kalaclarke 's review for:

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

2.0

adventurous mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Huh. Huge spoilers below.

I liked the female friendship between Gwyn, Emerie, and Nesta. I appreciate when characters train and learn skills rather than innately having them / suddenly been given them via magic, so I appreciated the Valkyrie training. I loved the House and Nesta's relationship. The Blood Rite was one of the only parts of this 750-page book where the plot was moving. 

The rest of my review is spoiler tagged below. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Physical abuse, Sexual violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Xenophobia, Pregnancy

Minor: Addiction

Huh. Huge spoilers below. I liked the female friendship between Gwyn, Emerie, and Nesta. I appreciate when characters train and learn skills rather than innately having them / suddenly been given them via magic, so I appreciated the Valkyrie training. I loved the House and Nesta's relationship. The Blood Rite was one of the only parts of this 750-page book where the plot was moving. Cassian and Nesta's relationship dynamic shifting was interesting (except for the Mate garbage, which I hate because, like Nesta who was raised human and doesn't understand the word and its meaning, I don't, and despise how Maas uses it as the climax to romantic relationships) and their intimate scenes were fine but forgettable. I hate everything about the Feyre and Rhys -- definitely gave Twilight Breaking Dawn body horror pregnancy vibes. ALSO: NO ONE has had a Illyrian and non-Illyrian pregnancy successfully before? Way to firmly cement the segregation of different races, Maas (I had already been feeling icky about this in previous books), with evidence that these racial groups never mix or reproduce. Beyond this, the stillbirth scene was not needed and felt gratuitous. I hated Nesta's magic sacrifice. I hated the ending of this book. Why was there no Mor? She is one of the characters I thought we might see more of. Maas had 750 pages, and we get next to zero Elain-Lucien-Azriel interactions? It's bad when I'm more interested in Eris as a character, given what we know about his abuse of Mor...that being said I did manage to read the entire book so it earns two stars for that alone.