everything you need to know about Sarah J. Maas 💭🫖🧚🏻‍♀️ (w/ spoilers)

the queen of faerie smut, #sarahjmaas is one of the most popular authors of today, so much so that her Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses (#acotar ) and Crescent City series have become global phenomenons.

in this video we are diving deep into the discussion of how Sarah J. Maas came to such immense success and why readers obsess over her books so much; as well as intro controversies and scandals hat Sarah got involved in throughout the years.
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🍿 timestamps:
0:00 - intro, Sarah J. Maas phenomenon
2:54 - disclaimer :)
4:59 - who is Sarah J. Maas, her path to becoming a writer & bibliography
14:47 - why readers love SJM, reasons behind her books being so popular
18:39 - !!SPOILER STARTS!! (Crescent City)
19:08 - !!SPOILER!! ends
22:53 - criticism, controversies & scandals (serious and petty)
35:21 - !!SPOILERS!! (ACOTAR)
37:59 - !!SPOILERS!! end
38:50 - !!SPOILER!! starts (Throne of Glass)
39:05 - !!SPOILER!! ends
47:50 - final thoughts & outro
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🎥 YT videos mentioned:
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🎙️interviews with Sarah J. Maas that i used:
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🗞️ articles used:
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📚books mentioned:
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
Sabriel by Garth Nix
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander
The Lord of the Rings by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas
Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas
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📱 Tik-Tok creators whose videos i used/mentioned:
@starlight_books
@kaylaroussosbuss
@bookgirlzzz
@emmahalbrook
@barryreads
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find me on socials:

💌 contact me via:

thanks for watching and have a good one!

xoxo,
raya

[rayareadzzzz]

there are some spoilers in this video for Crescent City, ACOTAR & Throne of Glass. while i did my best to warn you in the video itself, i completely forgot about the one at 38:50 (throne of glass spoiler)

check the description box for all the details & timestamps,

hope that helps! 🧚🏻‍♀️

[GothVampiress]

not sjm saying she's doing better than lord of the rings by exploring trauma.... girl what do you think frodo's entire ending was about

[mariesueme]

17:52 "the characters in lord of the rings are not traumatized enough" Frodo goes to the undying lands with the eleves at the end of the books because he can't live among the happy go lucky hobbits after everything he's gone through. Wdym that no one explored trauma in fantasy before you???? Have you read the books you criticize???
(Sorry, that comment really hurt my brain)

[karoliinalehtinen]

The fact that she thinks she writes trauma better than Tolkien is down right offensive. Frodo's whole storyline is a metaphor for trauma of war. He is deeply irreversibly traumatized and it can't be fix by sex or a workout. Through all the other characters are shown various different reactions to trauma. Some of them more seriously effected than others. All SJM writes is women with PTSD who just need some good sex and a workout and the PTSD is fixed.

But I will say none of the "plagiarism" she's accused of is plagiarism. The lines from other books work more like references than actual teft. Her work is derivitive, absolutely, but not plagiarized.

[stephaniea]

Rhys' first encounter with Feyre in ACOTAR is a blatant copy of Howl meeting Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle. The entire setup, the hidden/double context, in addition to the exact words "There you are. I've been looking for you" to get her away from two men accosting her. It makes me furious that readers believe SJM came up with this complex, nuanced meeting when it's a blatant plagiarism of a much better story.

[metalcandycanechild]

I can totally see SJM as a mean girl because the Inner Circle in ACOTAR is 100% the cool kid table.

[mariesueme]

I think that Sarah's books are only "super spicy" for protestant societies. The throne of glass series barely has a couple of sex scenes, acotar series has more but they're mostly standard nothing particularly kinky (also, terribly written). I don't know why people talk about her books like they're pornographic or something. Idk maybe is because I've been on ao3 since that site was created but she seems pretty tame (unless you're not used to adult books having sex in them??)

[souei]

Her Breonna Taylor post is what made me no longer read her books. As a black woman, to me, it felt very tone death. If she really cared that much about Breonna Taylor & police brutality she should have made a whole separate post about it. Not combine it with her cover reveal where most of her readers are only going to care about the book. Really seemed like she was trying to get brownie points from black readers.

