Reviews with content warning for Sexism - A Court of Mist and Fury

Since getting out from Under the mountain, Feyre is suffering from PTSD, awaking nightly after reliving the trauma of her ordeal in her nightmares. She takes some comfort in her new friend Ianthe and in Tamlin when he takes her to bed, but his overprotectiveness takes a dark turn. As Feyre starts to panic as she’s walking down the aisle to wed Tamlin, she silently begs for someone to save her. Rhysand whisks her away to begin their deal of Feyre staying at the night court one week of every month. When she’s with Rhys, she learns to read and control some of her powers but she withers again when she returns to Tamlin. The final straw is when Tamlin imprisons Feyre in the house “to keep her safe.”

Feyre flourishes as part of the night court and I think it’s the journey we all hope for when someone gets out of a toxic relationship.

A lot of the action sequences start out of nowhere which I don’t love. It feels like its more for shock value than having a purpose to move the plot forward. One battle with good build up was the one in Velaris. There were little hints that something was no right and it showed the crew that they’d been betrayed. Within the battle, Feyre’s powers grew in scale but stayed true to what we saw her training with earlier. I also appreciated that while Feyre can get vicious to defend her city and her people, she’s not immune to the hurt it causes her to kill.

The graphic audio is truly the best way to read these books. The cast is very talented and it feels so much richer. The stakes feel higher and the tension feels much deeper when you can hear a character struggling in the background (the ending, in particular). I’m excited to read the next book with the graphic audio soon!

Content warnings:
Blood, injury, violence (on page):

War is brewing so there’s several little skirmishes, Rhys and Feyre are attacked a few times

Sexual content (on page):

Feyre and Tamlin have sex a few times at the start of the book, she and Rhys have a little flirtationship culminating in a very physical relationship once Feyre calms down about them being mates

Toxic relationship, emotional abuse (on page):

Tamlin and Feyre do not have a healthy relationship. He readily keeps information from her and keeps her in the house as much as possible as an attempt to keep her safe. This culminates in him locking her in the house so she could not follow him and Lucian, after which she gets out.

Panic attacks (on page):

Feyre wakes nightly in a panic from her nightmares, causing her to become a husk of her former self.

Sexual assault (off page):

Rhys tells Feyre his story of being forced into Amarantha’s bed. The discussion goes on for a while and feels worse once Feyre starts thinking of how badly everyone has treated him.

Kidnapping (off page):

Feyre’s sisters are kidnapped from the human world and forced to become fae.

Misogyny, sexism (off page):

So many of these fantasy kingdoms treat women as lesser beings and that’s still the case here. Strongest mentions of mistreatment by the court of nightmare and the Illyrians

Vomit (on page):

it happens several times. You’ve been warned

Content Warnings

thetearex's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

2.0

Content Warnings

wafer's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Oh, I have so many thoughts. Too many. Hey, it’s a huge improvement from the first book!

Clearly, Maas is doing something right. I like a lot of what’s going on here. I think the politics are fun and the ending hook promising. There’s a handful of characters here that I enjoy, particularly Mor and Lucien. Nesta as well! What a glow-up!

But the writing is just so, so blah. As repetitious in its diction (how many dogs does Feyre have in those bones of hers?) as well as its blocking. Maas has a really bad habit of having her side characters trauma dump and Feyre have some sort of physical reaction to it. And that’s a shame! Because there are parts that I think are written well. She just needs a tighter editor to reign it all in and cut a good couple hundo pages from the manuscript.

I also feel the need to point out, and I don’t think she did this on purpose, but Maas absolutely took the concept of the dying stars and the house of mist from the first and third books of the Howl’s Moving Castle series. If I wanted to be a little catty, I’d extend that to the dreamlike castle in the sky imagery as well.

Eh, the gender essentialism is ever-present. I guess Maas is just allergic to the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ but what can you do, really? I found myself getting used to it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. It’s omegaverse lite, is what it is. I won’t even go into the ham-fisted milady feminism by way of Rhysand - many others will and have probably done a better job of that than me.

I had fun though, you know? And that’s the point at the end of the day. Having fun. A good, light time. Escapism?

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