Reviews with content warning for Body shaming - A Court of Silver Flames

Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

33 reviews

kloft1993's review against another edition

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hopeful relaxing medium-paced

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

1.5

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lisacanteven's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Someone said to me, “If you weren’t already a SJM fan, this isn’t going to be the book to change your mind.” Well this book actually Unmade (capital U on purpose) me a SJM stan. I have seen a lot of reviews applauding Sarah J. Maas for how she wrote about the topic of mental illness, and I’m going to have to disagree with this point of view and offer another POV.

As someone with mental illness and a bit of trauma, I hated reading this book. I really felt unheard the entire time and like SJM was doing those with trauma a huge disservice. I am one of the few who has liked Nesta from the beginning, and I saw the trauma she held onto. It made me feel seen. I even felt alienated when I defended her before ACOSF was released, so I was really hoping this would be her swan song, her redemption arc. Some would say she was redeemed, but at what price?

She brought a lot of hurt and disapproval upon herself. I get that, and I guarantee that most people who have trauma do the same. You know what we should do for those who are acting out of trauma and hurt? Create a safe space for them to come to us. Do you know what we shouldn’t do? Ignore it on the grounds of “just letting them get it out of their system” until it gets too bad and inconvenient for us. Then put our foot down and do the most extreme thing ever like locking them away on the mountainside with one person whom they blame for a lot of their problems. We shouldn’t threaten them with complete exile from the only land they have left because of the trauma you brought on them yourself.

Everything that the inner circle did for her was brought on by their own anger and impatience with her. They locked her up there and then continued to meet without her and discuss her in such an ugly and negative way that would have brought her to her knees if she had known. Feyre was allowed a lot more room and grace when she had to transition into being Fae as opposed to human. And if your response to that is, “yeah but she handled it a lot better” I would remind you that everyone processes trauma differently.

The absolute horrendous negative self-talk that Nesta had throughout the whole book was very, VERY triggering with someone who struggles with this on the daily. Her self-talk is a great example of what can spiral when you have a complete shit support system around you, and I don’t believe that self-talk evolved over her transformation. I don’t believe it benefited the story at all but to show how much her toxic relationship with the inner circle negatively affected her perception of herself and her mental health in general. However, I do not think that was Sarah J. Maas’ intention. I think it was supposed to shed some light on mental illness, but it was just so triggering and did nothing but bring up my own trauma and exhaust me mentally. I know this wasn’t everyone else’s experience, but it is important to shed some light on this POV. I don’t think SJM understands or has as much right to write about trauma and healing as most readers give her credit for. I think she caused a lot of damage with this book, and that is what we aren’t recognizing.

Even when Nesta finally gets her moment and proves she is not some damsel in distress that needs the whole privileged inner circle to save her from, she is quickly pulled into Feyre’s moment. And this was unjustly done just by the writing by SJM. She could not give the reader who relates to Nesta a moment to feel her triumph, to feel her joy and power. She could not let us castaways believe that our moments are coming. We too can come away from our trauma and change everything people doubted about us. Then she saves the day again, but SJM makes sure to acknowledge that her work will remain a secret. Sure, she earned her place in the inner circle but somehow I feel like they are all quicker to remember her misdoings than her resurrection.

Mentally this book destroyed me, and I feel like it didn’t have to. It did not have to bring up my trauma, my self-doubt, and my negative self-talk. It did not have to be this miserable reading experience. I have said it once during this review, and I will say it again: Sarah was irresponsible with this one. She was disrespectful with how she wrote about a character with obvious trauma and mental illness, and you will not convince me otherwise. In fact I hope this review served to show another POV. I do not want to ruin anyone else’s experience with this book; in fact I hope no one else has the experience I had with this book. I don’t think that will be the case though, so if you felt any of this while reading you are not alone.

I also thought SJM was careless with the topic of sexual assault, and I want to make sure I acknowledge how triggering this book is if you are triggered by sexual assault or rape. There are several times when it is written graphically, and I didn’t find that necessary. There is also a lot of graphic sexual content with consent that I just felt could be triggering as well. @graciouslyrooted talks about this a lot in her review. Thank you, Brooke, for your transparency with this. If you have any sexual trauma in your past, even the consensual sex scenes could be triggering.

I am a huge Cassian fan, but SJM did him dirty in this book. I felt like he took advantage of Nesta during a time when she was most vulnerable and should have been recovering. But then she centered Cassian as the one who was being hurt by Nesta. Their sexual relationship had me rolling my eyes with disapproval the whole time. It was like the fandom said, “More steam! More smut!” And Sarah was like okay I’ll put it everywhere even when it completely disrupts the healing that Nesta should be experiencing, even when it completely takes away from the actual plot. It was exhausting. And also can we get Sarah J. Maas a thesaurus? Every sexual encounter used the same few words and terms; there was nothing new!

After this experience, I think it is safe to say that I:

Do NOT regret quitting the Throne of Glass series after two books.
Will NOT be continuing with this series.
Am seriously questioning whether I was correct in loving House of Earth and Blood so much or if the rest of the Crescent City series is going to let me down as much as this book did.

If you think that sentencing someone to isolation while angrily discussing their well being and toting that as “taking care of them” is acceptable, you may have read this book. But let me just clarify that if you have experienced trauma in your life, you deserve better than this. You deserve a support system that wants your healing for your sake and not because they are exasperated with you. You are seen, and you are appreciated no matter where you may be in your healing. Please consider this review when recommending this book to others. If you know they have experienced trauma, severe depression, and/or sexual assault in their lives please give a content warning or just don’t recommend it. This is not a book to be sweepingly recommending to all audiences.

Content Warnings

palekayle's review

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adventurous dark reflective 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

3.5

good exploration into the depths of self-loathing

ending felt rushed. queen stuff felt tossed in.

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