A review by cayenne503
A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I was leaning towards a three star rating for the majority of the book. It’s repetitive, the same cycle of scenes playing out over and over, theoretically with increasing stakes each time. When the final battle started winding up I thought we were finally getting somewhere interesting….but no. Almost everything after “no he won’t” knocks my rating down an entire star. I lost count of the number of *dramatic reveals* that were crammed into that battle scene. And then when the battle finally ended and there was an opportunity to end the story on a dramatic gut wrenching twist-

Rhys was dead, and the power of the high lords couldn’t bring him back like they did to Feyre. Except…then they did. Immediately. Also Amren came back. Also despite the build up and foreshadowing no one from Team Good Guy died, or apparently even got significantly wounded. We are supposed to believe that Cassian and/or Azriel are terribly injured…except we’ve already seen that happen to both of them at least twice and know they will bounce back to normal in a few pages. AND THEN IT KEPT GOING. I would have been less annoyed with a literal “and they all lived happily ever after” instead of the endless descriptions of the crew laughing and drinking and giving each other significant looks.

I don’t think I’ve been so utterly annoyed by the ending of a book since the epilogue in Deathly Hallows, and at least THAT was the end of the entire series. There’s still another whole book and novella after this one!