This is so petty of me it annoys me that there is a line about it never occuring to Elain to get her hands dirty and then later on the same page it talks about the fact she is a GARDENER.....someone whose hands literally are in the dirt.....hello?
Wait so if she liked planting then why plant flowers when she could be making a contribution to her starving family by planting CROPS. Her family is starving and her youngest sister is going off into a scary forest and this girl has the audacity to plant FLOWERS.
@@juliea.7721 not only that, personal vegetable gardens were very much a thing throughout human history, ESPECIALLY Europe in the middle ages. Flower gardens were only a thing for the most influencial wealthy people, who didn't need to plant their own crops.
Doubly bewildering when you consider how there are pretty flowering plants that produce crops. Like girl plant some freaking onions or leeks they have GORGEOUS purple flowers! Not to mention most fruit bearing plants have a flowering stage like get yourself some blueberry bushes girl I beg of thee
You're telling me this is a steamy romance novel starring Belle Everdeen who hates her family and gets whisked away into a love triangle with two guys way out of her league? AND there's fairies? I love groundbreaking fiction. Sign me up!
hahah though I must say the only thing she and Katniss have in common in my opinion is that at the beginning of the book the Author wants us to think of Katniss cuz the scenes are so reminiscent of her. But Katniss was not a Cinderella in the way Fayre is. She also didn't throw a pity party on every page. Also Katniss hunting for family as oldest child makes sense but Feyra is youngest and her sisters are like the evil stepsisters, very flat characters
I’ve always maintained that if SJM was *insistent* on Tamlin’s manor and the Spring Court being this idyllic eternal springtime paradise they should’ve added some creepy Midsommar vibes and have Feyre in constant paranoia of being sacrificed or treated in a way far worse than just being killed; the absence of a threat becoming the threat itself. If she rejected being dressed up nicely by maids or eating good food because she thought they were going to make her an ideal sacrifice for a creepy fairy celebration. It’s so immersion-breaking that they’re like “come with us or die, murderous scum” and ‘come with us’ means ‘live like a princess in our magical fairy springtime castle’
@idrinkandiknowthings9738 I don't think she plots anything further than the book she's currently writing (and even that I doubt she plots). She listens to whatever her fandom gives her.
@@maidlenhazley Literally lol. It’s so obvious that she just makes shit up as she goes and never bothers to fix all the plot holes and retcons left behind, no plotting whatsoever
The thing that always gets me with these “fae romance” stories is that there’s never any effort to make the faeries mundanely inhuman. It’s always big dramatic prophecy/worldplay nonsense from the villain & never like, the boyfriend wordlessly cracks a raw egg into the MCs tea bc she coughed & that’s just what you do or some shit
Part of me really wants to be snarky and say "But that's icky" and just leave it there, but actually this is a really good point. I think the reason authors don't go this route is that it makes the love interest too "other" for the protag. It reminds the reader that relationships are complex and rely on both parties to learn and adapt. Which is both harder to write around and requires more patience from the reader. This also sort of falters because these types of romance books are often written with Blank Slate protagonists. If you project yourself onto the main character and find out that the main love interest is a person who does things you don't find attractive, you might not want to keep reading. Keeping the love interest as this ageless, knowledgeable, handsome, wistful guy with a little bit of a possessive streak and a lot of baked-in tragedy is just palatable enough for mass-market appeal without being too bland. It's cinnamon oatmeal. Making him constantly speak in rhymes or tortured poetry, having him constantly give people the stuff they "technically asked for" instead of what they wanted, or craft weird remedies for ordinary issues would all end up making him feel too alien and could turn people off. Mostly because it forces compromise for the reader and the protagonist. It forces them to engage with the concept of romance in a way that isn't strictly on their own terms, and that is kind of a scary concept for people. TL;DR: But that's icky
Atm the most lore accurate fairies I've read are those written by Holly Black, and their other-ness makes the relationship with the human characters all the more interesting and complex
okay you have a really good point and I want to follow up with something intelligent but like im imagining tamlin just casually cracking an egg into feyre's tea now (before she gets turned into high fae ofc) and being so insulted when she rejects it because there's a raw egg in there and he's like 'wtf else are you supposed to put in tea when you're sick????' thank you for making my year omfg
@@hunterfox6176tangentially, this is exactly why I like scifi monster romance. There’s more often an attempt made since the whole point oftentimes is that they’re an other
So, part of what I think makes the series so bad is that Maas does a really half-assed job portraying Fae as Not Human-- they might have magic but her faeries might as well be hot wizards because they just act like humans (in as much as any bad romance/fantasy character acts human.)
Her sisters act like they just became poor yesterday not 8 years ago... I rlly struggled with these on the nose and nonsensical pity parties while listening to the audiobook
We're only 6 minutes in and I already want to buy a secondhand copy of this book so I can throw it out a window. Not-Katniss brings a whole-ass deer to her starving family in the middle of a famine, but because Not-Katniss must also be Not-Cinderella, her family treats her like trash even though food is like THE most primal human need other than water and air. We are more or less genetically wired to love food-bringers, _especially_ in times of famine.
As an irish person i heard about the big bads being basically from Ireland (Hybern=Hibernia) and the whole colonisation thing they did , which is hilarious given that in real life we in too busy being colonised . But what REALLY pissed me off was the whole Blight being caused by a Hybern fae (the potato famine was caused by Blight) . Theres too much history twisted in the books to be coincidental. Like why is she taking the history and making it actually the Irish doing it . Its small but it's infuriating
It's because SJM is a raging biggot. Later in the serise, she describes the Night Court as an apartheid state -- where two groups of citizens are barred from entering the "Big Amazing Utopia" City of Velaris. She then spends the next few books demonizing the victims of this fictional faery apartheid while proping up the ruler who put that system in place. She uses tired old racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, etc. tropes so frequently that it becomes integral to the plot and characters. On top of all of that, she plagiarizes a LOT throughout all of her series. There are points where you can say stuff like "yep, this was ripped straight out of Game of Thrones" or "This is literally just the name of a Greek Goddess".
SJM has a lot of hidden Zionist views in her books and there were some theories that she purposely used the name Hybern as a way to demonise the Irish due to their support for Palestine. The Night Court is a literal apartheid state anyway.
yesssssssssss this already confused me so much when I started the audiobook (only after hearing about it constantly from the internet and several friends/old classmates gushing about it)
It always annoys me how lazy the naming of some of these books are. Names don't always have to connect to the story or mean anything, sometimes names are just names (Looking at you LILY BLOSSOM BLOOM THE FLORIST).
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was so confused by an actually starving girl being physically fit at the same time. It's giving, "we make anorexia look good".
11:24 "It was a merciful thing that she died. If anything, it left more food for us" ...Okay, did not foresee the cannibal family angle, but I'm here for it. From what I heard, it'd make the books more entertaining!
The worst mistake of my life was buying into the hype of ACOTAR and actually buying the entire series, just knowing I would love it. Spoiler, I did not. I've never seen a cast of more unlikable characters in my life. All of them. Feyre in particular drives me up a wall. Thanks for this video, it made me laugh.
Omg I was the same! I managed to read the first 3 books being told they just get better and better- they in my opinion do not, then got to silver flames and managed like 4 chapters. How does she make her main characters so unlikable?!? Feyre is bad enough but Nestas pov is just 🤮 and I cannot with her spicy scenes, the biggest Icks since e l James
1:35:28 this is my ENTIRE problem with this book (I learned who the love interest is in later books and was so revolted that I refused to continue). I've literally argued with someone that loves this book that said "but R had to do that to F under the mountain because there was no other way to help her". My response was basically "there absolutely were other ways to help her. Exhibit A: cleaning up the lentil mess or whatever. And if you really want to insist that there was no way for him to help her without literally ro0fying and s3xually @busing her, then that is entirely Maas' fault for writing a plot in which being voluntarily r@pey is justified."
Absolutely!! If the ONLY way R could help her was through those methods, then Maas should have written a different circumstance that didn't call for that. It was entirely an unnecessary choice and just makes things so weird and uncomfortable.
