A Court of Thorns and Roses—Sarah J. Maas

"He spat in her face, and she laughed. She said he had seven times seven years before she claimed him, before he had to join her Under the Mountain. If he wanted to break her curse, he need only find a human girl willing to marry him. But not any girl—a human with ice in her heart, with hatred for our kind. A human girl willing to kill a faerie." The ground rocked beneath me, and I was grateful for the wall I leaned against. "Worse, the faerie she killed had to be one of his men, sent across the wall by him like lambs to slaughter. The girl could only be brought here to be courted if she killed one of his men in an unprovoked attack—killed him for hatred alone, just as Jurian had done to Clythia...So he could understand her sister's pain." (283)

This was the alt pick for the Vaginal Fantasy book club for July 2016. (Guys, don't be thrown by the name! It's a really awesome, mostly online book club started by nerd queen Felicia Day and co. And there are men and women in the club. It's for everyone!) I didn't have any idea going into this one that it's a fractured fairy tale version of Beauty and the Beast, but it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly. I might go back and read the second one, but I'm in no hurry. (Though I do want to know what happens with Rhys...)

Here are some more of my in-depth thoughts about the book, which I really enjoyed.

I gave this one a 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, which is actually quite rare for me. (For reference, I've rated 96 of the 701 books that I've read/tracked on Goodreads as 5 stars, which is about 14%.) Check it out! I'm a total sucker for fractured fairy tales, so this one was right up my alley.

If you like this one, I would also recommend Uprooted by Naomi Novik. It's got that same fairy tale vibe, but is a bit less mainstream of a story.