You did it. You have defeated my contrarian nature and coerced me into reading Maas. It was fine l guess.
Plot: Today’s Very Special Girl is a ruthless infamous assassin but don’t worry, she’s only ever killed for good people – you know, the kind that can pay for fancy assassins. Our Very Special Girl is coerced into a competition (to the death, of course) to decide who will be the Evil King’s blade by his super hot and not at all evil son who isn’t at all in love with her within a couple chapters. She is also placed under the guard of a super hot captain who distrusts her on sight and isn’t at all secretly in love with her within a couple chapters. Meanwhile she must also navigate the trials of court life, made complicated by the fact that all the women are traitorous monsters who are intensely jealous of how smart and beautiful and better than them our Very Special Girl is. Will she survive these trials? Who will she bone? What will be her path to becoming YA Jesus? Shenanigans ensue.
I do understand from some fans that book one is doing such heavy lifting setting everything up that it can’t be as good as the sequels. I have therefore agreed to pick up the next one. Having said that, the premise is so well worn, the tropes so exhausting, I don’t see myself growing to love the series. I am physically allergic to Chosen One narratives, characters who have darkness of a villain without committing any actual badness, and the everyone is either in love with me, jealous of me, or my devoted followers. Not that I care- I am incapable of love… trope.
It’s not a bad entry in the genre, but unless you like this type of fantasy and YA type storytelling, I find it hard to believe you’ll enjoy it.