We’ve made it through the first 5 days of Maas Madness! That means if you’re reading along, we finished book 1 today, A Court of Thorns and Roses.

The ACOTAR series is a re-read for me (I’ve never read the Throne of Glass or Crescent City series). But it’s been 5 years since I read the first one, so I definitely could use a refresher! And let me tell you, I have thoughts.

I decided to take notes along the way so I would be able to help track my reading journey, and keep on top of things that stood out to me the second time around.

First off, the Beauty and the Beast retelling stood out to me even more the second time, with a mix of Hunger Games thrown in for good measure. The hunting scene at the beginning in particular paralleled Katniss hunting to feed her family. But in this story, Feyre’s sisters and father come across as very selfish. Nobody ever took care or her, she was always just thrown into the situation and forced to figure it out on her own

I feel like I was a little more critical of the story this time around too. I previously had given the book a 5 star rating. Maybe it’s because I’ve read so much more romantasy since then, and maybe just because I was more aware of certain things on the reread, but I only gave it a 4 the second time around. I DEFINITELY saw Tamlin in a different light…mild spoiler alert for the coming books…and Rhysand as well. And because it was less shocking the second time around, the trials under the mountain seemed a bit less intense too. Amarantha was just a cruel power-hungry witch, who caused chaos and drama when she didn’t get her way. But Rhys told us exactly how that was going to end, with only a couple little hiccups.

Tomorrow, September 6, we’ll start reading A Court of Mist and Fury. I’m excited to revisit the next two books again. Usually when recommending the series to a new reader, I tell them to at least give it 3 books. You could stop at the end of ACOTAR, but you’ll miss a huge part of the story. But book ACOMAF and ACOWAR really complete the initial “trilogy” before we move on to focusing on other characters.

If you haven’t started yet, it’s not too late for you to catch up! I’m offering recommended chapters each day, but with a little add-on you could still follow along. It averages to about 80 pages a day with my chapter guides.

Happy reading!