Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Dvor magle i srdžbe

Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Dvor magle i srdžbe by Sarah J. Maas

140 reviews

megpetri's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

I know why this book is so renowned now. I loved everything about this book. I knew I was in for a ride getting into this, but when I got to Chapter

, I was bawling my eyes out. I loved being able to reframe everything about Rhysand in the first book. I also really enjoyed meeting the other side characters. I want books on the back stories of all the characters in the Inner Circle. The world building and writing was SO MUCH BETTER than the first book. I wish I could say just skip the first book and start with this one, but the pay-off of reading ACOTAR and building some foundation, then this, is so worth it.

Rhys and Cassian have made it into my book boyfriend Hall of fame.

Content Warnings

rlessard21's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

So much better than the first in the series. Love Feyre and Rhys, the whole core group. Writing was better, character development, arc, spice, relationships - all of it was better.

Content Warnings

klein19's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Mad that I didn’t see everything wrong with Tamlin from the beginning!
TEAM RHYS!!
I really enjoyed the pacing in this book, I didn’t want to put it down. I just want to sit and read the entire series until im done but I can’t! Excited to read book 3!!

Content Warnings

kimihama1014's review against another edition

3.75

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

meganhart92's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

kateb15's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

jerbarger's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The last 36 pages/7 chapters made this book for me. I absolutely adored the first book, but then Feyre was all depressed and Tamlin was all abusive at the beginning of the second—and I was not a fan of either. I literally read the first one in 9 days and this one took me over a year. I also was deeply devastated by what felt like a personal betrayal from Tamlin himself since I had really liked his character in A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES. I didn’t really get the appeal for Rhysand, so I was just not into it. But I pushed through, and even though the middle section felt endless, Rhys grew on me and Feyre began to heal (unlike some of us). It’s unfortunate though, because I was just planning on finishing A COURT OF MIST AND FURY and calling it a day but I am now sucked back into the series. Hence the last 7 chapters making it all worth it.

Content Warnings

and_so_it_goes's review against another edition

1.75

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

If the first book of this series was trying to be a standard action fairy tale, this book is trying to be a high fantasy. This is what makes this book actually worse than the first book, because SJM can’t worldbuild to save her life. Warnings for slightly inconsistent spoiler tags.

Serious topics like sexism, genocide, and war are proposed and then treated with zero care, all for the sole purpose of making Rhysand look good. If you want to take this world seriously you have to look past: Prythian is sexist but high priestess’ are just as high-ranking as High Lords and can sleep around, fairy death camps mentioned once and never again, comparisons which make zero sense, politics which involve a lot of threatening to stab people, and so on.

I will criticize this book seriously since it is so desperate to be taken seriously as a PTSD recovery story and a detailed high fantasy novel.

The worst parts of this book is by far two things: Feyre constantly needing to be a martyr and the entire book bending backwards to make Rhysand seem good. Both Rhysand and Feyre have trauma, but anytime another character exhibits trauma they have to talk about how bad they have it. I am not even talking about Tamlin. Feyre

walks around Tarquin’s city which had just been sacked and is rebuilding, and then can’t help but remark that *she* saved them. She also says Tarquin will never understand Rhysand, who is a true dreamer advocating for change (we’ll get to that).

Feyre’s trauma is also triggered by Tamlin’s actions, yet Rhysand putting her in danger, acting jealous/possessive, and lying to her does not cause trauma.

My final and most extensive complaint is of Rhysand. I wasn’t a Tamlin fan. I could see Tamlin becoming possessive and having anger issues, but suddenly the book decides that

Tamlin is a traditionalist who upholds taxes to the point of starving people, and is sexist.

It’s like the previous book forgot about setting Tamlin up as not wanting to be High Lord and purposefully trying to not be like his father? But it didn’t, because it gets mentioned later. Meanwhile, Rhysand is superior for having money taxes, which I still can’t understand how that’s any better. I could go on about Rhysand’s poor understanding of feminism, but that’s probably been covered by other people.

Rhysand’s entire persona of pretending to be evil makes no sense. This backfires on them with

Tarquin and then disastrously with the mortal queens. But somehow both of them are portrayed as foolish for…believing that Rhysand is High Lord of the sexist court??

He is the worst High Lord. Rhysand:

Actively segregates half of his court to live in suffering just so the other city he actually cares about can live in peace
Says “oh well” to all the women in Mor’s position because Mor is the only “dreamer” in the court of nightmares
Praises the war camps for making him strong that also contributes to the sexism by separating the boys/girls at puberty and training the Illyrians to be heartless warriors, then claims that in order to actually stop sexism in the war camps he’d “have to kill all of the leaders and raise their sons himself”, despite being the most powerful High Lord (and wants women to train in these war camps to solve sexism)
Calls said Illyrians barbarians and sexist despite not stopping said sexism because they are the vast majority of his army and the High Lords (literally mentioned by his father) rely on them as disposable soldiers
Has a dedicated torturer/spymaster and a woman who literally eats people on his council
Is an isolationist to such an extent that he’d rather people think they are evil??

Feyre often praises Rhysand’s defense of his city, and it’s so egregious when she says that characters like Tarquin and even Tamlin are cowards for wanting to change the class system compared to Rhysand, but Rhysand’s friends can’t even stop wing clipping during his years Under The Mountain. And that is the worst part of this stupid book. The fact that what we get to prove Rhysand is a good man is utter bs. The fact that the morality of this book is inconsistent. Feyre claims that unlike Tamlin, Rhysand’s Inner Circle are friends and can call him out/are above the ways of courtiers. Yet

Azriel spies on Amren and Mor has been leading Azriel on for 500 years.

Feyre thinks that her sisters are horrible for hating fae and not instantly trusting Rhysand using their house for politics, and we are graced with an entire Nesta roasting session because she was bitchy to Feyre. But Cassian and Rhysand beat up a CHILD Azriel who spent all of his life locked up in a dark room, but that’s okay. He laughs about it and Feyre does not care, because every character in this book is a hypocrite.

I don’t want this review to be any longer but here are some other random criticisms: the dialogue sounding like Feyre is choosing every dialogue option in a Skyrim play through (So what’s your history with….is it true that…cue lengthy monologue), “yEr my maTe”, Rhysand’s convenient justifications for his terrible actions UTM (the time he twisted the bone in her arm when they were alone was never explained brw), the worst found family known to man, “I could never paint this”, “Rhysand put his hands in his pockets”, their backwater medieval spring court vs our renaissance night court, Feyre being utter shit at going to something as basic as ceremonies in spring and getting mad about the High Lady stuff/Tamlin wanting a housewife but then picturing a very boring life with Rhysand where she teaches poor ppl to paint and Rhysand pays for it and she pays him back by giving him the sold painting money.

Content Warnings