And she kept the post up after people said it was in bad taste!! Also, the one thing I hate the most about this is that whenever this topic is brought up her fanbase turns rabid and refuses to listen and understand why people feel the way they do about the situation.

[nel]

While I can understand how the "romantasy" label can come across as misogynistic, I actually appreciate the distinction. Romantasy isn't just women authored fantasy, it's more specifically books that focus on romance in a fantasy setting. I myself enjoy romance as a suplot, not the driving force of the story, and nothing infuriates me more than picking up what I think would be an interesting, well-thought-out fantasy novel only to be met with 400+ pages of flimsy worldbuilding, animalistic smut, and contrived plot devices used to push the main character and her super hot, super growly love interest together (no hate to romantasy lovers but I seriously could not care less about two people swooning over each other's sexiness when there are more pressing plot matters at hand).

So yeah, being able to distinguish romance-driven fantasy from plot-driven fantasy can be extremely helpful to me and, from what I've seen, many other fantasy readers as well.

[jackalyn]

I said it many times and I’ll say it again. It’s obvious who had their wattpad era and who’s now currently in their wattpad era, there’s no other explanation for people drooling over these mediocre books.

[wolfwatch]

one of my biggest issues with sjm's WRITING (aka not the objectionable stuff that she has said and done personally) is simply the double standards. rhysand is just as bad as if not worse than tamlin, and yet the narrative treats him as if he's an angel. it would be one thing if it were an unreliable narrator situation, where rhysand's behavior is simply normalized by this pseudo-historical society and so feyre et al don't conceptualize rhysand's behavior as an issue. but it's NOT, because when tamlin pulls *the exact same shit* it's rightfully called out as toxic or abusive, meaning that even if acotar's society at large doesn't view these behaviors as wrong, these specific characters do... except not when rhysand does them.
it's a trend with a lot of mediocre authors where instead of writing good and bad actions, they write good and bad people. and if the "good" character does something, it's good, while if the "bad" character does something, it's bad, because good people do good things and bad people do bad things, even if those things are the exact same.

also, child ballad 39 (the ballad of tam lin), which book one of acotar is vaguely based on / inspired by, is one of my favorite fairy tales of all time. and since it's not very well known to the average person, the only modern novel-length adaptation / derivative of it is fucking acotar. and for that i will never forgive her.
+ at 20:55 i get what she's going for, but if she's trying to make a point about fantasy fiction not acknowledging the trauma that characters would have, lotr is like.. the WORST example to use and makes me wonder if she's ever actually seen / read lotr lmao

[fernandafuentes]

All personal stuff aside, she wanted to prove that fantasy was as good as lit fiction.... and she wrote that??

[peach]

omg i also think of her as the taylor swift of authors, they both have such crazy cult followings that immediately turn me off from having any interaction with their works at all.

[haehnchenmarinade]

I also hate the double standard between Tamlin and Feyre in the second book. While we, as the readers, and SJM empathize with Feyre for how her trauma/PTSD about under the mountain manifests, we are supposed to see Tamlin as the bad guy.
She completely changed who she is, also becoming quite cruel and distant with Tamlin, but whatever she does is understandable, because she's "been through so much". However, Tamlin doesn't get the same sympathy. While I'm aware that his behavior is controlling and toxic, SJM doesn't acknowledge at all that he has also suffered and that he is also a victim that needs treatment.
Instead, he gets the villain treatment. (And of Rhysand can be a horrible person, because he has REASONS whenever he does it...uhuh.)
It's completely in lien with SJMs general toxic masculinity depiction honestly.