@@sentireads absolutely. Makes me think that Maas just has a r@pe/sl@very/furry f3tish. No seriously, especially the furry thing. There is so much growling and "mate" talk.
"Why would that immortal hundred-year-old fairy be interested in a 19-year old human?". Because that's part of the appeal for the target audience! Same with Twilight, same with a whole bunch of other paranormal/fantasy romance books. "This hot, rich, powerful guy could've had any other girl in the world but he chose a regular young human woman (who is just like *you*, dear reader). There was not a single woman in his 100+ years of life has that bewitched him like you, oh I mean, the MC did". I get not liking that trope, I'm not particularly fond of it either, but it's literally THE power fantasy books like these provide, don't act surprised when it shows up.
What's also awful about this trope is that there is nothing that the main character does that makes her stand out! She always painfully boring and the male lead is painfully perfect! In the beginning of my own writing I had a moment where I asked myself why would someone with who has everything want my main character and I laughed because he's not going to fall in love at first glance he doesn't believe in love, humans are no better than animals and he sees physical intimacy as distraction and a way to breed. He is nihilistic and severely depressed and my main character slowly comes to the realization this man has never been show an ounce of care in his life. Moral of this rant give your characters character and not just hehe look how hot and dangerous!
Also, romance (or at least lust) between mortals and immortals is literally one of the oldest tropes in the storytelling canon. And just like any trope, it can be done well or poorly. “There’s no reason for them to be interested in the protagonist” is only true if the story makes it true.
I listened to these books on audible and the amount of times I cringed and uttered "so you're not like other girls" and "EWW" were far too many to count. I started the series because my friends were obsessed with it and I continued to the end due to the torturous pleasure of hate reading. I hold myself back from shit talking the books to my friends but listening to these roast videos has been cathartic.
Here 300 years later just to bitch about my least favorite bad writer habit: trying to have things both ways. You can have a character enduring abuse and working for their family because they have no way out, like Cinderella. She acts like a servant to her family because otherwise she'd have no roof over her head. And you have have a enabling sort of character who supports lazy, cruel family members because they've been raised to believe their needs don't matter, and all abuse they receive it justified because they should have behaved better. But you can't have a character like Feyre simultaneously keeping her entire family alive and being bullied by her sisters. Feyre knows her family sucks, and she's able to stand-up to powerful fae. There's no evil stepmother who is going to punish her if she tries to take the money her sister stole from her back. Even with her stupid promise to take care of her family, why would someone with her personality do that by being a doormat? The real answer is that the author wants Feyre to be simultaneously strongly defiant and a long-suffering, abused martyr. She can't even have made that promise to a dying mother she loved, which would make emotional sense. Feyre has to be such a martyr that even the mother she made the promise to didn't treat her right. And now I'm at the part of the video where she's lamenting people she left behind forgetting her. Uh, SJM, if you want your character to angst about being forgotten and away from people she cares about, you can't make everyone in her previous life an asshole. But she's got to angst, so she broods about it, even though it makes no sense.
Finally finished the video, and lemme say: SJM makes me feel so much more confident in my writing haha. I lost it at Amarantha SMIRKING while Feyre stabbed the faeries like?? Dude you’re literally losing, wtf is there to be delighted about
Ok I promise I'm not here to d-ride SJM I promise, this book wasn't great in the slightest, I just like discussing books bc I don't know many critical readers. However, I think Amarantha acted that way was because she knew who the 3rd fairy was before Feyre did, and she was confident that Feyre wouldn't be able to bring herself to kill him. And IF she did bring herself to do it (idk if Amarantha knew about the heart thing?) then Feyre would've ~lost what she loved most~ or w/e. It was lose-lose, Amarantha knew it. She was just being cocky and cruel. (That's how I interpreted it at least lol)
No, see, the book is actually very clever because "acotar" means "to limit or prohibit" in Spanish, in reference to how the world building greatly limits itself and the book is written in a prohibitively strange fashion.
Honestly the fact that her name is "Feyre" and she goes to the "faerie" rhelm where the "fey" are is criminal. I actually like when characters have bad or cheesy names, but that sucks so bad. It's like Lightlark and CoHo vibes. What I don't mind tho is boring names next to fantasy names. I find it funny and realistic cuz u can walk into a grocery store and find guys named "Sylas" and "Maximilian" but also guys named "Bob" and "Jim."
I’m beginning to hate “romantasy.” I really hate that portmanteau, it sounds stupid and it makes me feel dumb. Also this romance before the fantasy tone of the novel is frustrating because the fantasy aspects are more interesting than the love story. Write a fantasy novel that also tells a love story while still keeping the fantasy as the focus!
I'm biased because I like fantasy but, personally, I don't think such a creative, wonderful genre as fantasy should be the backdrop to a romance story especially a shitty one like ACOTAR.
I am working on a romantic fantasy for fun that prioritizes fantasy first and romance second. Romantasy seems to have an issue with sticking to a steady plotline without becoming embroiled in the extended sex scenes. The "porn" aspect is what kept me away from ACOTAR. That and Goodreads reviews.
I really enjoy a lot of scifi monster spice books, but honestly that’s 95% for the oddly captivating worldbuilding that some of the big series has. Even if the characters are repetitive as hell (looking at you Ice Planet Barbarians lol) or the plot decides to enemies to lovers villains who SHOULD NOT EVER BE REDEEMED (looking at you Iriduan test subjects), the inner workings of the worlds and universes are often really interesting and keep me reading to learn more Fantasy monster spice has much less of that, at least from what I’ve read. I’ve tried a few books, but it’s always pretty basic and bland worldbuilding.
@@KommandantAegis I said the same thing and got into this whole long ass argument when I said that the fantasy aspect of these novels were flimsy at best.
I found this book because I really like fae/faerie/fae folk lore. And I quickly realized this was NOT it. And I quickly grew to hate this book with the rage of a thousand suns. I am literally rewriting this book because of how much I hated it and I cannot even list the amount of things about this series that I despise/ don’t make sense. These books have taken over my life in the most infuriating hyperfixation I have EVER had. If there were two characters I could physically beat to death with the property from which they came from. It would be Feyre and Rhysand. TLDR: I fu*king hate these books. :’)
Pllleeeease do the other books. I read them all (for a friend) and while I try to be supportive of her interests, I secretly haaaate them and I need an outlet lmao
this is exactly what happened to me 😭 my friend LOVES these books and they’re my best friend and I have a strict principle of not judging other peoples interests…but these books really push that boundary for me haha
You are literally meeee!!! I promised my friend I would read them all and I'm on the last one but now I hate my life for ever picking up this series lol. It's literally poorly written corn with plot. I've found better stuff for FREE on AO3 (Sansûkh by determamfidd is really good)
ngl i think i needed this video. i read the books as a teenager when they first came out, tho i dropped off before the last book got released (didnt even know there was a 2021 book). and SJM was a formative author for me, but i really glamorized her writing in my brain. this is NOT it lmfao its crazy what quality of writing you'll tolerate as a teen/kid
Throne of Glass was formative for me in the way that it was the first ever book I read where I thought to my young self ‘Wow… this is bad.’ When you’re young, you’ll kind of just eat anything up at first. For visual media, it was the Percy Jackson movie that was the first movie to make me go ‘that sucked.’ For books? Throne of Glass. My god is it bad. That series lirerally developed my sense of taste and warned me what to avoid 😂
At one point Feyre says something like "I would never forget this no matter how many times I paint it." Uh, painting something would help you remember it, not forget it. It's like journaling except at the end you have a picture of the thing you are trying to forget. This book is chalk full of nonsensical constructs like this one.
Please do the next one at least. I love your humor and totally agree with you on this one. I've only read half of acotar, none of the subsequent novels. I need to hear an abridged version
Honestly even the actual ballad of Tam Lin (so Thomas of the Linden trees in Scots...) is a better story, and it's a ballad of a few verses instead of a full ass series of novels. Steeleye Span has a great version of it if I recall, an angry fae queen and all.
2:20:14 That riddle is so painfully obvious after just the first two lines I IMMEDIATELY knew the answer. I've never heard that riddle before in my life, and I doubt you have either- good riddles are supposed to difficult, not horrifically obvious.
