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A review by xcrissy67x
A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I have finally caught up on this series and let me tell you, what a terrific way to ruin a decently good series.
This book follows Nesta Archeon, the sister of Feyre who we have been following throughout the rest of the series. Nesta has always had a horrific temper but that is exacerbated after the big war that the last book ended with. In addition to the traumas of war, Cassian also seems to have a way of flaring her temper and he seems determined to help her despite her cold disposition.
I'll start with the main thing about this book. I hate Nesta. Genuinely, if I could slap a character across the face everytime they annoyed me, Nesta wouldn't have a face anymore. If that was Maas’ intentions, I applaud her. She is rude, selfish, and is overall a terrible person. I understand, oh she has trauma. Okay, great but tauma does not justify your actions (plus she was like this before the war. See ACOTAR).
Throughout pretty much the whole book, she complained and complained and complained to the point where I wanted to throw the book. Complaint after complaint yet no changes on her behalf. Noooo lord forbid.
This book is supposed to follow her healing journey, except that healing journey dragged and dragged and dragged with her still being a terrible person until all of a sudden, 650 pages later, she suddenly does a 180° and by that time it was too little too late.
Speaking of 180° character flips, literally where did the Rhysand we all knew go? Actually, where did the other side characters we all knew and loved go? I was so baffled at the changes in the characters that I'm planning on forgetting this book even happened. To be honest, I think part of the reason why this change happened was for us to feel sympathetic for Nesta (which didn't work by the way) and play into this narrative that everyone hates Nesta except for lovely, prince-charming Cassian. It honestly just infuriated me because I came back to this series for the characters and to have those characters changed so drastically broke my heart.
Cassian was still his cocky self but I don't think there was much depth to his character and you should take the adjective “cocky” literally. In my opinion, I think that he was just reduced to being a complete sex obsessed horndog. I'm not kidding when I say that the number of sex scenes was rather excessive and did not need to be put in. I don't mind spice, I don't like straight up porn on a page. Cassian had such an intriguing character in the previous books and I think this book ruined his character for me as well.
Now onto the plot: or complete lack of it. Yes there was a plot building and I was intrigued to see where it would go. Now shove that all to the side and focus solely on Nesta and Cassian going at it with each other. And maybe a little bit more plot. But also who cares and focus ONLY on Cassian and Nesta. It was tiresome to want to see an exciting plot unravel only for it to focus solely on getting the two characters to bang like rabbits.
Once Cassian and Nesta are all dandy, suddenly oh crap. SJM realised she now has to complete the actual plot. 150 pages from the end, everything was rushed: Nesta was all-powerful, the issues all fixed, and everything's all happy again. God I hate a rushed ending.
Another thing I hate: the sappy, cliché ending in the last 150 pages where it's all like “Our trauma does not beat us (good message) and now suddenly we're all powerful and gonna do something that barely anyone has managed to do in all of time even though we only trained for a few months and other have trained their whole lives and still can't do it but WE CAN”. Honestly, good on them for the character development, but I cannot STAND it when they suddenly become the most trained or skilled or whatever even though they probably should have died day 1. Just my thoughts though, that's just a *slight* pet peeve of mine.
A few redeeming factors though, I never thought I could love a house. And the new side characters weren't bad apart either. I quite liked them, though I'm still very salty about the abhorant changes in the older side characters. And that's about it.
I think this book had it's focus very heavy on Nesta and Cassian and though it's great to see her heal (very very VERY slowly), I find the lack of plot and rush to tie loose ends at the end of the book very dull and slightly irritating. I rolled my eyes so much during this book and by the time I was finished, I was so happy to slam that book down. This book took away the characters I loved and basically replaced them with some random other characters with the same name. Overall, I am not impressed by this book. I'm going to block this out and hope the next one is better.
This book follows Nesta Archeon, the sister of Feyre who we have been following throughout the rest of the series. Nesta has always had a horrific temper but that is exacerbated after the big war that the last book ended with. In addition to the traumas of war, Cassian also seems to have a way of flaring her temper and he seems determined to help her despite her cold disposition.
I'll start with the main thing about this book. I hate Nesta. Genuinely, if I could slap a character across the face everytime they annoyed me, Nesta wouldn't have a face anymore. If that was Maas’ intentions, I applaud her. She is rude, selfish, and is overall a terrible person. I understand, oh she has trauma. Okay, great but tauma does not justify your actions (plus she was like this before the war. See ACOTAR).
Throughout pretty much the whole book, she complained and complained and complained to the point where I wanted to throw the book. Complaint after complaint yet no changes on her behalf. Noooo lord forbid.
This book is supposed to follow her healing journey, except that healing journey dragged and dragged and dragged with her still being a terrible person until all of a sudden, 650 pages later, she suddenly does a 180° and by that time it was too little too late.
Speaking of 180° character flips, literally where did the Rhysand we all knew go? Actually, where did the other side characters we all knew and loved go? I was so baffled at the changes in the characters that I'm planning on forgetting this book even happened. To be honest, I think part of the reason why this change happened was for us to feel sympathetic for Nesta (which didn't work by the way) and play into this narrative that everyone hates Nesta except for lovely, prince-charming Cassian. It honestly just infuriated me because I came back to this series for the characters and to have those characters changed so drastically broke my heart.
Cassian was still his cocky self but I don't think there was much depth to his character and you should take the adjective “cocky” literally. In my opinion, I think that he was just reduced to being a complete sex obsessed horndog. I'm not kidding when I say that the number of sex scenes was rather excessive and did not need to be put in. I don't mind spice, I don't like straight up porn on a page. Cassian had such an intriguing character in the previous books and I think this book ruined his character for me as well.
Now onto the plot: or complete lack of it. Yes there was a plot building and I was intrigued to see where it would go. Now shove that all to the side and focus solely on Nesta and Cassian going at it with each other. And maybe a little bit more plot. But also who cares and focus ONLY on Cassian and Nesta. It was tiresome to want to see an exciting plot unravel only for it to focus solely on getting the two characters to bang like rabbits.
Once Cassian and Nesta are all dandy, suddenly oh crap. SJM realised she now has to complete the actual plot. 150 pages from the end, everything was rushed: Nesta was all-powerful, the issues all fixed, and everything's all happy again. God I hate a rushed ending.
Another thing I hate: the sappy, cliché ending in the last 150 pages where it's all like “Our trauma does not beat us (good message) and now suddenly we're all powerful and gonna do something that barely anyone has managed to do in all of time even though we only trained for a few months and other have trained their whole lives and still can't do it but WE CAN”. Honestly, good on them for the character development, but I cannot STAND it when they suddenly become the most trained or skilled or whatever even though they probably should have died day 1. Just my thoughts though, that's just a *slight* pet peeve of mine.
A few redeeming factors though, I never thought I could love a house. And the new side characters weren't bad apart either. I quite liked them, though I'm still very salty about the abhorant changes in the older side characters. And that's about it.
I think this book had it's focus very heavy on Nesta and Cassian and though it's great to see her heal (very very VERY slowly), I find the lack of plot and rush to tie loose ends at the end of the book very dull and slightly irritating. I rolled my eyes so much during this book and by the time I was finished, I was so happy to slam that book down. This book took away the characters I loved and basically replaced them with some random other characters with the same name. Overall, I am not impressed by this book. I'm going to block this out and hope the next one is better.