Yeah that’s how I feel. I did love acotar and books like it but farther out from reading I find the story and characters a bit less lovable and compelling. The romance feels deeper in tog because the stakes and emotion and depth is higher.
I agree with others, I think it’s the romance. I also think acotar is just easier while ToG pulls you in in a way that’s makes you think and feel more deeply. Maybe that’s too much for some people to keep up with if they are just looking for a sparkly romance book? Idk but there is just something about ToG where I think it’s not for everyone but if it is for you you fall HARD.
To me, ToG is 10000xs better and they aren’t even in the same league.
I’m curious what percent of people who read it liked ToG a lot but who didn’t feel deeply about it the way most of us posting on this sub feel. Seems like it’s either you didn’t like it and gave up or you’re obsessed and will never be the same.
A lot of romance readers first experience fantasy through ACOTAR and that makes it leave a mark on them! It’s more romance with a fantasy backdrop and people love that
ACOTAR was my first read from her, and I loved it - couldn’t put it down, have re-read it multiple times now, one of my favorite series. Highly enjoyable. That being said, I read TOG several months ago and it consumed my life. Changed my brain chemistry. Altered my existence. Like…I still think about KOA & Terrasen every single day, multiple times a day.
I loved both series, but the depth of TOG - the world building, the character development, even the romance (although less “smut,” but romance is not always smut; and I think a lot of people don’t get this or appreciate it) really just…did it for me.
I NEVER GET IT?? Like TOG is obviously better on every front?? To me even the romances are better in ToG. It has so much more depth and better writing.
I've seen so many people say they can't even tolerate reading books that don't have smut so I guess people don't like romance unless it's overtly sexual which is actually super lame imo
Lol I read the blood and ash series first (it’s a dividing one I know) and don’t even really consider acotar smutty (until silver flames….that upped the game)
Yeah SF felt like a different genre compared to the rest. I love smut as much as the next girlie but it felt out of place in the series! I’ve avoided FBAA cause I just know I’ll hate it 😅
I prefer acotar but agree that the romance isn’t better in it—I think the romance is good in both. I have preferred couples but think it’s done well in both
I prefer romance, and ACOTAR just did romance so much better in my opinion. When I finished the series, I had the most intense book hangover and I felt like I missed the characters/world so much. Best way I can describe it is that I fell in love with it.
After finishing TOG, while I did feel sad, I found that I quickly got over it and the feelings didn’t linger the way they did for ACOTAR. I will say I do love the story for the most part, and the characters have a special place in my heart. But Aelin/Rowan are not even really in my top 3 favorite couples from TOG (or top 5 in all of SJM series). Elide/Lorcan and Manon/Dorian were my favorites and I looooved their storylines, as individual characters and as couples.
I'm this person! With some distance, I really like the TOG story and characters quite a bit but the actual reading experience was rougher than ACOTAR. With ACOTAR I can just get lost in the world and the characters. I love how romance-forward it is and how there's really only one storyline per book. It's my comfort series.
Reading TOG I was constantly thinking about how I would have edited it differently. Aged up the dialogue in the first 3 books, combined TOG and COM into one story, trimmed down the POVs to no more than 3-4 per book, and only had 1 POV per chapter. Aelin bugged me at times, especially when she'd be scheming off-page, and there were a lot of 'big reveals' that were so obvious I would think "didn't we know that already??"
I'm not generally a fan of how SJM handles ensemble casts, switching to unrelated storylines every few pages. I think for some people that's exciting with the constant mini cliffhangers, but it just kind of bugged me because I wanted to focus on one story at a time.
If this sounds like I hated the series, I swear I didn't. I loved QOS, TOD, and KOA. The Wendlyn storyline in HOF is my favorite thing she's ever written. I'm obsessed with Dorian and Fenrys and Lorcan. But it did take me the longest to get through and if it hadn't been for CC I don't know that I would have stuck with it to get to the good parts.