I think a better explanation is Tamlin has fallen into depression at this point. He's too unstable to function probably because he had to whip his best friend and watch Feyra get sexually. We also don't know what Amarantha is doing to him off screen. She is a cannon rapist.
I’ve been reading To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods and I’ve been struggling with the writing style, and seeing passages from this made me realize “oh god, Wicked Gods is an ACOTAR rip-off.”
I was casually writing my own story while listening to this. The main character in my story is called Claude Lucien, with Lucien being pronounced the same way you pronounced it this video. I was writing a chapter where someone called him Lucien instead of Claude, but he doesn’t like that name, so he keeps correcting her. I haven’t read this book before, so I wasn’t expecting the name to be the same. It suddenly became kind of weird when I both heard you say it, and wrote it at the same time. Loved the video as always though. This is the kind of book I probably would have found intriguing at first glance due to the fantasy aspect of it. I am glad you covered it so I know that I would not like it at all and can save myself the time and money by not reading/purchasing it.
I think Fiara’s character would be fixed a but if she and her family were actually close. And made sense. It would make Faira a lot more sympathetic because she loves her family so much and wants to do her best to support them even if she could count her ribs she would still give last meal to her sisters. It would make so so much more sense and draw so much more sympathy to her!! And also would make a lot more sense to her wanting to get back.
ever since finding out that her other series (throne of glass) is just asoiaf self insert fanfic I am convinced that she read that "bowels turned watery" in asoiaf books and didnt know what it meant but thought it was cool so she decided to use it. bcs george uses that phrase a lot
I haven’t read romance fantasy before I found out that acotar hype and decided to give it a try. I did about 10 chapters and dropped, then I was told I should continue bc I will get it in the end and especially after I get to the second book. omfg how bad it is. It’s so annoying that the characters and the plot is changing every time it’s convenient for SJM. The only reason I’m glad I did 1,5 books is that I can now enjoy roasting videos and laugh a lot 🤝🏼 thank you! ❤️
Isaac probs stands out cause its hebrew. While the majority of the other names are welsh, Irish or Scottish. Which is funny that you got a 'not fantasy' vibes from Elain, as the name has its roots in Arthurian mythology as Elaine, the lover Lancelot and mother of Galahad. Also, all the set up for the HunterxMaiden junk is straight up just stolen from Mists of Avalon. Which, isnt a suprise given maas's history of plagiarism
Ok I love the Senti angry table flip edit! Now. Do I add this terrible fairy wannabe smut to my read list? I've seen this mentioned before but omg I can't deal with this "family" 😂 also Nesta needs to be kicked out of this universe 🤬
I came here to confirm if this series is worth my time reading and I'm glad I didn't buy it yet. Btw I would love to hear you how the second book continues, I saw a couple of random videos and I'm pretty sure it would become worse because most of the fandom claims this is the best book of the trilogy 😂
Enjoyed every second of this video. Definitely would enjoy the next one if you make it through the second book. For me the second book was simultaneously less and more painful than the first book. Less painful because at least some stuff was happening and more painful because It became clear that Maas can't write a plot at all and the whole book is just a subsequence of fetch quests for boring-ass characters. But I get a tangible satisfaction watching rant videos about these books!
You hit the nail right on the head! The second book was way harder for me to get through despite being a "better" book than the first. I don't really like Rhsyand I guess? Not that I liked Tamlin either...
I was hesitant to read these books because I’ve gone through this with the Twilight series and Nicholas Sparks books. I was a little curious about them because they’re so popular. Hearing someone describe it who sounds as annoyed as I was with the previous disappointments has made this more enjoyable. Your video has made me more interested in the next books so we can cringe together. Thank you for your service.
Yess Senti’s back👌from small content creator to small content creator I wish you the best in growing Do you plan on posting about your own writing anytime soon? I’m curious to hear about your projects!
Thanks for this! I hated the character the first few pages in and didn’t know why. But you put it into words. She DOES do nothing but bitch. I understand world building and giving exposition. But every other paragraph is just bitter. I also understand that it also explains her character, but you NEED to make your main character at least a little likeable in order to go on. It comes off as the MC being incredibly snobbish and pretentious.
Girl this is literally the video i needed. My memories of my first reading of the series were really becoming dull, and so many of my friends were asking why i hated it so much. This was like reading the book with the most comforting voice of reason soothing the unbearable cringe. Thank you 🥹🥹🥹😔 these books are terrible and you made the best out of it
Omg When I was still in the first book (they gave me the ‘it gets better talk’ so I’m now on the second and it’s just the funny fandom that’s keeping me) I was like no this can’t be it I WANT MY TIME BACK! This sis’ motivations are so senseless and she’s even more stupid to not question others around her. You literally just killed a friend of the ‘most scariest thing there ever is’ (rolls my eyes in annoyance) and no one and I mean NO ONE has tried to beat you black and blue and give you angry treatment instead they’re all treating you like royalty even when you haven’t apologised though you’re supposedly meant to be scum to them. You are literally a BIG FAT INCONVENIENCE and yet they let you receive all the Princess treatment and that supposedly scariest thing on earth hasn’t tried to snap your neck but is actively trying to form a romance with you? Oh girl come on! 🙄😒 And don’t get me started on the 10 chapter endured because sis just didn’t utter the words ‘I love you too’. Then the other gruelling 6 unnecessary chapters for sis to come up with the answer to a riddle that did not need half a brain if thinking to come up with when everyone for 12 chapters straight (even the wallmart witch) kept telling her about ‘LOVE!’ being the only cure.
I dont know if ill ever be able to trust a book recommendation. All thebpeople fawning over these books and ive listened to so many read through reviews only to be so disappointed.
honestly i thought that all of the fans of this series were like me when i was a fan, as in 13 and never read anything better and this series was recommended by my schools librarian. but it had a resergence with ADULTS which is NUTS
I just hate how fantasy is being consumed by smut. I can’t even buy a fantasy book without having to search up if it has pages upon pages of sex scenes because I just don’t want to read that stuff. Then it starts affecting writing as well because as we all sadly know, sex and steamy situations sells. You can have horrible characters and crap writing, but if the characters get dirty and it’s EXPLICIT?? Boom, sales. I love a good romance sub plot but not when it diminishes the story. From what i’ve seen in this video it does exactly that and it’s sad to see another fantasy story be lost to lust
honestly i like the cruel prince because all of the sex is either implied or very vague, theres no mention of genitalia and its all consentual. its not afraid of sex but its not porn
@@screamingbegins4688EXACTLY! When I think of relationships in fantasy (whether sexual or just romantic) I love how it was approached in the cruel prince and all its follow up books. All of the scenes were fade to black and implied, there wasn’t pages and pages of unnecessary sex scenes to make the story “better”. If you are gonna write sex in a story I think that’s how it should be. When I was writing my original comment the cruel prince was the first book that came to mind that didn’t use the smut approach lol
1:54:12 I got spoiled on Feyre’s love interest but, oh brother, this guy SUCKS! I would be so pissed off reading this and HE ends up being who she gets stuck with. Ugh, what a creep
Honestly every time I learn more about ACOTAR I realize how much better _Spinning Silver_ handled it, and it wasn't even the focus of the whole book. Like I get the appeal of fluffy, easy-to-read books, but do they have to be actively bad and poorly written?
2:56:52 I feel like this section in particular describes how bad Sarah J. Maas’s writing is, like WE KNOW it’s an agonizing choice and that you don’t have gods to pray to. Why are you taking two paragraphs and like twenty synonyms to describe that???
The watery bowels thing at least makes sense. If you’ve never been frightened for your life, I can see why you think it’s laughable. It’s the murmuring for me. Somewhere, someone thought murmuring is sexy and I just picture people trying to seduce each other by speaking so quietly the other person can’t hear you. 😂
Hey, so I loved this video. And I'm glad I found it a year after you published it because that means you have already done the next videos and I don't have to wait. I'm listening and playing Stardew Valley, and it's great!
