A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
That’s right dear reader! I finally got around to A Court of Thorns and Roses. I can hear half of my friends and a great portion of BookTok screaming, “HOW HAVE YOU WAITED THIS LONG?” However it happened, the wait is over now, and after reading I can say that I was both disappointed and not disappointed at all. Don’t get it twisted - most of my disappointment stemmed from the fact that my expectations were extremely high, and I didn’t really do any mental calibration before cracking this puppy open. Aside from that (perhaps to-be-expected) pitfall, this novel was a very fun read. It was light and breezy with romance, humor and friendship, while also being mysterious and, for lack of a better word…serious.
It tells the story of Feyre, a human teenager living in near poverty with her father and two older sisters. They used to be a wealthy family, but after a financial fall from grace, which crippled her father emotionally and physically, she is the one responsible for taking care of the whole little clan. To feed them all and pick up some extra coinage here and there, she learns to hunt. She is doing just that when she kind of accidentally, kind of on purpose, kills a huge wolf that was eyeing the same doe in the underbrush as her.
Okay, and? That sounds pretty ideal! A doe and a wolf for food and furs. Except…dun dun dun…it turns out that the wolf was actually a faerie. We find this out when one of his beastly faerie friends (from the other side of the nearby magical wall that divides human lands from faerie lands) comes to avenge him. Instead of killing Feyre, Tamlin, the angry intruder decides to abduct her forever. He obviously turns out to be hot and kind and noble. He did spare her life after all! And thus begins our action.
I’ve honestly never really read fantasy, but what I do know about it is this: it is a close cousin of my dear friend romance in the larger genre fiction family tree. That means I’m predisposed to be a fan and champion. I will forever lay myself down to argue that genre fiction is not inherently lowbrow or less valuable than “literary fiction” just because it focuses on the plot instead of the language or because it uses narrative and stylistic tropes and patterns. It is not just a fun break for a brain that’s been working hard to process the heavy stuff. It’s legitimate and respectable in its own right, even if - and sometimes because - it is predictable and breezy to read.
That requisite diatribe out of the way, I’ll start by calling out a few of the things that didn’t blow me away. The first among them is specifically related to the world building element of the novel. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and say maybe it’s just because I’m not accustomed to the genre, but the world building felt a bit lazy and a bit sloppy. For example, the geography of the world, even on the map before the title page, seems haphazard and poorly thought out.
The same thing extends to the naming of the different faerie species. One of the first that we run into once Feyre enters the supernatural realm, and one that’s supposed to be terrifying is called a…Bogge. Also supposedly horrifying, the…Naga. And the tricky, soul sucking…Puca. I don’t know, it all feels a bit silly. Also distractingly silly is the fact that one of the main curses our hero Tamlin must suffer (along with all the members of his Court) is that he has…a masquerade mask permanently stuck to his face. This from our central villain who is so evil she’s going to destroy the world - both faerie and human??
I know those things are a bit superficial, and I’m kind of getting side-tracked, but little things like that are still important to the whole effect. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but some of the same incongruities are notable in more central plot points and narrative drivers as well. There were just moments where I felt like Maas had gotten herself a tiny bit too twisted around her plot, with all of its deception and double layering and big reveals. It is, of course, those deceptions and double layers and big reveals that make the novel fun, so I want to be clear that I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Even in the moments that don’t feel masterfully plotted, the characters are great and the narrative is captivating. Feyre is a brave heroine without feeling unrealistic. Tamlin is, as I said, hot and kind and noble - if a little soft. There’s Lucien, who serves as a loyal friend and provides comic relief, as well as dark, damaged Rhysand who will undoubtably form the third tip of a budding love triangle. By the end I could understand how this set of characters alone hooks readers and keeps them coming back. I also give points to Maas for the three trials or solve one riddle structure she introduces as the crux of the conflict in the second half (give or take). It was entertaining, and the stakes felt genuinely high.
And so, as I’ve hinted throughout this review - I feel quite certain that things only get better in this series. Everyone has definitely been telling me that’s the case, and I believe them. I think that the kinks I felt while reading this first book of the series will likely work themselves out as Maas keeps writing and becomes more comfortable with her own world. I will probably read on, but I don’t feel the need to do so right away. I always do get weird about a series.
