Sarah J. Maas has taken the literary world by storm within the last decade. She has sold approximately 80m books worldwide; her bestselling series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, or ACOTAR for short, has sold 13m copies itself. The series is widely thought to have spearheaded the recent rise in popularity of the ‘romantasy’ genre and is credited as being the reason why Bloomsbury reached its all-time highest revenue and profit. With a case like this, it would be expected that these books were beloved universally. Whilst this is true for some of her fans, ACOTAR and Maas have come under major fire as the series has come into the spotlight.
The series, first published in 2015, avoided dispute in its first years. The only true critiques came after BookTok (the bookish side of TikTok) made it into a true overnight sensation, covering the feeds of readers around the globe. The public’s problems with the books started tame, mainly focusing on Maas’s writing skills.
Critics attacked the heavy reliance on popular tropes, such as “damsel in distress” and “enemies to lovers,” as well as recurring phrases readers deemed quite unpleasant: “bowels turning watery” and “vulgar gestures” being a few infamous quotes. Her skill level appeared to be amateur for the praise it was receiving.
Soon after this, issues with Maas turned to a more concerning issue: the blatant lack of characters of colour. Creators online started picking up on the fact that Maas tends to make her characters straight and white, only including diversity in the smaller characters, all of which usually end up killed off for the sake of the plot. This call-out of racism became significantly heightened on 24 September 2020, with a particular post made by Maas on social media.
Alongside an image of her newly released addition to her series, A Court of Silver Flames, she wrote: “I hope it’s [the
book’s publication] a bit of light for you guys today, given the appalling lack of justice for Breonna Taylor.” Some speculate that this was Maas’s attempt to use her large platform to spread awareness of the death of Breonna Taylor, a woman fatally shot by police officers earlier that year. However, this post was widely received as using Taylor’s death for her own professional gain.
Sarah J. Maas’s name has thus been shrouded in controversy, despite ACOTAR still featuring prominently in BookTok videos and bookshelves worldwide.
Image by Madalyn Cox on Unsplash.