44:01 I nearly spit out my drink. I’m not sure how I ended up here (I don’t do TikTok, let alone book tok, I’ve never read this book & I’m a 44 year old woman so I’m not sure I’m the demographic this book was even geared to) but regardless I’m highly entertained 🤣
I CAN NOT with the love triangle 😂 this is why I love Xiran Jay Zhao, they don't do that crap. (Read Iron Widow its so good and the sequel is gonna be out soon) Also the way Fayra's sisters are so bitchy makes no sense considering poor families tend to be closer because they rely on each other Also also I hate the implication that amarantha is evil because she's a sexually dominant woman. Like- ladies can top
2:25:00 on the topic of the spike trap... How long must these bones have been to impale a 20ft tall worm? The average femur (longest bone in the human body) is, on average, 18 inches long. Thats only a foot and six inches. Especially since these bones are (broken?) to be sharp that means the length was further decreased. That doesnt even seem close to being capable of fatally impaling this worm. Did i miss something?? Are these non-human bones??? Either way any creature a worm of this size would physically be able to consume would not have the bone-size necessary to create a proper impaling spike trap for this worm. I feel like I'm going nuts! Edit: typo
What an excellent point! I hadn't considered this but you're so right. How would such small spikes kill such a huge creature? Based on the scale, the bones should basically be a splinter to the worm.
Honestly, this book disappointed me with the lack of the use of fae lore. Like there is so much opportunity to make the fairy characters less generic, give them weird appearances and more unique personalities and motivations. Irish fairies i could see being translated to dark fantasy/romance really well, but instead I just read some generic wattpad love triangle stuff. "The Watchers" movie didn't utilize fairy stuff as much as I liked but still did so much better than ACOTAR, I wanted to see more pagan stuff and more emphasis on a relationship with nature. Instead its generic anger issues male love interest who is the ruler of what feels like a very human, yet magical kingdom.
I'm late to the party but one line I also hate that is REPEATED SO MANY TIMES is "Shredded to bloody ribbons" like Sarah figure something else out. COME ON
i read until halfway through the 3rd book and couldn’t take the writing or characters anymore. I’m so excited to finish the books through these videos LMAO
I’ve only experienced this book (and Mist and Fury) through a podcast that did some in-depth reviews (and absolutely shredded it to pieces, it was a reward for their patreon supporters iirc), so I was wondering whether I had been biased in my opinion. Glad to see my initial feelings were right-what a bad novel. Egad.
my friend absolutely ADORES these books and while I love my friend to death and have a strict policy against judging and insulting others’ interests out of turn…this book just sucks so bad.
It's been 8 months since you posted this but only a day since the algorithm made this vid pop up in my feed, so I have to ask: Did anyone warn you that, while the acotar series proper is 5 books, the characters return in SJM's new urban fantasy series as of book 3 because all of her books are apparently connected via some weird multiverse bullshit so you'd probably have to read those, too? As enjoyable as this video was, I'd personally advise self-care if you genuinely don't want to subject yourself to more of these characters. Especially since ANOTHER acotar book is apparently in the works as well.
I read the second ACOTAR book and noped out! I'm not interested in the series enough in a "It's so bad it's kind of good" way to subject myself to any more of it. I did hear about the whole multiverse thing which is kind of cool in theory but I heard some fans say they really didn't like it.
@sentireads5900 That's valid! The series definitely doesn't seem to be the right kind of bad for that. Can't blame her fans for that, tbh. Especially since the other series was supposed to be an adult series. Sure, with all the sex everyone ended up having, acotar might as well have been an adult series, but that's not what it was marketed as. Personally, I think it was a cash grab, but it's whatever haha Can't blame you for dipping. Although I'm definitely curious about what you thought about the shift from Tamlin to Rhysand even though you mentioned already being spolied on it.
@@pixelsbykris5494 Tamlin was a boring guy who yelled all the time for no reason. Rhysand was a boring guy who was smug all the time for no reason. lol I sort of view both as cardboard cutouts, but if I had a gun to my head, I'd choose Rhysand.
This is so petty of me it annoys me that there is a line about it never occuring to Elain to get her hands dirty and then later on the same page it talks about the fact she is a GARDENER.....someone whose hands literally are in the dirt.....hello?
Wait so if she liked planting then why plant flowers when she could be making a contribution to her starving family by planting CROPS. Her family is starving and her youngest sister is going off into a scary forest and this girl has the audacity to plant FLOWERS.
@@juliea.7721 not only that, personal vegetable gardens were very much a thing throughout human history, ESPECIALLY Europe in the middle ages. Flower gardens were only a thing for the most influencial wealthy people, who didn't need to plant their own crops.
haha true
@@juliea.7721That was one of my first grips with this book, it’s SO stupid
Doubly bewildering when you consider how there are pretty flowering plants that produce crops. Like girl plant some freaking onions or leeks they have GORGEOUS purple flowers! Not to mention most fruit bearing plants have a flowering stage like get yourself some blueberry bushes girl I beg of thee
"A feline smile" is probably supposed to sound dark and menacing or whatever, but every time I hear it, I just imagine Rhysand making this face: :3
Oh god now I can't unsee it
@@sentireads does that make his whole situation better or worse in your opinion?
😂😂
Fully laughed out loud thank you for that
I feel it's more of a >:3
You're telling me this is a steamy romance novel starring Belle Everdeen who hates her family and gets whisked away into a love triangle with two guys way out of her league? AND there's fairies? I love groundbreaking fiction. Sign me up!
I was confused by the belle comment because Feyre was illiterate before I remembered it was originally a beauty and the beast retelling
@@als2480thought it was referring to bella swan at first
hahah though I must say the only thing she and Katniss have in common in my opinion is that at the beginning of the book the Author wants us to think of Katniss cuz the scenes are so reminiscent of her. But Katniss was not a Cinderella in the way Fayre is. She also didn't throw a pity party on every page. Also Katniss hunting for family as oldest child makes sense but Feyra is youngest and her sisters are like the evil stepsisters, very flat characters
Feyre isn't Katniss though, the similarity ends with having two romantic interests and use bow
I’ve always maintained that if SJM was *insistent* on Tamlin’s manor and the Spring Court being this idyllic eternal springtime paradise they should’ve added some creepy Midsommar vibes and have Feyre in constant paranoia of being sacrificed or treated in a way far worse than just being killed; the absence of a threat becoming the threat itself. If she rejected being dressed up nicely by maids or eating good food because she thought they were going to make her an ideal sacrifice for a creepy fairy celebration. It’s so immersion-breaking that they’re like “come with us or die, murderous scum” and ‘come with us’ means ‘live like a princess in our magical fairy springtime castle’
SJM is not good enough to write a complex multilayered story that has an interguing atmosphere. The best she could do is a spinkle of ✨️vibe✨️ lol.
but that would mean sarah j maas would have to care about more than just the romance
I love this idea but I don’t think she could’ve done this because I think she wanted to leave a door open for a tamlin redemption
@idrinkandiknowthings9738 I don't think she plots anything further than the book she's currently writing (and even that I doubt she plots). She listens to whatever her fandom gives her.
@@maidlenhazley Literally lol. It’s so obvious that she just makes shit up as she goes and never bothers to fix all the plot holes and retcons left behind, no plotting whatsoever
"This is just faery porn, not monster porn-"
Well now I'm even *less* interested
Imagine my disappointment when I read it 😭😭😭
@@extratao50 Well, if you want monster smut-
Go read the Duskwalker Brides series
That's some solid monster smut
The thing that always gets me with these “fae romance” stories is that there’s never any effort to make the faeries mundanely inhuman. It’s always big dramatic prophecy/worldplay nonsense from the villain & never like, the boyfriend wordlessly cracks a raw egg into the MCs tea bc she coughed & that’s just what you do or some shit
Part of me really wants to be snarky and say "But that's icky" and just leave it there, but actually this is a really good point.
I think the reason authors don't go this route is that it makes the love interest too "other" for the protag. It reminds the reader that relationships are complex and rely on both parties to learn and adapt. Which is both harder to write around and requires more patience from the reader.
This also sort of falters because these types of romance books are often written with Blank Slate protagonists. If you project yourself onto the main character and find out that the main love interest is a person who does things you don't find attractive, you might not want to keep reading.