No One Left to Come Looking for You by Sam Lipsyte
After ACOTAR, I was in the mood for something a little rougher and realer, so I snapped this little guy up off my ever growing to-be-read shelf. The book is set in the East Village in the 90’s, and centers upon Jonathan Liptak, who has recently changed his name to Jack because his band - described as having a “scabrous, intermittently witty, post-skronk propulsion” by Sour Mash magazine — is called The Shits, and he wants to be Jack Shit (3). It was definitely rougher, but I can’t decide whether it was realer or not.
To be honest, I was thrown off at first. Lipsyte’s style is a bit choppy - blunt or something, but it’s also still poetic. More than anything, and fittingly perhaps for the subject matter, it has an unusual beat that takes a minute to adjust to. Aside from that, I couldn’t tell whether we were supposed to be taking Jonathan “Jack Shit” Liptak seriously. Or whether we supposed to be laughing at him? Or are we laughing at him, but it’s cool because he’s in on the joke?
Jack felt a bit like a caricature of his type. Idealistic and judgmental - strict in his own set of loosely defined rules for life. He proclaims, “In our world, you may not say chops or axe or jam. You may say gwee-tar, fish, tubs, bitch out, beat bag, bag fever,” or similarly, “The Shits fear not art. But you may not say art,” cause then you’d be a dildo like the music readers (3, 9). Jack’s convictions usually start in music and extend further out into life, although he does acknowledge that while The Shits may be idealistically left-wing, “[their] irony smothers [their] politics.” They’re really pretty “soft-left,” each with a suburban sofa waiting for them if the shit hits the fan (15). No pun intended. These little glimpses of self-awareness balance out the punky peacocking.
Bottom line, Jack takes a little getting used to, but he’s an extremely charming character. He cares for his friends and for strangers who feel like friends. He experiences hope and excitement and fear and pain - butterflies, nerves, disappointment. And Lipsyte does a good job of making the reader feel those things with him without being sentimental. Young idealists who aren’t hurting anyone but themselves are irresistible, I guess. I am of course realizing now that I have not yet told you what this book is about at all except for that there’s a band.
Plot twist! It’s also a crime novel/suspense/mystery/whodunnit. Jack’s beloved bass gets stolen by his heroin addict roommate and frontman in The Shits, the Banished Earl. Now the Earl and the bass are missing, and this is a problem because Jack cares about his friend as mentioned above, but also because The Shits have a show next Saturday at Artaud’s Garage and they need the Earl and the bass to play it. It just might be their swan song! As Jack and his ragtag crew try to figure out what happened, they get wrapped up in some pretty serious shit.
I don’t want to give anything away, but I can’t go without mentioning that halfway through the novel, the alleged henchman of a certain blonde-haired real estate tycoon becomes the central villain. So basically, Donald Trump is the villain. It’s pretty bizarre, and feels a bit anachronistic - and out of keeping with the pinpoint local East Village focus of the story. It’s like Lipsyte just couldn’t help himself, and it’s clear that he’s not able to (or isn’t trying to) separate what he knows about the Don as a living human in 2022, from what a bunch of kids in the East Village in 1993 would know about the Don. It pulled me out of the story at first, but then I kind of saw the humor behind it. It gave the novel a pulpy quality that worked for me.
And that brings us to this simple truth: Jack’s (and by proxy Lipsyte’s) earnest efforts to say something definitive about the way the world works - what’s wrong with it and what’s right with it - get tied and twisted up into…yep…genre fiction. I just love when two books that have nothing in common have something in common. No One Left to Come Looking For You ended up being a great example of how the lines between literary fiction and genre fiction (if we want to claim that they really exist) can be blurred to wondrous effect. We love that!
Finally, this book hit - or rather stroked - the chord of NYC nostalgia that I touched on last week. Perhaps Jack says it best himself: “What the hell were we thinking, all of us kids who moved to New York years too late…?” An easy question to ask, but an even easier one to answer. For Jack it’s the music, as he says, “Sometimes I wonder about it…but then I remember the first thirteen or fourteen seconds of “TV Eye” by the Stooges…and I remember why we journeyed to this teeming isle to conjure a dead time, or maybe resurrect it” (85). Whether it’s the music for you or something else, New York is nothing if not a city repeatedly resurrecting itself. Besides, your chances of seeing someone shooting up in the East Village are medium to high nowadays (thanks, Mayor Adams!), so maybe the 90’s are coming back, baby!
This book was a Christmas gift from my sister, Kathryn - thank you, Kathryn!