A review by jaelaheath
A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

dark emotional inspiring sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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

I either LOVE sjm books or don’t like them. I didn’t like this book. Hot take, I know.

First I want to talk about the few things that I really liked about this book…

Nesta. I hated Nesta before this book, and while her perspective doesn’t justify some of the things that she has done, it makes sense. Like the whole situation with their childhood and her resentment towards her father, mwah. Her character growth and realizing that she is not the mistakes she has made, i have grown to honestly love her.

The house, I think it is absolutely beautiful that Nesta
Spoiler a death god of sorts
brings the house to life. And the fact that sjm included the darkness in the house, it was so poetic and beautiful.

Spoiler the rite, I liked the dynamic of fortified female friendship, the girls showing how badass they’d trained to become, and the sacrifices they made for each other. First friendship ever fully developed in this series in my opinion


And thats it. Literally.

Now for what I HATED.

The sex scenes were literally jump scares, Nesta always compares his dick to a sword?? At one point she literally describes their sex as impaling herself.. I’m sorry please it was so bad. My vagina literally sewed itself shut reading that. SJM needs an anatomy class too I’m pretty sure because the way she describes breasts… you’d think she doesn’t have any of her own. Not to mention, that it did not make sense. One second Cassian would say “I love Nesta, she destroyed me” the next scene he was saying “her ass is on display for me” to telling her that everyone hates her?? Like Jesus, pick one. Are you in love with her, is she an object, or do you hate her? So poorly written.

Also, SJM is SO bad at writing villains, the villain was boring, flat, and pointless. Every female villain she rights is exactly this, so sooooooo boring. And then every male villain? A rapist. Why are there so many rapists in this world? (I know it’s kind of accurate, but seriously get more creative)

And her hero’s??????????? Almost worse. She creates these beautiful powers and women who are so badass and powerful and then she just rips it away before it’s even good. Like Amren??
Spoiler and Nesta, develops her powers and learns to hone her strength and be selfless, and then just gives it away?? I get saving Feyre after Feyre has done so much to save Nesta BUT, the one things “the mother” gives her back is an Illyrian birth canal? Spare me.
I just want to see one powerful woman stay a powerful woman.

Rhysand… god this book RUINED rhysand for me. He’s so “I love women’ and letting them make choices” but then
Spoiler literally withholds important medical information from Feyre about the fact that her baby could literally kill her?? And then basically threatens to kill Nesta for telling her??
So so bad, and he’s just straight up a “moody bastard” as described. A straight up dick.

In fact the entire inner circle pissed me off in this book. Hopefully Nesta is just an unreliable narrator but they were all such dicks omg. Even Cassian the “love interest”.


SJM is so predictable with her endings it’s TIRING.
Spoiler Yet another ending where there are no real consequences, no one of any importance actually dies, so no I will never believe that any one is going to stay dead in these damned books. It’s not that I want the characters to die, but God don’t put them in dire circumstances time and time again if you are never going to kill anyone. If Nesta had sacrificed her life for Emerie and Gwyn or for Feyre and the baby, this would’ve been so much better


Anyways this book was bad. And had far too many pages.
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