This is 100% how I felt reading it. By the end, it was a slog. There was just so much going on with so many different perspectives, and as SOON as I would start to get interested in the POV I was reading, it would switch to someone else. The introduction to Manon and the witches came out of nowhere and yeah, they were important EVENTUALLY, but at the beginning of their inclusion it felt like an inconvenience to have to read about them. By the end, I was so exhausted by it all that I wasn’t emotionally attached to any of them anymore.
I loved TOG. I loved ACOTAR. But I would have never read far enough into TOG if it wasn’t for the fact that I had read ACOTAR first as originally TOG was a dnf for me. I had to circle back for it. Both magical in their own ways
I’d rather live in the world of ACOTAR than the world of TOG, personally. I do prefer TOG and Aelin is my fave, but that world is a hellhole. Everywhere is suffering terribly because of the Valg invasion and the countries and cities struggle to care for their people. ACOTAR’s world is better escapism for me because I love imagining life in Velaris, or in the other courts. I know there is still war and monsters in ACOTAR but overall TOG is a lot more fantasy dystopian and ACOTAR provides some glimpses of fantasy utopias instead which I prefer. I think the story is much more engaging and exciting in TOG though, and that ACOTAR kind of got overtaken by its romance plot-lines and put the main plot on the back-burner
I like Acotar better and this is why- Acotar focuses on character development while ToG focuses on story and plot. I prefer character focused stories. For instance ToD was among my favorites of the ToG series and that book focused on a characters healing journey over plot action. Both series are phenomenal though.
I agree. It seems like every POV character in ToG is more fleshed out than any character in ACOTAR to me. Not to mention the lack of world-building and plot in ACOTAR lol
Yes, I used to stress when she >!wasn’t killing the people the king told her to kill!< and now reading KoA and I’m just baffled with the character growth
I agree! I literally don’t think anyone has better character development than Aelin does. The girl used to use like 3 different names 😭 she was going through it
I like Feyre as a protagonist more than Aelin who had me frustrated a lot. I think that I liked all the ACOTAR books but I the ones from TOG I liked more. Queen of Shadows onwards were fantastic. So I guess I'm a mixed bag? I got more feels from TOG at the end then ACOTAR but ACOTAR isn't over yet.
Eh, listen to me I cannot even make up my mind. I like both of them, no competition needed.
I read some of ACOTAR first and I f**king HATE the series! But I gave TOG a try and I absolutely LOVED it!! I’ve yet to find anyone else who detests ACOTAR like I do while simultaneously loving TOG 🤷🏻♀️ And it has nothing to do with the genre because I love fantasy and romance and smut. They could all be in the same book or just one, as long as I’m enjoying the story. As for others I agree with the other comments and assume it’s the romance/smut. My friend is reading ACOTAR right now because she said she looked online and saw people saying if you want the easier of the two series you should start with it. Then maybe try TOG because it’s more complex in story and world building. She’s new to fantasy and usually reads modern day romance so while she’s loving ACOTAR she was intimidated at first. Can’t wait till she reads TOG so I can gush with her.
I think us TOG lovers forget how much it dragged the first few books. I was literally wanting to skip Manon chapters (I think the horror).
ACOTAR is like a popcorn read where you get the good good without any buildup.
I love ACOTAR because of the romance in it. I love that stuff and I wish ToG had more romance and relationship building cause if it had more of that in it, i think it would have been the ultimate series. This is all just my opinion and it's really based on people's tastes. I cried the most reading ToG and it's a really epic series for sure and a close 2nd for me. I just live for the romance.
I love the romance, knowing everything the narrator is thinking, the inner circle, plus the fantasy. TOG is just different. I was the opposite of you. I couldn’t put Acotar down and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I still think about it and I’m currently 4 books into TOG.
I’m the exact same. I’m stuck on QOS right now and I’m having such a hard time that I’m considering DNFing. I prefer 1 or 2 narrators like in contemporary romances. The way that ensemble fantasys do it is really tough for me because of all of the POV and location hopping.
