread. I am doing the whole series this way before ACOTAR 6, and I will be reviewing each one as I go. After that I am finally starting Crescent City, which I have somehow never read, also on GraphicAudio. There will be a full reading order guide at the end of all of it.
“Right, ACOTAR reread has officially started, GraphicAudio version, because apparently that is who I am now after Fourth Wing.
Four and a half stars. And listen, one chilli. ONE. I know what you have heard about this series and you are correct, but that is book two onwards. Book one is a slow build with basically one scene in it, and everyone who quits at forty per cent because nothing has happened yet is quitting right before the point.
Two things got me. The first Rhys scene, ‘there you are’, I knew it was coming and it still took me out. And the music while she is in the cell, which on the page is just a scene and on audio is something else entirely.
Also the worm. It went dead silent and then BANG and I jumped like an idiot. Anyone watching would have laughed at me. Fair enough.
Five books to go before ACOTAR 6 and then I am finally doing Crescent City. Yes, I know. I have never read it. I am fixing it.”
