A review by athousandlives
A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous dark 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

4.0

This book was a bit hard for me to go through, because it's a lot about war, and battles, and it's not my favourite thing to read. Plus, the pace felt painfully slow at some times. But I love this world and the characters so much that in the end, it was always a pleasure to come back to it whenever I had time to read. 

I'm glad we got to see more of some side characters I loved in book two
(the Bone Carver and the Weaver, my fav death gods <3)
, and I was sooo happy to get more Lucien content because I love this character so much. The whole mate trope that includes him is a different take on this supposedly strong love bond, and it brings a new depth to what the mating bond means. 

We also got to meet the other High Lords, and each one has a story and some characterization that could be further developed in the next books and I like that. The worldbuilding in this series is always a treat. With these new characters came the first LGBTQ+ rep of the series and whooosh, that was about time! I'm especially glad that someone in the inner circle was revealed to be part of the LGBTQ+ community. It is so important to show diversity among the main characters.
Even though Morrigan's attraction to girls is still a secret for most of the cast, I really hope we'll see her embrace this part of her in the next books.


About the end of the trilogy... I've been amazed these last years at the beautiful conclusions of my faves series (A conjuring of Light, Six of crows, etc), and they had such a good balance between a happy ending and the loss of some characters. I did not find this here and I was a bit disappointed. 
Sure, some things were lost, the characters will never be the same etc, but the fact that it was a bloody war and that ALL of the main cast survives bothered me a bit. I don't say that you have to kill characters for an ending to be well-written, but I feel like if the reader gets used to high stakes that end up being not-so-high, at some point we won't fall for it anymore. For example, I loved Feyre's near-death in book one. And I was okay with her surviving by being Made. But if when Rhys dies because his need for self-sacrifice was damn too big, and we get to resurrect him the exact same way (even though he was already Fae), AND he brings Amren back from the dead with him, it is too much. I feel like no one could possibly die in this series now :'). 

Same thing goes for Azriel and Cassian's wounds. Okay, they're fae and have enhanced healing capacities and skilled healers to patch them up. But if they keep getting their wings wrecked and their bodies as well, I think it would be interesting to have one of them deal with sequels from these battles. Like a (partial?) inability to fly instead of just scars. I think it would bring higher stakes in the story.



That being said, I still had a very good time, and I'm looking forward to reading A Court of Frost and Starlight where I hope the characters will get to have some peace, and I will get to read lots of Inner Circle banter that I love so much.
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