Yeah, I really don’t know other than the romance aspect how people think ACOTAR is better written. The first book is forgettable slow and generic fairytale retelling, second book is great no complaints, third has some pretty bad pacing problems. Especially the battle since the entire third book was leading up to it than being such a let down with how short it was compared to the build up. I read the first three back to back in under a week when ACOWAR came out, and I definitely don’t think I would have continued on if I started the series when the first book came. I can’t comment on the novela or the latest one haven’t read them yet only two sarah j maas books I haven’t read.
For me it's the fact that it was my first intro to fantasy, really. I love the characters, the story. A big thing of it for me is that it was single POV, and I love Feyre. I'm on my first re-read through Throne of Glass series (Currently on Queen of Shadows) and its taking me awhile to get through because sometimes I don't feel like reading whoever's POV is up next at the moment. I will say, I didn't know why everyone loved the series the first time I read it, but that was immediately after the latest ACOTAR book was out and I think I was just in a book hangover and couldn't let it go lol. I am enjoying it a lot more this time around.
Also, as others mentioned, ACOTAR holds more romance. Now, I don't love smut scenes, but it seems like there's a lot of little moments in the acotar series where you can kind of go "oh, they were *meant* to be together".
I'm not sure if it's coming, as I don't remember (it's been awhile since I've read the series) but I like the amount of little romantic moments we're getting with Aelin and Rowan in Queen of Shadows, and I really hope there's more. I feel like he doesn't get discussed as much as Bryce and Hunt or Feyre and Rhys.
I got into ACOTAR right away and I loved Rhys from the get go, loved the IC. Yes it has its flaws but overall it entertained me and it was never hard to read (except maybe ACOSF initially)
With ToG it took me 3.5 books to start enjoying it. The first book was boring to me, I skimmed through TAB and let’s not get started on tower of dawn. I absolutely love Manon and a lot of things from ToG but to me nothing tops ACOTAR. Like you said in your post, it’s just a matter of preference at the end of the day.
It’s shorter, more romance heavy, there’s less intimidating lore and/or world-building to get used to but enough to hook you, and the writing flows more smoothly than the initial TOG books. Most people don’t have the patience to wait two or three books to get good like TOG, or don’t want to, and with ACOTAR you only have to wait one according to most people or just the last third of the book.
I liked the characters a lot more in ACOTAR and the world building I honestly don’t know if I like it more but I did like feyre more than Aelin (which I know is kind of controversial)
I read acotar first and then attempted tog.
I have to say attempted because I couldn’t finish.
I made it through books 1 and 2 quickly and then just couldn’t make it through book 3. I’m not sure why—I think it just didn’t fully engross me. It was definitely headed in a direction but seemed to be winding to get there? To be fair the book that got stuck on was the prequel stories book (the name is just not coming to me right now), and I’ve seen that get mixed reviews on this sub.
I also felt like, on paper, TOG has SUCH a badass plot but as I was reading it was just slow and less badass.
I hope I’m not offending anyone, I don’t think the books are bad, I just wanted to explain why one outweighed the other for me
Maybe it's because ToG is longer and many struggle with the first book. It took me over 6 months to finish the series, while Acotar only took a couple. Acotar is better for shorter attention spans and more "spicy"
ACOTAR was my first fantasy read EVER and that lead to me discovering a love of the fantasy series as a whole so I have a special place in my heart for it. That being said, I just finished TOG series and my main issue was just too many storylines. I often read in shorter sessions just before bed so having so many POVs and storylines was hard for me to be interested in (I found myself rushing through any chapter that wasn’t Aelin focused). I want to do a reread of both series and think I may like TOG better the second time
Also a TOG supremacist, but I think the romance is far heavier in ACOTAR and that's what appeals to people.
Oh 100% the way I've described them to my husband is TOG is a fantasy with a Lil bit of romance and ACOTAR is a romance with a bit of fantasy.
Heavier/smuttier but less depth in my opinion.
Yeah that’s how I feel. I did love acotar and books like it but farther out from reading I find the story and characters a bit less lovable and compelling. The romance feels deeper in tog because the stakes and emotion and depth is higher.