Keeping the love interest as this ageless, knowledgeable, handsome, wistful guy with a little bit of a possessive streak and a lot of baked-in tragedy is just palatable enough for mass-market appeal without being too bland. It's cinnamon oatmeal.
Making him constantly speak in rhymes or tortured poetry, having him constantly give people the stuff they "technically asked for" instead of what they wanted, or craft weird remedies for ordinary issues would all end up making him feel too alien and could turn people off. Mostly because it forces compromise for the reader and the protagonist. It forces them to engage with the concept of romance in a way that isn't strictly on their own terms, and that is kind of a scary concept for people.
TL;DR: But that's icky
Atm the most lore accurate fairies I've read are those written by Holly Black, and their other-ness makes the relationship with the human characters all the more interesting and complex
okay you have a really good point and I want to follow up with something intelligent
but like
im imagining tamlin just casually cracking an egg into feyre's tea now (before she gets turned into high fae ofc) and being so insulted when she rejects it because there's a raw egg in there and he's like 'wtf else are you supposed to put in tea when you're sick????'
thank you for making my year omfg
Honestly it’s the best concept for a character I’ve heard
@@hunterfox6176tangentially, this is exactly why I like scifi monster romance. There’s more often an attempt made since the whole point oftentimes is that they’re an other
So, part of what I think makes the series so bad is that Maas does a really half-assed job portraying Fae as Not Human-- they might have magic but her faeries might as well be hot wizards because they just act like humans (in as much as any bad romance/fantasy character acts human.)
Exactly!!! They really do just feel like extra sexy magical humans. They are missing the whimsy of fairies.
Her sisters act like they just became poor yesterday not 8 years ago... I rlly struggled with these on the nose and nonsensical pity parties while listening to the audiobook
Yeessss, I tried the audiobook too and I think I stopped around 32:04 in the recap lmao
We're only 6 minutes in and I already want to buy a secondhand copy of this book so I can throw it out a window. Not-Katniss brings a whole-ass deer to her starving family in the middle of a famine, but because Not-Katniss must also be Not-Cinderella, her family treats her like trash even though food is like THE most primal human need other than water and air. We are more or less genetically wired to love food-bringers, _especially_ in times of famine.
As an irish person i heard about the big bads being basically from Ireland (Hybern=Hibernia) and the whole colonisation thing they did , which is hilarious given that in real life we in too busy being colonised .
But what REALLY pissed me off was the whole Blight being caused by a Hybern fae (the potato famine was caused by Blight) . Theres too much history twisted in the books to be coincidental.
Like why is she taking the history and making it actually the Irish doing it . Its small but it's infuriating
I comment on this in the video I'm working on now about ACOWAR! it really does seem like SJM has some kind of anti Irish sentiment
It's because SJM is a raging biggot. Later in the serise, she describes the Night Court as an apartheid state -- where two groups of citizens are barred from entering the "Big Amazing Utopia" City of Velaris. She then spends the next few books demonizing the victims of this fictional faery apartheid while proping up the ruler who put that system in place. She uses tired old racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, etc. tropes so frequently that it becomes integral to the plot and characters.
On top of all of that, she plagiarizes a LOT throughout all of her series. There are points where you can say stuff like "yep, this was ripped straight out of Game of Thrones" or "This is literally just the name of a Greek Goddess".
@@___o1799I literally told my friend who recommended this series to me that it's tinkerbell but game of thrones if it wanted to be lotr 🤦🏽♀️
SJM has a lot of hidden Zionist views in her books and there were some theories that she purposely used the name Hybern as a way to demonise the Irish due to their support for Palestine. The Night Court is a literal apartheid state anyway.
The first hint that this was a bad bad book was naming your MC FEIRE in a FAIRY WORLD
yesssssssssss this already confused me so much when I started the audiobook (only after hearing about it constantly from the internet and several friends/old classmates gushing about it)
It the humans hated the fae so much, why on earth would you name your kid Feyre. That's like a Christian naming their kid lucifer.
Especially coming from a race of beings that HATE fairies …like why would they name there child anything similar to there own slave masters lol
It always annoys me how lazy the naming of some of these books are. Names don't always have to connect to the story or mean anything, sometimes names are just names (Looking at you LILY BLOSSOM BLOOM THE FLORIST).
this ALWAYS bothered me!!!
1:25:58 "Shouldn't Feyre be pretty used to skipping meals?" FOUL 💀💀💀💀
(ie. iconic)
Honestly would be interesting if she had an actual food disorder
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was so confused by an actually starving girl being physically fit at the same time. It's giving, "we make anorexia look good".
11:24 "It was a merciful thing that she died. If anything, it left more food for us"
...Okay, did not foresee the cannibal family angle, but I'm here for it. From what I heard, it'd make the books more entertaining!
The worst mistake of my life was buying into the hype of ACOTAR and actually buying the entire series, just knowing I would love it.
Spoiler, I did not. I've never seen a cast of more unlikable characters in my life. All of them. Feyre in particular drives me up a wall.
Thanks for this video, it made me laugh.
Feyre really is unbearable, isn't she?
Omg I was the same! I managed to read the first 3 books being told they just get better and better- they in my opinion do not, then got to silver flames and managed like 4 chapters. How does she make her main characters so unlikable?!? Feyre is bad enough but Nestas pov is just 🤮 and I cannot with her spicy scenes, the biggest Icks since e l James
@@sentireads I figured out she was plain stupid within half of the first book.
I dropped the series on the second book. I was worried my eyes wouldn't come back from rolling my eyes all the time.
I bought the series because I hoped it would get better. Now they’re just sitting on my shelf collecting dust.
1:35:28 this is my ENTIRE problem with this book (I learned who the love interest is in later books and was so revolted that I refused to continue). I've literally argued with someone that loves this book that said "but R had to do that to F under the mountain because there was no other way to help her". My response was basically "there absolutely were other ways to help her. Exhibit A: cleaning up the lentil mess or whatever. And if you really want to insist that there was no way for him to help her without literally ro0fying and s3xually @busing her, then that is entirely Maas' fault for writing a plot in which being voluntarily r@pey is justified."
Absolutely!! If the ONLY way R could help her was through those methods, then Maas should have written a different circumstance that didn't call for that. It was entirely an unnecessary choice and just makes things so weird and uncomfortable.
@@sentireads absolutely. Makes me think that Maas just has a r@pe/sl@very/furry f3tish. No seriously, especially the furry thing. There is so much growling and "mate" talk.
You know I've made this exact argument and no one seems to care.... Which is a vibe, sure. I, to this day, can't get past this.
"Why would that immortal hundred-year-old fairy be interested in a 19-year old human?". Because that's part of the appeal for the target audience! Same with Twilight, same with a whole bunch of other paranormal/fantasy romance books. "This hot, rich, powerful guy could've had any other girl in the world but he chose a regular young human woman (who is just like *you*, dear reader). There was not a single woman in his 100+ years of life has that bewitched him like you, oh I mean, the MC did".
I get not liking that trope, I'm not particularly fond of it either, but it's literally THE power fantasy books like these provide, don't act surprised when it shows up.
What's also awful about this trope is that there is nothing that the main character does that makes her stand out! She always painfully boring and the male lead is painfully perfect! In the beginning of my own writing I had a moment where I asked myself why would someone with who has everything want my main character and I laughed because he's not going to fall in love at first glance he doesn't believe in love, humans are no better than animals and he sees physical intimacy as distraction and a way to breed. He is nihilistic and severely depressed and my main character slowly comes to the realization this man has never been show an ounce of care in his life. Moral of this rant give your characters character and not just hehe look how hot and dangerous!
Also, romance (or at least lust) between mortals and immortals is literally one of the oldest tropes in the storytelling canon. And just like any trope, it can be done well or poorly. “There’s no reason for them to be interested in the protagonist” is only true if the story makes it true.
I listened to these books on audible and the amount of times I cringed and uttered "so you're not like other girls" and "EWW" were far too many to count. I started the series because my friends were obsessed with it and I continued to the end due to the torturous pleasure of hate reading. I hold myself back from shit talking the books to my friends but listening to these roast videos has been cathartic.
