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A review by finding_novel_land
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
4.0
Your honour, may I present the book series responsible for destroying my sleep pattern.
So in my review for ACOTAR, I said that I spent the second half of the book trying to work out why every teenager was in love with Rhysand. I would like to announce, that I too am in love with Rhysand.The second installation of this series has purely been written as the love story between Fayre and Rhys and anyone who tries to claim otherwise is wrong.
It is this plot where Maas comes into her element.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that I am a sucker for flirtatious characters, so it's absolutely no surprise at all that this book kept me up into the early hours. The good proportion of this book is devoted to the building sexual tension between our two protagonists, and I don't think I have ever read a book with so much. I was constantly reading ahead for my next Feyre-Rhys interaction, savouring those flirt kernels (if you've seen Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, you understand) because they brought me way too much joy.
On top of that we have an extremely well fleshed out story of recovery from trauma as Feyre begins to rebuild herself after experiencing the horrors of Under the Mountain. The pacing for this was perfect and goes a way to justify the length of this book. On top of that, we actually see her grow up a lot; this is a girl who I can believe is 19/20. Her immaturity, especially at the beginning, shows and she is a very different person at the end of the book (Leigh Bardugo, take notes).
Finally, the wider character building in this around Rhys and his friends is 1000% better than in ACOTAR, which only really explored Feyre's character. My current belief is that Rhys and Nikolai Lantsov (from the Grishaverse) are brothers from other mothers and you can't persuade me otherwise. Selfless hero who will do anything for his country. Man of many masks. Exactly.
The character building and romance was the saviour of this book.
I’m not going to be one of those people who argued that there was no plot in this book, because there was. However, I will get behind Schools of Thought arguing that the plot got side lined in favour of character development.
This lack of focus on the plot has led to me becoming extremely confused. I know there’s a war coming, but the backstory to said war (despite the huge amounts of exposition) has become hazy in my memory. Who is Julian and what relation do the people hiding on the island have to him? Who killed who between Tamlin and Rhys? Maybe it’s my aforementioned lack of sleep, but I would like to order some diagrams and a Spark Notes summary please.
I am also very confused about the magic. For one, Feyre seems to have picked it up very quickly for something that should take centuries to master (classic chosen one trope) and the rules around the magic are very murky. This isn’t helped by Maas’ love of a metaphor which I’ve found to confuse matters on multiple occasions.
On that note, I also found some of her prose to be quite jarring and in need of a tidy up. This is something the pacing could also do with. While I whizzed through the central portion of this book, due to those aforementioned flirt kernels, I found many of the more plot focussed chapters to drag by, with things that could take one chapter taking up three instead.
Overall, there was a lot more focus on Feyre and Rhysand’s relationship than fully exploring and entwining the plot. Maybe it’s just because I was more invested in them getting together (I am a romance reader after all), but this led to a lot of confusion during the final show down with things not impacting me in the way they should due to a lack of understanding of backstory. There was just too much to keep track of.
Having said that, I understood enough for that cliff hanger to leave me on the edge of tears. Well played Sarah.
Finally, I need to return to the romance, because while the central romance was *chef’s kiss *, Maas used two of my least favourite tropes. I really can’t stand it when everyone in a group of people couples up. I can have Nesta and Cassian being a thing, but Elain and Lucien? I understand that it works in favour for Feyre and blackmail, but that didn’t stop me rolling my eyes. Also the fact that every High Lord Feyre has encountered has either fancied or fallen in love with her is so ridiculous.
In a nutshell, just like ACOTAR, this book completely and utterly confused me due to it being both a 2* and 4/5* book at the same time.
Right, I'm off to start A Court of Wings and Ruin and pray that Tamlin gets the therapy he deserves.
ACOTAR Reviews:
A Court of Thorn and Roses
So in my review for ACOTAR, I said that I spent the second half of the book trying to work out why every teenager was in love with Rhysand. I would like to announce, that I too am in love with Rhysand.
It is this plot where Maas comes into her element.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that I am a sucker for flirtatious characters, so it's absolutely no surprise at all that this book kept me up into the early hours. The good proportion of this book is devoted to the building sexual tension between our two protagonists, and I don't think I have ever read a book with so much. I was constantly reading ahead for my next Feyre-Rhys interaction, savouring those flirt kernels (if you've seen Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, you understand) because they brought me way too much joy.
On top of that we have an extremely well fleshed out story of recovery from trauma as Feyre begins to rebuild herself after experiencing the horrors of Under the Mountain. The pacing for this was perfect and goes a way to justify the length of this book. On top of that, we actually see her grow up a lot; this is a girl who I can believe is 19/20. Her immaturity, especially at the beginning, shows and she is a very different person at the end of the book (Leigh Bardugo, take notes).
Finally, the wider character building in this around Rhys and his friends is 1000% better than in ACOTAR, which only really explored Feyre's character. My current belief is that Rhys and Nikolai Lantsov (from the Grishaverse) are brothers from other mothers and you can't persuade me otherwise. Selfless hero who will do anything for his country. Man of many masks. Exactly.
The character building and romance was the saviour of this book.
I’m not going to be one of those people who argued that there was no plot in this book, because there was. However, I will get behind Schools of Thought arguing that the plot got side lined in favour of character development.
This lack of focus on the plot has led to me becoming extremely confused. I know there’s a war coming, but the backstory to said war (despite the huge amounts of exposition) has become hazy in my memory. Who is Julian and what relation do the people hiding on the island have to him? Who killed who between Tamlin and Rhys? Maybe it’s my aforementioned lack of sleep, but I would like to order some diagrams and a Spark Notes summary please.
I am also very confused about the magic. For one, Feyre seems to have picked it up very quickly for something that should take centuries to master (classic chosen one trope) and the rules around the magic are very murky. This isn’t helped by Maas’ love of a metaphor which I’ve found to confuse matters on multiple occasions.
On that note, I also found some of her prose to be quite jarring and in need of a tidy up. This is something the pacing could also do with. While I whizzed through the central portion of this book, due to those aforementioned flirt kernels, I found many of the more plot focussed chapters to drag by, with things that could take one chapter taking up three instead.
Overall, there was a lot more focus on Feyre and Rhysand’s relationship than fully exploring and entwining the plot. Maybe it’s just because I was more invested in them getting together (I am a romance reader after all), but this led to a lot of confusion during the final show down with things not impacting me in the way they should due to a lack of understanding of backstory. There was just too much to keep track of.
Having said that, I understood enough for that cliff hanger to leave me on the edge of tears. Well played Sarah.
Finally, I need to return to the romance, because while the central romance was *chef’s kiss *, Maas used two of my least favourite tropes. I really can’t stand it when everyone in a group of people couples up.
In a nutshell, just like ACOTAR, this book completely and utterly confused me due to it being both a 2* and 4/5* book at the same time.
Right, I'm off to start A Court of Wings and Ruin and pray that Tamlin gets the therapy he deserves.
ACOTAR Reviews:
A Court of Thorn and Roses