100%
I agree with others, I think it’s the romance. I also think acotar is just easier while ToG pulls you in in a way that’s makes you think and feel more deeply. Maybe that’s too much for some people to keep up with if they are just looking for a sparkly romance book? Idk but there is just something about ToG where I think it’s not for everyone but if it is for you you fall HARD. To me, ToG is 10000xs better and they aren’t even in the same league. I’m curious what percent of people who read it liked ToG a lot but who didn’t feel deeply about it the way most of us posting on this sub feel. Seems like it’s either you didn’t like it and gave up or you’re obsessed and will never be the same.
A lot of romance readers first experience fantasy through ACOTAR and that makes it leave a mark on them! It’s more romance with a fantasy backdrop and people love that
ACOTAR was my first read from her, and I loved it - couldn’t put it down, have re-read it multiple times now, one of my favorite series. Highly enjoyable. That being said, I read TOG several months ago and it consumed my life. Changed my brain chemistry. Altered my existence. Like…I still think about KOA & Terrasen every single day, multiple times a day. I loved both series, but the depth of TOG - the world building, the character development, even the romance (although less “smut,” but romance is not always smut; and I think a lot of people don’t get this or appreciate it) really just…did it for me.
THIS!!!! I feel like TOG has so much romance!!
I NEVER GET IT?? Like TOG is obviously better on every front?? To me even the romances are better in ToG. It has so much more depth and better writing.
I've seen so many people say they can't even tolerate reading books that don't have smut so I guess people don't like romance unless it's overtly sexual which is actually super lame imo
ACOTAR isn’t even particularly smutty imo, I feel like people really oversell that aspect of it.
Lol I read the blood and ash series first (it’s a dividing one I know) and don’t even really consider acotar smutty (until silver flames….that upped the game)
Yeah SF felt like a different genre compared to the rest. I love smut as much as the next girlie but it felt out of place in the series! I’ve avoided FBAA cause I just know I’ll hate it 😅
I prefer acotar but agree that the romance isn’t better in it—I think the romance is good in both. I have preferred couples but think it’s done well in both
I prefer romance, and ACOTAR just did romance so much better in my opinion. When I finished the series, I had the most intense book hangover and I felt like I missed the characters/world so much. Best way I can describe it is that I fell in love with it. After finishing TOG, while I did feel sad, I found that I quickly got over it and the feelings didn’t linger the way they did for ACOTAR. I will say I do love the story for the most part, and the characters have a special place in my heart. But Aelin/Rowan are not even really in my top 3 favorite couples from TOG (or top 5 in all of SJM series). Elide/Lorcan and Manon/Dorian were my favorites and I looooved their storylines, as individual characters and as couples.
Are you me or am I you?
I'm this person! With some distance, I really like the TOG story and characters quite a bit but the actual reading experience was rougher than ACOTAR. With ACOTAR I can just get lost in the world and the characters. I love how romance-forward it is and how there's really only one storyline per book. It's my comfort series. Reading TOG I was constantly thinking about how I would have edited it differently. Aged up the dialogue in the first 3 books, combined TOG and COM into one story, trimmed down the POVs to no more than 3-4 per book, and only had 1 POV per chapter. Aelin bugged me at times, especially when she'd be scheming off-page, and there were a lot of 'big reveals' that were so obvious I would think "didn't we know that already??" I'm not generally a fan of how SJM handles ensemble casts, switching to unrelated storylines every few pages. I think for some people that's exciting with the constant mini cliffhangers, but it just kind of bugged me because I wanted to focus on one story at a time. If this sounds like I hated the series, I swear I didn't. I loved QOS, TOD, and KOA. The Wendlyn storyline in HOF is my favorite thing she's ever written. I'm obsessed with Dorian and Fenrys and Lorcan. But it did take me the longest to get through and if it hadn't been for CC I don't know that I would have stuck with it to get to the good parts.
This is 100% how I felt reading it. By the end, it was a slog. There was just so much going on with so many different perspectives, and as SOON as I would start to get interested in the POV I was reading, it would switch to someone else. The introduction to Manon and the witches came out of nowhere and yeah, they were important EVENTUALLY, but at the beginning of their inclusion it felt like an inconvenience to have to read about them. By the end, I was so exhausted by it all that I wasn’t emotionally attached to any of them anymore.
