A review by campisforever
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book is a stellar depiction of what it means to break, to be broken, to become different, and to learn to be loved in the midst of it. Of self actualization and growth. Of growing apart, growing together, and loving someone in a way that lets them have agency. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be tugged in another direction from the first book, but it worked so beautifully and hit many affective beats that I needed for it to work. It’s beautiful and I love it. 

For gender nonconforming readers: the text uses “fe/male” as terms frequently enough to be annoying for me, and I expect to cause concern if that kind of language is squicky or triggering. It’s sometimes used where it doesn’t have to be as adjectival shorthand, but most often it’s a mechanism for differentiating between faeries (the way “man” and “woman” operate for humans in the text). 

As for the sex scenes:
They were… fine, I guess. I understood them as walking a fine line between what’s acceptable in mainstream publishing and what might not be, so they alternate between vague and vaguely explicit, and are rather short. The mechanics of the sex are… interesting, for lack of a better term, in part because there’s a lot of heteronormative/heterosexual shorthand that allows for “vaguely explicit.” Good on Maas for calling a cock a cock, but I’ve read better and hotter scenes in fanfiction (and queer romance, for that matter, because it doesn’t/can’t depend on the same kinds of shorthand). People are very into Chapter 55 but I didn’t find it that mindblowing and there were some turns of phrase within that I raised an eyebrow at. Spicier scenes than ACoTaR for sure, which I liked, but I didn’t find that they lived up to the hype.
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