Here 300 years later just to bitch about my least favorite bad writer habit: trying to have things both ways.
You can have a character enduring abuse and working for their family because they have no way out, like Cinderella. She acts like a servant to her family because otherwise she'd have no roof over her head. And you have have a enabling sort of character who supports lazy, cruel family members because they've been raised to believe their needs don't matter, and all abuse they receive it justified because they should have behaved better.
But you can't have a character like Feyre simultaneously keeping her entire family alive and being bullied by her sisters. Feyre knows her family sucks, and she's able to stand-up to powerful fae. There's no evil stepmother who is going to punish her if she tries to take the money her sister stole from her back. Even with her stupid promise to take care of her family, why would someone with her personality do that by being a doormat?
The real answer is that the author wants Feyre to be simultaneously strongly defiant and a long-suffering, abused martyr. She can't even have made that promise to a dying mother she loved, which would make emotional sense. Feyre has to be such a martyr that even the mother she made the promise to didn't treat her right.
And now I'm at the part of the video where she's lamenting people she left behind forgetting her. Uh, SJM, if you want your character to angst about being forgotten and away from people she cares about, you can't make everyone in her previous life an asshole. But she's got to angst, so she broods about it, even though it makes no sense.
Nailed it!!
Finally finished the video, and lemme say: SJM makes me feel so much more confident in my writing haha. I lost it at Amarantha SMIRKING while Feyre stabbed the faeries like?? Dude you’re literally losing, wtf is there to be delighted about
That's what I'm saying!!! Why would she be excited about losing?
Ok I promise I'm not here to d-ride SJM I promise, this book wasn't great in the slightest, I just like discussing books bc I don't know many critical readers. However, I think Amarantha acted that way was because she knew who the 3rd fairy was before Feyre did, and she was confident that Feyre wouldn't be able to bring herself to kill him. And IF she did bring herself to do it (idk if Amarantha knew about the heart thing?) then Feyre would've ~lost what she loved most~ or w/e. It was lose-lose, Amarantha knew it. She was just being cocky and cruel.
(That's how I interpreted it at least lol)
No, see, the book is actually very clever because "acotar" means "to limit or prohibit" in Spanish, in reference to how the world building greatly limits itself and the book is written in a prohibitively strange fashion.
Not to be that person but the closest word to what you mean it would be acortar, it's missing an r 😅
@@lauravalentinavillamizarpe5168 According to the RAE it's true, although I've never heard it being used either tbf
@@lauravalentinavillamizarpe5168 no, de hecho acotar existe y es un verbo, es como delimitar o cortar algo.
nothing could have prepared me for "My bowels turned watery" 😭 where can i sign the petition to ban this sentence?
There is a wonderful little vid of a guy reading that in various character voices.
She was cured of the con ?
Wait, she can't write but knows the word "effervescent"??
Do people just casually talk like that in Faere's universe?
I don't even know what the word means, how th fuck does Feyre?
Honestly the fact that her name is "Feyre" and she goes to the "faerie" rhelm where the "fey" are is criminal.
I actually like when characters have bad or cheesy names, but that sucks so bad. It's like Lightlark and CoHo vibes.
What I don't mind tho is boring names next to fantasy names. I find it funny and realistic cuz u can walk into a grocery store and find guys named "Sylas" and "Maximilian" but also guys named "Bob" and "Jim."
I’m beginning to hate “romantasy.” I really hate that portmanteau, it sounds stupid and it makes me feel dumb. Also this romance before the fantasy tone of the novel is frustrating because the fantasy aspects are more interesting than the love story. Write a fantasy novel that also tells a love story while still keeping the fantasy as the focus!
I'm biased because I like fantasy but, personally, I don't think such a creative, wonderful genre as fantasy should be the backdrop to a romance story especially a shitty one like ACOTAR.
You misspelled "smut with fantasy elements"
I am working on a romantic fantasy for fun that prioritizes fantasy first and romance second. Romantasy seems to have an issue with sticking to a steady plotline without becoming embroiled in the extended sex scenes. The "porn" aspect is what kept me away from ACOTAR. That and Goodreads reviews.
I really enjoy a lot of scifi monster spice books, but honestly that’s 95% for the oddly captivating worldbuilding that some of the big series has. Even if the characters are repetitive as hell (looking at you Ice Planet Barbarians lol) or the plot decides to enemies to lovers villains who SHOULD NOT EVER BE REDEEMED (looking at you Iriduan test subjects), the inner workings of the worlds and universes are often really interesting and keep me reading to learn more
Fantasy monster spice has much less of that, at least from what I’ve read. I’ve tried a few books, but it’s always pretty basic and bland worldbuilding.
@@KommandantAegis I said the same thing and got into this whole long ass argument when I said that the fantasy aspect of these novels were flimsy at best.
As a writer and Developmental Editor this entire book series is the bane of my existence next to Fourth Wing and Lightlark. 😅
Powerless too.
@@juliea.7721 Yep. Add that one too my list.
How about Caraval? 😂
@@xiexielian I haven't read it yet. But from what I've heard, I probably wouldn't like it that much.
@@mikankitsune0440 i bet
I found this book because I really like fae/faerie/fae folk lore. And I quickly realized this was NOT it. And I quickly grew to hate this book with the rage of a thousand suns. I am literally rewriting this book because of how much I hated it and I cannot even list the amount of things about this series that I despise/ don’t make sense. These books have taken over my life in the most infuriating hyperfixation I have EVER had.
If there were two characters I could physically beat to death with the property from which they came from. It would be Feyre and Rhysand.
TLDR: I fu*king hate these books.
:’)
Preaaaaaach! I'd love to read that rewrite!
@@sentireads Ayy, perhaps I’ll post it someday to AO3 or something Idk. If I do I’ll let you know then :DD
I also would love to read the rewrite
Aww thank youuu :’)) @@Shackbanshee
A rewrite sounds great tbh..
lol i like how Nesta’s potential human love interest goes NOWHERE in this series.
the thomas guy?? its cus his dad beats women
Pllleeeease do the other books. I read them all (for a friend) and while I try to be supportive of her interests, I secretly haaaate them and I need an outlet lmao
this is exactly what happened to me 😭 my friend LOVES these books and they’re my best friend and I have a strict principle of not judging other peoples interests…but these books really push that boundary for me haha
I am in the exact same situation so this video and comments section has been therapeutic lol
You are literally meeee!!! I promised my friend I would read them all and I'm on the last one but now I hate my life for ever picking up this series lol. It's literally poorly written corn with plot. I've found better stuff for FREE on AO3 (Sansûkh by determamfidd is really good)
yeah as someone who read them at like 13, i need closure
ngl i think i needed this video. i read the books as a teenager when they first came out, tho i dropped off before the last book got released (didnt even know there was a 2021 book). and SJM was a formative author for me, but i really glamorized her writing in my brain. this is NOT it lmfao its crazy what quality of writing you'll tolerate as a teen/kid
THANK YOU i read them at like 13 and tog is still a comfort series to me even tho its bad. this shit issss... not great
Throne of Glass was formative for me in the way that it was the first ever book I read where I thought to my young self ‘Wow… this is bad.’ When you’re young, you’ll kind of just eat anything up at first. For visual media, it was the Percy Jackson movie that was the first movie to make me go ‘that sucked.’ For books? Throne of Glass. My god is it bad. That series lirerally developed my sense of taste and warned me what to avoid 😂
At one point Feyre says something like "I would never forget this no matter how many times I paint it." Uh, painting something would help you remember it, not forget it. It's like journaling except at the end you have a picture of the thing you are trying to forget. This book is chalk full of nonsensical constructs like this one.
This is 80% of what I was thinking reading this book. A great roast
Please do the next one at least. I love your humor and totally agree with you on this one. I've only read half of acotar, none of the subsequent novels. I need to hear an abridged version
I was going to wait until I read this, but the allure of Senti reading a romance and tearing it apart was too strong.
