I finally got around to finding out what all the hype was about! ACOTAR didn’t quite live up to all of my expectations but it was still an enjoyable book with some excellent world building. Honestly I was just expecting more spice! (Although the spice that WAS included was excellent). Maybe I’ll be in luck with the later books in the series, who knows. 

The character building was also excellently done and I really did feel a deep hatred for many of the characters introduced later, despite not having extensive explorations of them individually (for example Lucien’s brothers). 

I was a little irritated by just how quickly the progression happened for Feyre to transition from despising Tamlin with all her being to literally putting her life on the line and being tortured in order to stay with him - talk about Stockholm Syndrome. Just a bit of an odd relationship tbh. 

This was a book where I got very into it very quickly and didn’t want to put it down - it managed to hold my attention for around 5 consecutive hours of a flight I was on so that’s a win in my book. I’d be interested in following the story up through the rest of the series at some point soon so we’ll see how that goes! I feel the hype is real but am conscious of some controversy surrounding the author which I’ll need to research a little more myself, and see what I feel as I progress further with her writing.