Last summer, I picked this up really excited to dive into more of Sarah J Maas' books after finishing Throne of Glass. Unfortunately, as much as I've been loving her Throne of Glass series and how much I do like reading about faerie worlds this was a let down for me. 
 The main reason why the score ended up the way it did was because of how much the distribution of tie for each event/scene in the book bothered me. I can see what she was trying to do since this was a loose Beauty and the Beast retelling and much of how this book was structured did parallel back to Beauty and the Beast many times. However, I don't think it gave the story an advantage in the way it was delivered. As I kept reading, I got even more frustrated with the story because it didn't seem like anything all that significant was happening and when everything was finally explained I didn't even care all that much because of how frustrated I already was with it all. I do admit that the last 100 pages or so of the book had many redeeming scenes that I found to be done well enough, but I just kept thinking about how it could have been so much better if the first 2/3 of the book was shortened and those 100 pages were somehow extended to deliver the story in a more compelling way. 
 The book was also written in a first person POV from the main character's perspective, which I think played a part in why the delivery of the story leaned more on the "not-so-great" side of things. I can't explain too much without somehow getting on the borderline of spoilers, but this is the thing I felt with the whole first person POV problem: unless you purposely try to find as many parallels between this and Beauty and the Beast while reading, chances are you might find the same problem that I had with the pacing. 
 Now... usually if I have problems with the way a story is delivered or the plot itself, I can always rely on a solid cast of characters and their development to get a more positive outlook on the book overall. Unfortunately, I couldn't even like the characters enough to do such a thing. This was a really big disappointment for me, especially considering how solid the characters in Maas' Throne of Glass series are. 
 The main character, Feyre, was someone I wanted to like, but I just found her actions and her thoughts to be all over the place. At one point she would have strong opinions about a certain thing, and then the next thing you know it she's thinking or doing something that contradicts it. This didn't happen too often, but it happened often enough for me to be bothered by it. She did have redeeming qualities about herself near the end of the book, but unfortunately they couldn't outweigh all the problems I had with her character. 
 Then there was the main guy Tamlin, who I kept hearing all over the place was this really amazing character. However, I found him almost close to being completely uninteresting. I don't know if I'm the only one that thinks this, but for some reason I found the way he acted (especially when he was talking with Feyre) to be really stiff somehow. He just didn't have any qualities that made him stand out to me as anything that amazing. All I got was that he was this really gorgeous high lord faerie, but that's nothing that I find interesting at all or even something I care about. 
 The other two characters I want to talk about are Lucien and Rhysand, who were the two characters that were probably the most interesting to read in some ways but they both had something about them that just made me not like them all that much either. Lucien was probably the character that had the most interesting back story, and he seems like a character that has been set up to be a really great male friend for the two main characters. However, I found that his personality was lacking something to make him stand out all that much so I don't really have much to say about him. On the other hand, Rhysand is a character that seems to have a lot of secrets and hidden agendas that we don't seem to know about and he stands out with this charisma he has when he is talking with the other characters. But, much of his actions and the rest of his personality are very off-putting for me. He has the kind of qualities of a character that I don't particularly like at all, and that instead makes him stand out to me in a bad way. 
 All the other minor characters I didn't really care for at all. I didn't even find the antagonist Amarantha to be all that amazing. 
 Another issue I had was the romance. It just seemed.....almost nonexistent somehow(?). I didn't feel anything between the couple most of the time, and when thing did seem to happen between them I wasn't a fan of it at all. I'm 100% fine with romance in my books and I know that Maas can write up a good romance. This was not very good at all though. 
 Once again, I really liked Maas' other books and I was really looking forward to this since I quite enjoy reading about faeries. Unfortunately it definitely didn't live up to my expectations. I might, however, still end up giving A Court of Mist and Fury a try one day out of curiosity to see if any of the problems I had with this first book was taken care of, but right now after just finishing the book this morning I am really really really REALLY not that interested in the rest of this series. If I ever do pick up ACOMAF after it gets released, it won't be any time soon.