Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - A Court of Silver Flames

Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

167 reviews

smolone13's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ratings:

Goodreads: 4/5

Storygraph: 4/5

My Rating: 5/5

Synopsis:

Nesta has an intervention and ends up under Cassian’s care to get better.

My Review:

Since the first book I had drawn attention towards Nesta, as an older sister myself, and at first I did kind of dislike her. I honestly saw Nesta as someone who just didn’t actually care about anyone around her except for herself. But after A Court of Frost and Starlight, I quickly realized that she was going through PTSD. She was traumatized.

Nesta is the prime character of this entire book and it shows how destructive her current lifestyle is. The PTSD, the trauma, and most certainly depression. Nesta sleeps around with other fae males, drinks until she cannot remember the next day, and she isn’t eating. She lives in a disgusting apartment, doesn’t clean up after herself, and doesn’t allow any fireplace anywhere near her to be lit. She doesn’t even take baths. Quickly it is noticed that she is broken. Probably for a long time as well. As seen from the first book, it’s almost like she has given up and the only person that she wraps herself around is Elain. Nesta’s destructive behavior ends up leading her to have an intervention. Feyre and Rhysand, mostly these two, decide it would be best that she lives up at the House of Wind, train with Cassian and work in the library with the priestesses. Although Nesta is pissed off about these turn of events, she goes through with it.

Cassian, the sweet man that he is, does his absolute best trying to get Nesta to join practice. Nesta does well with no drinking, working with the priestesses in the library and does an okay job socializing, just not training. Just when Cassian feels like he won't get anywhere, he decides to change the setting by training at the House of Wind instead of training at the military camp. By a miracle, it works. Cassian helps her gain some confidence, helps give her the push to heal, and honestly it made me fall in love with him as a character. Cassian just keeps his hand held out until Nesta is ready to take it. Cassian also heavily protects her when some of the others are just being dicks. Besides Azriel of course who just minds his own business.

Rhysand was actually one of the characters I started to dislike. The excuse being that Feyre is pregnant. However, I find it ridiculous. Rhysand, as old as he is, including the others don't recognize that Nesta is hurting. Only one to truly notice that is Cassian. The others don't understand why she's destroying herself, including Rhysand who truly believes Nesta has some form of hatred in her to hurt Feyre. Amren as well made me upset, but I also understand that she is technically a new mortal. She has been a being of no feelings for a long time.

Feyre believes Cassian is able to help her and has noticed that she has been improving so she isn’t completely involved. Not to mention, she has been trying to have a successful, safe, and healthy pregnancy. Elain was honestly just useless in this book besides showcasing that she doesn’t want to interact with Nesta. Elain I am almost positive is not as innocent as she makes herself appear and that she is a more hate-filled character than we see. Elain almost strikes me as two-faced.

Now for my two favorite additions! Gwyn and Emerie. I love these two women and they gave Nesta a way to interact, become a stronger woman, and even gain a sense of leadership but also understand teamwork and passing the baton around. Gwyn is a priestess who came to the library after witnessing her twin get beheaded in front of her and then gets gang-raped. Emerie was brutally abused by her father, including the rest of the males in her family, and now runs her father’s shop as a way to distract herself. NEsta, Gwyn and Emerie become close friends and create their own group with other priestesses to become Valkyries, an old forgotten group of female fae warriors. The three of them together made me fall in love with this entire book. They bonded over their hardships, overcame their trauma, and in the end became strong females.

The book had multiple plots. The first plot is Nesta overcoming her trauma and becoming a stronger character. The second was her finally letting go of her fear, being able to openly communicate and finally end up allowing Cassian into her heart. The third was stopping the “young” evil queen from taking over.

I truly did love this book and I completely fell in love with Nesta. I would read this book over and over again. It was comforting, it had some depressing topics within the book, it had suspense, it had adventure, it had the spicy romance and I just could not get over this book. Out of this entire series, this was my favorite book.

Next is The Assassin’s Blade and after that is The Crescent City Series! I absolutely can’t wait to get through these books.

Content Warnings

bookboyfriend4life's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

littlered22's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Went into this hating Nesta and came out attached to her, relating to her and feeling like I healed some reading this. Give it a chance if you've loved the series this far in

Content Warnings

rachelblair's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

chaos_and_chapters's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious relaxing tense 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? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

bree_h_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

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

2.5

Honestly, this was the best book in the entire series. Despite the weak ending I felt this was the strongest and best written book out of all 4.5 ACOTAR books. I really hope the shifting POVs continue with these books, as I think it really helps the plot stand up and justify how ridiculously long these books are.

As always the narrator was amazing, but I think this is her best performance. There was just so much more emotion put into the dialogue AND narration. It really sold me on the story and feelings. Which was important as this book is VERY focused on emotions and how they impact the characters. The exploration of trauma and healthy vs unhealthy coping mechanisms was written better than I anticipated. I also really appreciated the friendship Nesta developed with other women in the book and how that aided her recovery. It’s something that was sorely missing from Feyre’s story.