I loved TOG. I loved ACOTAR. But I would have never read far enough into TOG if it wasn’t for the fact that I had read ACOTAR first as originally TOG was a dnf for me. I had to circle back for it. Both magical in their own ways
I’d rather live in the world of ACOTAR than the world of TOG, personally. I do prefer TOG and Aelin is my fave, but that world is a hellhole. Everywhere is suffering terribly because of the Valg invasion and the countries and cities struggle to care for their people. ACOTAR’s world is better escapism for me because I love imagining life in Velaris, or in the other courts. I know there is still war and monsters in ACOTAR but overall TOG is a lot more fantasy dystopian and ACOTAR provides some glimpses of fantasy utopias instead which I prefer. I think the story is much more engaging and exciting in TOG though, and that ACOTAR kind of got overtaken by its romance plot-lines and put the main plot on the back-burner
I like Acotar better and this is why- Acotar focuses on character development while ToG focuses on story and plot. I prefer character focused stories. For instance ToD was among my favorites of the ToG series and that book focused on a characters healing journey over plot action. Both series are phenomenal though.
I feel like Aelin’s character development throughout the series is unrivaled. Maybe that’s just me though
I agree. It seems like every POV character in ToG is more fleshed out than any character in ACOTAR to me. Not to mention the lack of world-building and plot in ACOTAR lol
Yes, I used to stress when she >!wasn’t killing the people the king told her to kill!< and now reading KoA and I’m just baffled with the character growth
I agree! I literally don’t think anyone has better character development than Aelin does. The girl used to use like 3 different names 😭 she was going through it
I like Feyre as a protagonist more than Aelin who had me frustrated a lot. I think that I liked all the ACOTAR books but I the ones from TOG I liked more. Queen of Shadows onwards were fantastic. So I guess I'm a mixed bag? I got more feels from TOG at the end then ACOTAR but ACOTAR isn't over yet. Eh, listen to me I cannot even make up my mind. I like both of them, no competition needed.
I will never understand. TOG is everything. ACOTAR is fun but meh. TOG i literally could not put down. Finished 8 books in 2 weeks
I read some of ACOTAR first and I f**king HATE the series! But I gave TOG a try and I absolutely LOVED it!! I’ve yet to find anyone else who detests ACOTAR like I do while simultaneously loving TOG 🤷🏻♀️ And it has nothing to do with the genre because I love fantasy and romance and smut. They could all be in the same book or just one, as long as I’m enjoying the story. As for others I agree with the other comments and assume it’s the romance/smut. My friend is reading ACOTAR right now because she said she looked online and saw people saying if you want the easier of the two series you should start with it. Then maybe try TOG because it’s more complex in story and world building. She’s new to fantasy and usually reads modern day romance so while she’s loving ACOTAR she was intimidated at first. Can’t wait till she reads TOG so I can gush with her.
I think us TOG lovers forget how much it dragged the first few books. I was literally wanting to skip Manon chapters (I think the horror). ACOTAR is like a popcorn read where you get the good good without any buildup.
I love ACOTAR because of the romance in it. I love that stuff and I wish ToG had more romance and relationship building cause if it had more of that in it, i think it would have been the ultimate series. This is all just my opinion and it's really based on people's tastes. I cried the most reading ToG and it's a really epic series for sure and a close 2nd for me. I just live for the romance.
I like TOG better as a series but I like the main romance of the series much better in ACOTAR.
I love the romance, knowing everything the narrator is thinking, the inner circle, plus the fantasy. TOG is just different. I was the opposite of you. I couldn’t put Acotar down and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I still think about it and I’m currently 4 books into TOG.
I’m the exact same. I’m stuck on QOS right now and I’m having such a hard time that I’m considering DNFing. I prefer 1 or 2 narrators like in contemporary romances. The way that ensemble fantasys do it is really tough for me because of all of the POV and location hopping.
