I picked up this book since it was recommended as similar to another story I enjoyed. To start with, it wasn't similar.

What this is for the first 50% of the book: a re-telling of the story of The Beauty and the Beast, which has inherent issues. Because there is no telling of Beauty and the Beast that doesn't have some sort of weird Stockhom Syndrome thing going on. It's highly problematic.

This may be my unfamiliarity with the current young adult genre, but there seemed to be stolen themes and characterizations from other stories. Feyre gives a strong Katniss vibe. Possibly that's unfair, and maybe YA themes and tropes make that a routine characterization. Then there are the two male characters that could be borrowed from the story that I was told this was a "vanilla" version of. I guess, if someone wrote poorly contrived fan-fiction and didn't really understand those characters. Maybe the third male character that was introduced was supposed to be some version of them. I'm not sure.

And while the middle 40% or so is supposed to be the falling-in-love part, it is so slow. So slow. There are several DNF reviews because of how slow it is. And it isn't really convincing. Why did Tamlin and Feyre fall in love with each other? How did they build a connection so strong to withstand the trials in the last quarter of the book? I actually doubted Feyre truly loved Tamlin once Rhysand was introduced.

And then we get the story of Feyre and Rhysand. That's even more Stockholm Syndrome-y than the Feyre-Tamlin relationship. Because of the way the Tamlin Feyre relationship is built, it only makes sense that Feyre is going to fall in love with Rhysand. It doesn't happen in this book, but it seems set up for future books.

And then there is the scene that is outright stolen a Jacquelyn Carey novel, the scene of Phedre taken to a party in a see-through diamond gown. It is a scene that is well-known to Carey fans. Oh, look. The names of the main characters are incredibly similar. Sure, it's hard to find new names, but Maas has many many names (nearly all the places and characters) that I've read before in other novels.

The story and the type of Fae involved and some of the themes of the Fae seemed very like Seanan McGuire's October Daye Fae. The Fae in A Court of Thorn and Roses aren't really well characterized. When the similarities arose, I simply used McGuire's Fae to fill in the holes. And the ending puts Feyre in Toby's conundrum, only less well done and without stakes and effect McGuire has built.

If I'm seeing all those similarities from books I'm familiar with, I wonder what similarities I miss from books I haven't read.

My final complaint is the world-building. It isn't very good, as seen by the fact that I used characterizations from someone else that were similar. Unless it's historical fantasy or urban fantasy (which this is neither) using maps based on current Earth continents is really lazy. There's no reason for that. And without the maps, how the world is divided is not truly well planned.

If I give it 2-stars, what is okay? Well, even with the slow middle, it is a fairly fast read. The writing is fine. I've read much worse writing. Since it does use tropes and is a re-telling and borrows from other stories, it is a fairly brainless and easy read. The "it's okay" rating from Goodreads just really pegs exactly how I feel about this book.