A review by sometimes_samantha_reads
A Court of Thorns and Roses (Parts 1 & 2) [Dramatized Adaptation] by Sarah J. Maas

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I've read ACOTAR before but I wanted my fiance to read it with me. He's not a big reader, but he likes podcasts so I thought he may like the graphic audiobook. He enjoyed it and we'll be starting book two soon via Graphic Audio.

Some things that bothered me as a second time reader (he was fine as a first time reader): the cast does not read dialogue tags, rather acts out the actions. So, if something said "Tamlin growled" in the book, in the audio he would just simply do the action. I felt like, especially in the end of the story that the missing dialogue tags left out important small details. 

Similarly, the audiobook reordered some of the paragraphs and very rarely omitted sentences of paragraphs. I think this also removed minute but pertinent details, but it was also hard to follow along with the physical books sometimes because of the movement or ommitions. 

I think the voice actors for Rhys and Amarantha were fantastic. Everyone else was good too, but could have probably communicated the desired tone better. At some points some of the actors read lines playfully when it should have been serious and vice versa, for example. This lines up with the missing dialogue tags which help indicate tone. 

That's just me being nit-picky. I overall enjoyed my second listen. I didn't realize how much foreshadowing there was!