[zuzannawikar]

Sarah, tell you didn't read Lord of the Rings without telling me you didn't read it. LotR heavily touches subjects of trauma, PTSD and depression. There are some striking examples like Theoden, Eowyn and of course Frodo and he is so deeply traumatized, that he couldn't find his peace in Middle-Earth and could only sail to Valinor with some hope that he'll be healed there. All ringbearers, even Sam, were deeply wounded. Merry also was traumatized, but he was able to heal with time. Aragorn also was pretty messed up by all those lonely years, constant fighting and the burden of his responsibilities. I could go on and on about that. I reacently re-read LotR and I was crying my eyes out all the time and I felt seen in my depression and PTSD much more than in most modern books.

[sillygooser]

Honestly I don’t mind problematic things in the books I read. One series that’s important to me (as the first lgbt series I ever had access to) has a lot of problematic themes. But that’s why media literacy is so important, and seeking out trigger warnings. As readers we should be able to separate fantasy from reality, and why media literacy is so important- think Sokka being sexist but learns to be a better person.

What matters is how authors frame it, and treat certain topics with respect and not put in their work for shock value.

[ghouling]

A former SJM supporter here. She wrote my former all time favourite book. It showed my trauma and I felt seen. It gave me hope. Now, I didn’t really understand the ‘her characters are not diverse’ things for a long time because I saw people of colour when I pictured the characters and thought it was just peoples inherent racism they needed to address that they couldn’t see the people of colour clearly there. I deeply loved the ACOTAR books, mostly the second and third. She had 2 shelves on my books shelves to her work. I loved her books. But I was going through things and I wasn’t reading and the Novella came out and I didn’t get my hands on it, I didn’t hear good things so I never got around to getting it or reading it and then court of silver flames came out and I heard how she destroyed Rhysand and as I was still in a bad mental place and wasn’t reading it gave me space from it, so I never read it. And the instagram post happened and it was like something broken inside me and I no longer could support her. She never apologised, she kept the post up after it was communicated it caused harm and that’s when it felt she showed her true colours as a racist. I took all her books off the shelves and have them hidden on another shelf until I work out what I wanted to do. I tried reading court of silver flames this year and the transphobia as a non binary person was so in my face. She writes all her woman as ‘females this, females that’ and I gave up, then moved onto to trying to read house of earth and blood and it was in there as well. I couldn’t do it. much ‘female this, female that’… so I sold off a large part of my collection that had taken me ages to collect, floppy paper backs and hardcovers. I still have my original hardcovers of ACOTAR and Thrown of glass in hardcover and paperbacks, but I’m seriously considering selling my original hardcovers of thrown of glass, I never finished the series so I’m re reading Thrown of glass to see what I want to do but the love isn’t there because I’m so hurt by the author. I don’t feel good reading this knowing who the author is. I find it hard to separate the artist from the art. I don’t want to read to just enjoy books, which I think is why many people don’t critically evaluate the authors they are reading the works of. They want to put their head in the sand and ‘love what they love’ without asking if what they love is harmful to their own thinking and if it’s asking them to grow as a person. Because what we consumes does influence us, it is important we question it. I say this as a dark romance reader (yay trauma). It takes a lot for someone to take a step back from what they love to really look at it with clear eyes. We do this with people and unfortunately with media. Because of the stuff I was going through where I stopped reading for a long time- I was also given the space from the works I loved and the rose tinted glasses were able to fall off.
Thank you for this video, it gave me even more information and reasons why I don’t want to support this author.

[snakysalamander]

The Breonna Taylor post was inappropriate and exploitative. Keeping it up after people told her to take it down tells me everything I need to know about her. To me her books are not well-written and she frames controlling behaviour by Rhysand as being protective so I was already done with her books.

[isaa]

I feel with 21:52 she shows perfectly what's the problem with modern media (to me): Everything has to be shoved in your face and overly explained, otherwise it's "not there"

[MM-xmot]

Her Lord of the Rings comment at 20:55 just triggered me so bad. The fact that she brought up the movies instead of the books (an author doing this???) The fact that a major theme of LOTR is trauma. The fact that Tolkien himself was a war veteran who experienced the horrifically traumatizing battle of Somme... I can't. You just know even if she read the books it would go completely over her head, because Tolkien was more subtle and complex than she is capable of comprehending let alone writing.