The romance felt so stereotypical that I just couldn't enjoy it. A boy kidnaps a girl. She doesn't trust him. They fight constantly while she slowly learns that he's not the monster she thought he was. And she apparently just forgets every way he treated her horribly because at least he's nice to other people sometimes and that's probably enough. I've read this exact romance so many times that it's just not interesting anymore. To be fair, I didn't actually finish the book so maybe in the end she gets some self worth, but I just don't see it going in that direction.
Not only does she forget the horrible way Rayse treats her, she seems to forget about the Gardner whenever Rayse is around. spoiler:After their battle with the Gardener and the soldiers, she never asks what happened to the Gardener, if he was killed or if he escaped or anything. She's too busy literally trembling over seeing Rayse alive to care about the Gardener. Who needs revenge when you have cute boys who treat you horribly?
And now I'm just being petty but it's a huge book pet peeve of mine when a first person character has a secret that they're constantly bringing up throughout the book, usually calling it "my secret" and "what they can never know". If you don't want your readers to know what your characters are thinking, don't write your characters in first person! Not to mention the secret was obvious from the beginning so it was just annoying to read.
In summary, Garden of Thorns had a really unique story idea that could have been told better. I actually did like many of the characters. I liked how Rose wasn't some perfect warrior with no fear. And Marin, you are amazing. But the focus of the book was really more on the romance than anything else, and the romance just wasn't very good.
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