Review by and_so_it_goes - A Court of Mist and Fury

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

and_so_it_goes 's review for:

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

1.75

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

If the first book of this series was trying to be a standard action fairy tale, this book is trying to be a high fantasy. This is what makes this book actually worse than the first book, because SJM can’t worldbuild to save her life. Warnings for slightly inconsistent spoiler tags.

Serious topics like sexism, genocide, and war are proposed and then treated with zero care, all for the sole purpose of making Rhysand look good. If you want to take this world seriously you have to look past: Prythian is sexist but high priestess’ are just as high-ranking as High Lords and can sleep around, fairy death camps mentioned once and never again, comparisons which make zero sense, politics which involve a lot of threatening to stab people, and so on.

I will criticize this book seriously since it is so desperate to be taken seriously as a PTSD recovery story and a detailed high fantasy novel.

The worst parts of this book is by far two things: Feyre constantly needing to be a martyr and the entire book bending backwards to make Rhysand seem good. Both Rhysand and Feyre have trauma, but anytime another character exhibits trauma they have to talk about how bad they have it. I am not even talking about Tamlin. Feyre

walks around Tarquin’s city which had just been sacked and is rebuilding, and then can’t help but remark that *she* saved them. She also says Tarquin will never understand Rhysand, who is a true dreamer advocating for change (we’ll get to that).

Feyre’s trauma is also triggered by Tamlin’s actions, yet Rhysand putting her in danger, acting jealous/possessive, and lying to her does not cause trauma.

My final and most extensive complaint is of Rhysand. I wasn’t a Tamlin fan. I could see Tamlin becoming possessive and having anger issues, but suddenly the book decides that

Tamlin is a traditionalist who upholds taxes to the point of starving people, and is sexist.

It’s like the previous book forgot about setting Tamlin up as not wanting to be High Lord and purposefully trying to not be like his father? But it didn’t, because it gets mentioned later. Meanwhile, Rhysand is superior for having money taxes, which I still can’t understand how that’s any better. I could go on about Rhysand’s poor understanding of feminism, but that’s probably been covered by other people.

Rhysand’s entire persona of pretending to be evil makes no sense. This backfires on them with

Tarquin and then disastrously with the mortal queens. But somehow both of them are portrayed as foolish for…believing that Rhysand is High Lord of the sexist court??

He is the worst High Lord. Rhysand:

Actively segregates half of his court to live in suffering just so the other city he actually cares about can live in peace
Says “oh well” to all the women in Mor’s position because Mor is the only “dreamer” in the court of nightmares
Praises the war camps for making him strong that also contributes to the sexism by separating the boys/girls at puberty and training the Illyrians to be heartless warriors, then claims that in order to actually stop sexism in the war camps he’d “have to kill all of the leaders and raise their sons himself”, despite being the most powerful High Lord (and wants women to train in these war camps to solve sexism)
Calls said Illyrians barbarians and sexist despite not stopping said sexism because they are the vast majority of his army and the High Lords (literally mentioned by his father) rely on them as disposable soldiers
Has a dedicated torturer/spymaster and a woman who literally eats people on his council
Is an isolationist to such an extent that he’d rather people think they are evil??

Feyre often praises Rhysand’s defense of his city, and it’s so egregious when she says that characters like Tarquin and even Tamlin are cowards for wanting to change the class system compared to Rhysand, but Rhysand’s friends can’t even stop wing clipping during his years Under The Mountain. And that is the worst part of this stupid book. The fact that what we get to prove Rhysand is a good man is utter bs. The fact that the morality of this book is inconsistent. Feyre claims that unlike Tamlin, Rhysand’s Inner Circle are friends and can call him out/are above the ways of courtiers. Yet

Azriel spies on Amren and Mor has been leading Azriel on for 500 years.

Feyre thinks that her sisters are horrible for hating fae and not instantly trusting Rhysand using their house for politics, and we are graced with an entire Nesta roasting session because she was bitchy to Feyre. But Cassian and Rhysand beat up a CHILD Azriel who spent all of his life locked up in a dark room, but that’s okay. He laughs about it and Feyre does not care, because every character in this book is a hypocrite.

I don’t want this review to be any longer but here are some other random criticisms: the dialogue sounding like Feyre is choosing every dialogue option in a Skyrim play through (So what’s your history with….is it true that…cue lengthy monologue), “yEr my maTe”, Rhysand’s convenient justifications for his terrible actions UTM (the time he twisted the bone in her arm when they were alone was never explained brw), the worst found family known to man, “I could never paint this”, “Rhysand put his hands in his pockets”, their backwater medieval spring court vs our renaissance night court, Feyre being utter shit at going to something as basic as ceremonies in spring and getting mad about the High Lady stuff/Tamlin wanting a housewife but then picturing a very boring life with Rhysand where she teaches poor ppl to paint and Rhysand pays for it and she pays him back by giving him the sold painting money.

Content Warnings