The relationship dynamics in this book were pretty hit-or-miss for me. I thought Azriel and Nesta had the best written dynamic. I really enjoyed the few interactions they had. And the change of Elaine and Nesta’s dynamic as a reaction to their trauma was also interesting. It didn’t feel out of place. It also allowed for more expansion on Elaine’s character, which I really liked. Aside from that, Cassin and Nesta’s dynamic was fine. I didn’t find it anything special, but I enjoyed the way they played off each other. The rest of the dynamics were pretty lacking, and actually made me dislike the Inner Circle. While Nesta wasn’t the kindest, it was clearly a response to being abandoned by the others. My dislike was further driven by their upset at Nesta being traumatised. Where they were gentle and patient with Feyre, they were short tempered and cruel to Nesta. Again, Nesta wasn’t perfect, but it was because the people that were treating her poorly had abandoned her when she needed community. The worst dynamic was Nesta and Rhysand. While it was pretty strong when they hated each other, their reconciliation at the end was horribly rushed. Especially considering Rhysand’s HORRIBLE actions in the book.

On that note, wow. Mister Your Choice shows his colours by taking away Feyre’s choices. Shocker. I am blown away. Truly. Shocked. It’s not like he’s been doing this, but more subtle the entire series. Honestly, if anyone is still swoony over Rhysand after he WITHHELD MEDICAL INFORMATION from his wife about how she MIGHT DIE is a new low. It’s disgusting behaviour and the fact the book brushed it off and shamed Nesta for telling Feyre the truth is INSANE.

My only other gripes are the spice and end, which just felt very rushed. Along with the wedding, their mating ritual happening so abruptly really threw me. The spice was hilarious, but not on purpose. I really don’t like the way SJM writes spice, so I mostly zoned out during those scenes.

Overall it was a just okay book. Nothing special, but better than the others. I presume due to less Rhysand content.

Content Warnings

vermontsnowboarder's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

This is my second favourite book in the ACOTAR series. But it has its flaws.

What I liked:
-

I think that the description of depression and being able to see it through Nesta was powerful. It was clear that Nesta was struggling, and we were shown this in many ways (rather than told, which I hate.)

- The friendships that Nesta developed
- The overall storyline - I love this world but what I liked about this book in particular is getting to see it through Nesta's eyes.

What I didn't like (and why it didn't get rated higher)
-

I disliked how Nesta's family treated her. There were so many instances, especially at the beginning of the book. Nesta is struggling, and their answer is to shun her and make her shelve books and work out?

Cassian, though a character I enjoy reading, really only seemed to be invested in Nesta because she was his mate. He wasn't helping her because it was the right thing to do; he was helping her because he wanted her. Azriel contrasted this - he didn't have to be there, didn't have to be kind, and yet he was just as solid of a rock, probably more so because it was his choice.

- The backstory that takes place behind Nesta's healing journey wasn't developed enough. It was almost like it was there to be there. We caught glimpes and pieces but none of it was written well enough to be interesting.

I wish that Eris was better developed - there is a lot there and perhaps we'll see more in future books.

The most frustrating thing about these books, actually any of Maas' books, is that because there are more coming she doesn't do a good job of sprinkling crumbs.

Eris is a good example - we might see more of him in future stories, and because of that she didn't take the time to make his time in this book as well written as it should have been.

An example of crumbs that were done well was Cassian explaining the prison to Nesta and mentioning that he thought the prison was stocked with inmates to hide the harp and other powerful things. The description of the chamber the harp was in. Those are very important details for when you read Cresent City, they aren't thrown in your face or highlighted too much, and are well written.

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readyforit's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

5⭐️4🌶️(very descriptive scenes)
I went into this book disliking nesta, mostly for her actions in ACOFAS. I think she may be my favorite character now. Rhys (especially) and feyre took several steps backwards in their character development. Maybe feyre was previously an unreliable narrator since she’s in love with Rhys and his mate, but he was nearly insufferable in this book. He kept making horrible call after horrible call. Maybe we only get to really see his failures and shortcomings because of how he interacts with nesta. I don’t think it excuses some of his behavior though.

I had the absolute pleasure of falling more in love with cassian. I did miss mor in this book a lot though.

The Valkyries were the shining star in this book for me, I love their friendship and that they push each other to succeed. Girlhood at its finest. They even made each other friendship bracelets🥹

Content Warnings

neliadiedenise's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

avialaeleigh's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I can now see why everyone says that they like this book. Reading it made me wish that I had read it earlier and not stopped because I was upset that it wasn't a continuation of Feyre story.

Nesta was one of those characters that I just didn't like when we were first introduce to her. But she grows do much in this. We come to understand why she did what she did. And why she acted the way that she did. Not only to herself but also to those around her.

We come to see her make friendships, family and finally the love her life. Nesta is a classic eldest daughter character and throw in fantasy drama and it is even worse than real life. Yes she makes mistakes, yes she is a bitch. But even from the beginning she is aware of who she is and how people might see her. She makes others think that she doesn't care what they think of her, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

She used what other people might think of her and how they might perceive her as armour to protect herself from being her and used words and her weapon to make them keep thinking of her in that like.

I love the character growth that we see from her and how she becomes the person that she was always meant to be.

I cried, laughed and lived through every moment of this book and this series and I cannot wait to see what comes next, especially of its true that SJM is continuing this series.

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