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

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Review from 2nd re-read: The first half of this book absolutely slaps and I absolutely adored seeing 
Feyre' owning her power and getting her revenge.
I was really, really enjoying my re-read and thought this book was on track for being a 5⭐... THEN we got to the "war" sections of the book and my enjoyment completely tanked. I am not really a fan of battle sequences anyway and the scenes just are not very well crafted in this book. The fact that we have around 200ish pages of battle with very little relief is tedious. I also have a lot of issues with the way that the final battle plays out. 
Amren breaking the Cauldron and ending the war felt too easy, the use of the resurrection trope on both Amren and Rhysand infuriated me (as much as I love Amren, she should have truly died), the fact that Stryga is the only named character who died, the way that Elaine's prophecy about Cassian's death came to naught...
so much disappointment.

I feel like the ending just kind fizzles. Whilst I know there are more books to the series, it would have been more satisfying to have 
Feyre and Rhysand's arcs to feel fully complete. I feel like there was probably a way to have an epilogue that gives a glimpse of their futures whilst also leaving it ambiguous enough that the reader is still surprised by the interim step to get to that point that we see in the future books i.e. we see them with kids, maybe dying together in the future?
I dunno, the ending was just weak :(   

Review and rating from first read: I had a few issues with this book which largely revolves around the way that the story concludes.
I had seen fan art for Nyx so I felt pretty confident that Feysand would survive the war, Az has a kinda of love triangle with Elaine, and I knew ACOSF was a Nessian story so the only character that I felt any actual tension for in the end of the book was Amren. I was somewhat disappointed that both Rhys and Amren were essentially resurrected. I also didn't like how quickly the story ended and the characters kinda just immediately got a happy ending since there had been a lot of time spent on the trauma and fallout with all of the previous battles.


Overall, it was the kind of trash that I enjoy. 4.25⭐
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