It's a waste of 500 pages TBH
Honestly even the actual ballad of Tam Lin (so Thomas of the Linden trees in Scots...) is a better story, and it's a ballad of a few verses instead of a full ass series of novels. Steeleye Span has a great version of it if I recall, an angry fae queen and all.
Justice and Love for Janet!!!
2:20:14 That riddle is so painfully obvious after just the first two lines I IMMEDIATELY knew the answer. I've never heard that riddle before in my life, and I doubt you have either- good riddles are supposed to difficult, not horrifically obvious.
I think a better explanation is Tamlin has fallen into depression at this point. He's too unstable to function probably because he had to whip his best friend and watch Feyra get sexually. We also don't know what Amarantha is doing to him off screen. She is a cannon rapist.
I’ve been reading To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods and I’ve been struggling with the writing style, and seeing passages from this made me realize “oh god, Wicked Gods is an ACOTAR rip-off.”
I was casually writing my own story while listening to this. The main character in my story is called Claude Lucien, with Lucien being pronounced the same way you pronounced it this video. I was writing a chapter where someone called him Lucien instead of Claude, but he doesn’t like that name, so he keeps correcting her. I haven’t read this book before, so I wasn’t expecting the name to be the same. It suddenly became kind of weird when I both heard you say it, and wrote it at the same time.
Loved the video as always though. This is the kind of book I probably would have found intriguing at first glance due to the fantasy aspect of it. I am glad you covered it so I know that I would not like it at all and can save myself the time and money by not reading/purchasing it.
also isn't Feyra like the youngest? Wtf would they treat her like this. If she were the oldest that might be more the case
And then they were shocked she hated them 🤦🏽♀️
"I'd long since stopped feeling sorry for myself about it."
OMG no you HAVEN'T
😂😂😂
I think Fiara’s character would be fixed a but if she and her family were actually close. And made sense. It would make Faira a lot more sympathetic because she loves her family so much and wants to do her best to support them even if she could count her ribs she would still give last meal to her sisters. It would make so so much more sense and draw so much more sympathy to her!! And also would make a lot more sense to her wanting to get back.
ever since finding out that her other series (throne of glass) is just asoiaf self insert fanfic I am convinced that she read that "bowels turned watery" in asoiaf books and didnt know what it meant but thought it was cool so she decided to use it. bcs george uses that phrase a lot
I haven’t read romance fantasy before I found out that acotar hype and decided to give it a try. I did about 10 chapters and dropped, then I was told I should continue bc I will get it in the end and especially after I get to the second book. omfg how bad it is. It’s so annoying that the characters and the plot is changing every time it’s convenient for SJM. The only reason I’m glad I did 1,5 books is that I can now enjoy roasting videos and laugh a lot 🤝🏼 thank you! ❤️
Isaac probs stands out cause its hebrew. While the majority of the other names are welsh, Irish or Scottish. Which is funny that you got a 'not fantasy' vibes from Elain, as the name has its roots in Arthurian mythology as Elaine, the lover Lancelot and mother of Galahad.
Also, all the set up for the HunterxMaiden junk is straight up just stolen from Mists of Avalon. Which, isnt a suprise given maas's history of plagiarism
I don't know a lot about English mythology so I definitely missed that!
@@sentireads its so fascinating how names work through brains like that! Haha
Tbh I think most of the time you can get away with biblical names, but idk if thats because Issac isnt a name ive heard a lot outside of the bible.
I've heard a lot about BookTok *loving* ACOTAR
Thought about buying it but after the first few minutes... No thanks
MC seems insufferable 💀
It's fun to meme on, but its a horrible book lol
Ok I love the Senti angry table flip edit!
Now. Do I add this terrible fairy wannabe smut to my read list? I've seen this mentioned before but omg I can't deal with this "family" 😂 also Nesta needs to be kicked out of this universe 🤬
I came here to confirm if this series is worth my time reading and I'm glad I didn't buy it yet.
Btw I would love to hear you how the second book continues, I saw a couple of random videos and I'm pretty sure it would become worse because most of the fandom claims this is the best book of the trilogy 😂
It gets alot worse as the story continues, to the point where the main character status changes from Feyre to Nesta
Feyre pooping her pants in some of these situations is honestly valid. If I came face to face with Frieza as a human, I too would poop
I'm dead. The Bogey-Boggy-Whatever completely did me in...liked and subscribed! 🎉
a Schrödinger's monster!
1:17:10 I was not expecting a TFS DBZA clip in this multi hour ACOTAR recap but I am pleasantly surprised nonetheless. Target audience reached!
I had fun with these books but also, you’re absolutely correct 😂
Enjoyed every second of this video. Definitely would enjoy the next one if you make it through the second book. For me the second book was simultaneously less and more painful than the first book. Less painful because at least some stuff was happening and more painful because It became clear that Maas can't write a plot at all and the whole book is just a subsequence of fetch quests for boring-ass characters.
But I get a tangible satisfaction watching rant videos about these books!
You hit the nail right on the head! The second book was way harder for me to get through despite being a "better" book than the first. I don't really like Rhsyand I guess? Not that I liked Tamlin either...
Please please do the rest of the books. I beg of you. This was so funny I howled for 3 hours and downloaded the video to watch again at work 🤣
I was hesitant to read these books because I’ve gone through this with the Twilight series and Nicholas Sparks books. I was a little curious about them because they’re so popular. Hearing someone describe it who sounds as annoyed as I was with the previous disappointments has made this more enjoyable. Your video has made me more interested in the next books so we can cringe together. Thank you for your service.
Yess Senti’s back👌from small content creator to small content creator I wish you the best in growing
Do you plan on posting about your own writing anytime soon? I’m curious to hear about your projects!
Maybe I'll make a project overview video! I've got lots of stuff floating around haha
I tried getting to ACOTAR but couldn’t get passed chapter 1 due to how long and wordy it was. Why can she just get to the point?
Thanks for this!
I hated the character the first few pages in and didn’t know why. But you put it into words. She DOES do nothing but bitch.
I understand world building and giving exposition. But every other paragraph is just bitter. I also understand that it also explains her character, but you NEED to make your main character at least a little likeable in order to go on.
It comes off as the MC being incredibly snobbish and pretentious.
This is the first time I’ve seen the “Aw Boo Shep!” meme & the combo of the passage you paired it with made me choke laughing 😂
Girl this is literally the video i needed. My memories of my first reading of the series were really becoming dull, and so many of my friends were asking why i hated it so much. This was like reading the book with the most comforting voice of reason soothing the unbearable cringe. Thank you 🥹🥹🥹😔 these books are terrible and you made the best out of it
Omg
When I was still in the first book (they gave me the ‘it gets better talk’ so I’m now on the second and it’s just the funny fandom that’s keeping me) I was like no this can’t be it I WANT MY TIME BACK!
This sis’ motivations are so senseless and she’s even more stupid to not question others around her. You literally just killed a friend of the ‘most scariest thing there ever is’ (rolls my eyes in annoyance) and no one and I mean NO ONE has tried to beat you black and blue and give you angry treatment instead they’re all treating you like royalty even when you haven’t apologised though you’re supposedly meant to be scum to them.
You are literally a BIG FAT INCONVENIENCE and yet they let you receive all the Princess treatment and that supposedly scariest thing on earth hasn’t tried to snap your neck but is actively trying to form a romance with you? Oh girl come on! 🙄😒
And don’t get me started on the 10 chapter endured because sis just didn’t utter the words ‘I love you too’. Then the other gruelling 6 unnecessary chapters for sis to come up with the answer to a riddle that did not need half a brain if thinking to come up with when everyone for 12 chapters straight (even the wallmart witch) kept telling her about ‘LOVE!’ being the only cure.
