What Do You Mean When You Say Her Books Are Not For The Lazy Reader?

What do you mean when you say her books are not for the lazy reader?

Hey hon, 

I’m going to explain this the best way that I can while I cook some pancakes: in literature in general (in some genres, like fantasy, more than in others) each book will provide you with some dots. Some authors will give you the dots and just that, so it’s up to you to connect them; other will give you the dots and the lines so you get a feel and then start connecting them; and others will give you the dots, the lines and then show you how to connect them. 

A lot of authors are a combination of these dynamics, Sarah J Maas is one of those authors. Her books will give you the dots and sometimes she will give you the lines. But her books do rely on a reader that is willing to put in the effort and make those connections and complete the storyline/engage with the world. That’s why I say you can’t be lazy with her books and expect her to explicitly show you absolutely all. And it’s something that I see in the people who read her books, the complain that she didn’t explicitly had a scene or the characters verbally say something, but she has other ways of showing you that require active engagement. 

This is something that it’s not just with her books, a lot of authors do that. For instance N. K. Jemisin did that with The Broken Earth Trilogy in a much more extreme way, literally only a few dots and a line thrown every now and then –which makes them incredibly engaging–. Brandon Sanderson is the opposite, if you read The Final Empire, he gives you dots and helps you connect them –and god bless him for this because his magic system alone is quite different and not without its set of complications–.

Sure you can read her books and be like “listen I don’t want to put in this effort I’m just here for the surface stuff” and that is perfectly fine, but then you need to be aware that you will not get everything her books have to offer. It’s like reading her books for the romance and then complaining that all you got was sex and romance – not to say that this is shallow because I do think her romances and sex are more than just tension and smutt–. Her books rely on you also putting two and two together and look beyond the hot fae and pay attention. For example she will not tell you that magic has limitations by listing them, but she will show you it has limitations in the fact that magic alone is not enough to perform a c-section. There you have the dots, it is up to you to connect them and understand that there is a difference between magic and knowledge and that magic does not necessarily give you knowledge

Her world building is also very reliant on the character she is focusing. Just think of how with each book in the original trilogy the map got more detailed as Feyre understood more of it. But you are not the character so heading into ACOSF you have a broader scope of this world, than Nesta for instance, because you come into with all that Feyre lived in the world, but still your tools to help you understand the world better are still anchored on what the character knows or discovers. 

So yeah can read the books and be there for what she explicitly tells you and have fun or you can read her books and partake on the story. People don’t give her nearly enough credit for her writing. Like all authors she has room for improvement in how she handles narrative, characters and world building (and I do have a few critics); but still she does not get the credit she deserves for how she crafts her work. 

People also demand perfection from her books that I have not seen demanded of other authors.