Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

2 reviews

josiee's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Medical trauma, Biphobia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Colonisation, Cursing, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Blood, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Stalking, War, Ableism, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Sexism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, and Vomit

chocolatemonkey's review

Let me say first, if you don’t care about critical thought and are okay with being spoon fed almost everything in a NA/adult book series that contains adult content, then you probably will enjoy the series. Also if you’re okay with poor representation for literally everything… I understand a ton of people really enjoy(ed) the series/individual books, I am not one of them and my review will not go over anything I enjoyed about the series because I really only enjoyed about twenty pages in the first book and nothing else after it.

Genuinely badly written and boring. Feels like a semi okay fan fiction level of writing but SJM spoon feeds almost everything to the reader to the point where, if it wasn’t for the sex scenes, it would feel like it was written for middle grade readers who haven’t learned how to do critical thought while reading and need the tone/mood to be laid out word for word for them by the author. 

I also feel that Feyre is overly powerful for no reason other than because SJM could make her overly powerful. She also tries to disguise it by portraying Feyre as a strong female character but power alone doesn’t make someone strong, their flaws/weaknesses are what make them strong characters, and Feyre seems to have a bit of a “not like other girls” complex where she dislikes her sisters for being more feminine/wanting to get married and puts them down for not being like her. After two and a bit books I can’t really explain what type of person any of the characters are because they all seem to change on a whim without much thought or reason behind it, their past experiences don’t seem to play any role in their character development other than for like two seconds and then never again.

Definitely would not recommend to anyone who wants a adult reading level book where they have to fill in the gaps of what the characters actually mean vs what the characters say. An example of this is

(pg.167) “Who knows what Hybern promised them — lied about?” When is obvious to any reader/adult that whatever Hybern promised the mortal queens is a lie because he’s the villain and a manipulator by nature who hates humans and wants to get rid of them. SJM really didn’t need to include that extra bit of insight because it’s fairly obvious that the promises were all likely lies.

This is what I meant by spoon feeding the reader so that no critical thought it necessary. Also her continuous (and slightly obsessive) use of both “male” and “—“ are eye sores and are hard to make reading the books enjoyable. I understand that fae aren’t human but if they’re going to be having sex with humans (and are therefore mostly biologically compatible) then I think characters like Rhysand and Lucien can be referred as “men” or literally any other word similar other that only ever their name or “male” because after a while it starts to feel intolerant towards people who don’t fit into the “traditional” societal roles (ie female=woman, male=male and nothing else exists). The use of “—“ is so extreme because of how much information SJM is trying to spoon feed readers that it makes run on sentences and choppy reading. The books might be significantly better in my opinion if every time she uses “—“ is removed, along with all the extra info given with them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Sexism