I dont know if ill ever be able to trust a book recommendation. All thebpeople fawning over these books and ive listened to so many read through reviews only to be so disappointed.
honestly i thought that all of the fans of this series were like me when i was a fan, as in 13 and never read anything better and this series was recommended by my schools librarian. but it had a resergence with ADULTS which is NUTS
I just hate how fantasy is being consumed by smut. I can’t even buy a fantasy book without having to search up if it has pages upon pages of sex scenes because I just don’t want to read that stuff. Then it starts affecting writing as well because as we all sadly know, sex and steamy situations sells. You can have horrible characters and crap writing, but if the characters get dirty and it’s EXPLICIT?? Boom, sales. I love a good romance sub plot but not when it diminishes the story. From what i’ve seen in this video it does exactly that and it’s sad to see another fantasy story be lost to lust
honestly i like the cruel prince because all of the sex is either implied or very vague, theres no mention of genitalia and its all consentual. its not afraid of sex but its not porn
@@screamingbegins4688EXACTLY! When I think of relationships in fantasy (whether sexual or just romantic) I love how it was approached in the cruel prince and all its follow up books. All of the scenes were fade to black and implied, there wasn’t pages and pages of unnecessary sex scenes to make the story “better”. If you are gonna write sex in a story I think that’s how it should be. When I was writing my original comment the cruel prince was the first book that came to mind that didn’t use the smut approach lol
1:54:12 I got spoiled on Feyre’s love interest but, oh brother, this guy SUCKS! I would be so pissed off reading this and HE ends up being who she gets stuck with. Ugh, what a creep
Honestly every time I learn more about ACOTAR I realize how much better _Spinning Silver_ handled it, and it wasn't even the focus of the whole book. Like I get the appeal of fluffy, easy-to-read books, but do they have to be actively bad and poorly written?
2:56:52 I feel like this section in particular describes how bad Sarah J. Maas’s writing is, like WE KNOW it’s an agonizing choice and that you don’t have gods to pray to. Why are you taking two paragraphs and like twenty synonyms to describe that???
The watery bowels thing at least makes sense. If you’ve never been frightened for your life, I can see why you think it’s laughable. It’s the murmuring for me. Somewhere, someone thought murmuring is sexy and I just picture people trying to seduce each other by speaking so quietly the other person can’t hear you. 😂
Someone once said that the MC is a well written character.
I have made better characters in community college.
Hey, so I loved this video. And I'm glad I found it a year after you published it because that means you have already done the next videos and I don't have to wait. I'm listening and playing Stardew Valley, and it's great!
this is the book that made me quit reading YA
44:01 I nearly spit out my drink. I’m not sure how I ended up here (I don’t do TikTok, let alone book tok, I’ve never read this book & I’m a 44 year old woman so I’m not sure I’m the demographic this book was even geared to) but regardless I’m highly entertained 🤣
I CAN NOT with the love triangle 😂 this is why I love Xiran Jay Zhao, they don't do that crap. (Read Iron Widow its so good and the sequel is gonna be out soon)
Also the way Fayra's sisters are so bitchy makes no sense considering poor families tend to be closer because they rely on each other
Also also I hate the implication that amarantha is evil because she's a sexually dominant woman. Like- ladies can top
she cannonically rapes rhysand tho....
I listen to stuff like this to show myself that I too can publish something, it doesn't have to be perfect... just better than this.
I love the aggressive commentary 😂😂
Heathen? You haven't lived until you've had a pineapple, ham, and jalapeno pizza!
Re the fire night festival being rapey it’s because sjm decided halfway through the book she wanted to stars the tamlin retcon
2:25:00 on the topic of the spike trap... How long must these bones have been to impale a 20ft tall worm? The average femur (longest bone in the human body) is, on average, 18 inches long. Thats only a foot and six inches. Especially since these bones are (broken?) to be sharp that means the length was further decreased. That doesnt even seem close to being capable of fatally impaling this worm. Did i miss something?? Are these non-human bones??? Either way any creature a worm of this size would physically be able to consume would not have the bone-size necessary to create a proper impaling spike trap for this worm. I feel like I'm going nuts!
Edit: typo
What an excellent point! I hadn't considered this but you're so right. How would such small spikes kill such a huge creature? Based on the scale, the bones should basically be a splinter to the worm.
Honestly, this book disappointed me with the lack of the use of fae lore. Like there is so much opportunity to make the fairy characters less generic, give them weird appearances and more unique personalities and motivations. Irish fairies i could see being translated to dark fantasy/romance really well, but instead I just read some generic wattpad love triangle stuff. "The Watchers" movie didn't utilize fairy stuff as much as I liked but still did so much better than ACOTAR, I wanted to see more pagan stuff and more emphasis on a relationship with nature. Instead its generic anger issues male love interest who is the ruler of what feels like a very human, yet magical kingdom.
This is the Channel I never knew I needed. Gold. ❤ I love Your channel already.
I'm late to the party but one line I also hate that is REPEATED SO MANY TIMES is "Shredded to bloody ribbons" like Sarah figure something else out. COME ON
Little does she know how the script flips with rhysand, and Tamlin (somehow)
12:00 You would think Feyre is a fae with this focus on promises? Like the whole concept of them is that they don’t lie
42:21 "We just- exist to rule"? It's giving The Four George's- Born 2 Rule
i read until halfway through the 3rd book and couldn’t take the writing or characters anymore. I’m so excited to finish the books through these videos LMAO
The only thing that got me through this series is imagining the court of dreams all had scottish accents. Realistically at least the batboys should.
I’ve only experienced this book (and Mist and Fury) through a podcast that did some in-depth reviews (and absolutely shredded it to pieces, it was a reward for their patreon supporters iirc), so I was wondering whether I had been biased in my opinion.
Glad to see my initial feelings were right-what a bad novel. Egad.
Ngl I enjoyed this book series but I also agreed with (almost) everything you said lol. Having a great giggle along watching
my friend absolutely ADORES these books and while I love my friend to death and have a strict policy against judging and insulting others’ interests out of turn…this book just sucks so bad.
That's why I made a UA-cam channel 😎 so I can complain about books to anyone who feels like listening
ITS SO FUCKING CRAZY HOW LITTLE ATTENTION THIS VIDEO HAS WTFFFFF YOU'RE AMAZING I LOVE YOU PLS KEEP GOINGG
It's been 8 months since you posted this but only a day since the algorithm made this vid pop up in my feed, so I have to ask: Did anyone warn you that, while the acotar series proper is 5 books, the characters return in SJM's new urban fantasy series as of book 3 because all of her books are apparently connected via some weird multiverse bullshit so you'd probably have to read those, too? As enjoyable as this video was, I'd personally advise self-care if you genuinely don't want to subject yourself to more of these characters. Especially since ANOTHER acotar book is apparently in the works as well.
I read the second ACOTAR book and noped out! I'm not interested in the series enough in a "It's so bad it's kind of good" way to subject myself to any more of it. I did hear about the whole multiverse thing which is kind of cool in theory but I heard some fans say they really didn't like it.
@sentireads5900 That's valid! The series definitely doesn't seem to be the right kind of bad for that.
Can't blame her fans for that, tbh. Especially since the other series was supposed to be an adult series. Sure, with all the sex everyone ended up having, acotar might as well have been an adult series, but that's not what it was marketed as. Personally, I think it was a cash grab, but it's whatever haha
Can't blame you for dipping. Although I'm definitely curious about what you thought about the shift from Tamlin to Rhysand even though you mentioned already being spolied on it.
@@pixelsbykris5494 Tamlin was a boring guy who yelled all the time for no reason. Rhysand was a boring guy who was smug all the time for no reason. lol I sort of view both as cardboard cutouts, but if I had a gun to my head, I'd choose Rhysand.
This whole thing is great, thank you for saving me from reading this, but 47:40 is where I laughed out loud & hit like/subscribe, good job
i love pineapple on pizza. but i'll probably never read this series.
Same!
The only time I could stand this book was when I was 13 and faerie smut was still new and shiny.
I have been dying at your commentary😂 you got me hooked for all of your books reviews! ❤
Omg!!! 3h? I have been blessed, this is gonna be good.
did the use of the word purr multiple times in the book make anyone else uncomfortable?
I actually wanted to do a reread of this series one day not so soon by listening to the audiobooks. I think this is as close to a reread as I'll get 😂
barely ten minutes into this video, and I'm glad I never picked this one up, despite a couple friends' suggestions
laughing my ass OFF🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 your commentary killing mee😭😭😭😭😭
You're doing the lord's work 🙏