Ep 1390 | Is Sarah J. Maas' ACOTAR Series Corrupting Christian Women?
August 31, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readWhen Fiction Reshapes Reality: Sarah J. Maas' ACOTAR and the Christian Reader
In a March 2025 interview on the podcast Call Her Daddy, author Sarah J. Maas said something that caught the attention of commentator Allie Beth Stuckey: Maas is proud that women are leaving their husbands after reading her books. "They tell me how they left their abusive husband after they read A Court of Mist and Fury," Maas said. The problem, Stuckey argues, is that Maas has helped define "abusive" down to include any man who doesn't measure up to an immortal fantasy creature.
The Scale of the Phenomenon
The romantasy genre — romantic fantasy — generated nearly $1 billion in U.S. sales in 2025, almost double the figure from 2023. Maas alone has sold more than 85 million English copies of her books across three series: A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR), Crescent City, and Throne of Glass. For comparison, Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us sold 1.8 million copies; Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing sold 1.3 million. Maas dwarfs them all.
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Outline
- 2 (00:00) **Opening: The Spiritual Stakes of Entertainment** - Allie Beth Stuckey sets up the episode's framework: Christians must be on guard about what they consume because nothing is spiritually neutral.
- 3 (06:28) **The Popularity and Cultural Impact of Romantasy** - Stuckey explains the massive cultural footprint of the genre and Maas's books specifically.
- 4 (08:06) **The "Spice" Problem: Escalating Pornographic Content** - Stuckey details the explicit sexual content in Maas's books and how it escalates across the series.
- 5 (10:23) **The Author's Own Words: "I Love Smut"** - Stuckey highlights Maas's public statements about her books and their effects on readers.
- 6 (12:10) **Plot Summary: Fated Mates and Unrealistic Relationship Templates** - Stuckey walks through the ACOTAR plot to show the relationship models being presented.
- 7 (15:00) **Real-World Consequences: Women Leaving Marriages** - Stuckey presents evidence that these books are prompting women to end real relationships.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Is Romantasy ruining reality? Allie unpacks the ACOTAR phenomenon, highlighting how the author of the series, Sarah J. Maas, is proud of the smut she writes, but she's even prouder that readers are leaving their boyfriends and husbands thanks to her work. While women should always leave an abusive partner, Allie believes ACOTAR is setting an unrealistic standard of romance for women that is causing them to throw away good relationships and self-improvement. Meanwhile, the Bible showcases far better examples of romance and strong, female protagonists than spicy novellas from BookTok. Allie is also joined by Share the Arrows guest speaker Costi Hinn, who discusses the similarities between Kathryn Krick and his uncle Benny Hinn and the broader dangers of the charismatic movement.
Do you have a question for Allie? Leave a voicemail at 844-755-5252.
Share the Arrows 2026 is on October 10 in Dallas, Texas! Tickets are on sale now at: https://sharethearrows.com
Share the Arrows is sponsored by:
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Range Leather: RangeLeather.com/ALLIE
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Buy Allie's book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://www.toxicempathy.com
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Time Codes
0:00 Introduction
11:34 Sarah J. Maas & ACOTAR
25:17 ACOTAR Ruins Relationships
45:34 Biblical Femininity
56:34 Costi Hinn on Kathryn Krick
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