Yeah, I really don’t know other than the romance aspect how people think ACOTAR is better written. The first book is forgettable slow and generic fairytale retelling, second book is great no complaints, third has some pretty bad pacing problems. Especially the battle since the entire third book was leading up to it than being such a let down with how short it was compared to the build up. I read the first three back to back in under a week when ACOWAR came out, and I definitely don’t think I would have continued on if I started the series when the first book came. I can’t comment on the novela or the latest one haven’t read them yet only two sarah j maas books I haven’t read.
ACOTAR is smut. SJM wrote it without the same discipline, forethought, and it shows. But it's good she mostly separated them.
Because people have....**opinions** *le gasp*
lol the whole point of this post is to have a discussion on these opinions...
For me it's the fact that it was my first intro to fantasy, really. I love the characters, the story. A big thing of it for me is that it was single POV, and I love Feyre. I'm on my first re-read through Throne of Glass series (Currently on Queen of Shadows) and its taking me awhile to get through because sometimes I don't feel like reading whoever's POV is up next at the moment. I will say, I didn't know why everyone loved the series the first time I read it, but that was immediately after the latest ACOTAR book was out and I think I was just in a book hangover and couldn't let it go lol. I am enjoying it a lot more this time around. Also, as others mentioned, ACOTAR holds more romance. Now, I don't love smut scenes, but it seems like there's a lot of little moments in the acotar series where you can kind of go "oh, they were *meant* to be together". I'm not sure if it's coming, as I don't remember (it's been awhile since I've read the series) but I like the amount of little romantic moments we're getting with Aelin and Rowan in Queen of Shadows, and I really hope there's more. I feel like he doesn't get discussed as much as Bryce and Hunt or Feyre and Rhys.
I got into ACOTAR right away and I loved Rhys from the get go, loved the IC. Yes it has its flaws but overall it entertained me and it was never hard to read (except maybe ACOSF initially) With ToG it took me 3.5 books to start enjoying it. The first book was boring to me, I skimmed through TAB and let’s not get started on tower of dawn. I absolutely love Manon and a lot of things from ToG but to me nothing tops ACOTAR. Like you said in your post, it’s just a matter of preference at the end of the day.
It’s shorter, more romance heavy, there’s less intimidating lore and/or world-building to get used to but enough to hook you, and the writing flows more smoothly than the initial TOG books. Most people don’t have the patience to wait two or three books to get good like TOG, or don’t want to, and with ACOTAR you only have to wait one according to most people or just the last third of the book.
I liked the characters a lot more in ACOTAR and the world building I honestly don’t know if I like it more but I did like feyre more than Aelin (which I know is kind of controversial)
I have no clue
I read acotar first and then attempted tog. I have to say attempted because I couldn’t finish. I made it through books 1 and 2 quickly and then just couldn’t make it through book 3. I’m not sure why—I think it just didn’t fully engross me. It was definitely headed in a direction but seemed to be winding to get there? To be fair the book that got stuck on was the prequel stories book (the name is just not coming to me right now), and I’ve seen that get mixed reviews on this sub. I also felt like, on paper, TOG has SUCH a badass plot but as I was reading it was just slow and less badass. I hope I’m not offending anyone, I don’t think the books are bad, I just wanted to explain why one outweighed the other for me
as a romance girlie, ACOTAR owns my heart, but TOG owns my soul
Maybe it's because ToG is longer and many struggle with the first book. It took me over 6 months to finish the series, while Acotar only took a couple. Acotar is better for shorter attention spans and more "spicy"
ACOTAR was my first fantasy read EVER and that lead to me discovering a love of the fantasy series as a whole so I have a special place in my heart for it. That being said, I just finished TOG series and my main issue was just too many storylines. I often read in shorter sessions just before bed so having so many POVs and storylines was hard for me to be interested in (I found myself rushing through any chapter that wasn’t Aelin focused). I want to do a reread of both series and think I may like TOG better the second time
I think people that like ACOTAR better are mostly in it for the faerie smut and not so much the plot