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A review by xcrissy67x
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Wow this book was much more enjoyable than I expected considering some of the issues I noticed in the first book. It was significantly better than the first book in my opinion and had some more spice but didn't overwhelm the plot thankfully.
After defeating Amarantha, Feyre is now with her beloved Tamlin and preparing for their wedding. However, the trauma of the past has changed both her and Tamlin and things aren't as cheery and bright as they wish it to be. As well as dealing with the trauma, the bargain with Rhysand is still looming over them.
One of the first praises I have for Maas is how well the trauma and PTSD Feyre is struggling with is depicted. It was realistic and it wasn't just swept under the rug or dismissed easily. The impact of what she had endured was so clear and so overwhelming as it would be for a trauma survivor that I cannot help but praise Maas as that is an incredibly hard experience to explain and express.
However, what I didn't love as much was how this same trauma was shown through Tamlin. I heard many readers say that by the end of this book, they hate Tamlin and think he's the worst person ever. Though I see where they come from, I think that Maas has morphed his trauma and how it affected him, to make him turn into this absolutely evil, abhorant character that was basically a completely different character to who you see in the first book. I felt this was essentially to easily boot Tamlin out of the romantic equation and set it up for Rhysand who I'll get onto in a second.
I also understand that Feyre is struggling with the situation, however, she does literally nothing about it. She whines and whines but does she ever have a genuine conversation about all her feelings and emotions with Tamlin? Absolutely not, and that infuriated me to no end. Either way, you do end up hating Tamlin because he's pretty much a different character so I guess Maas achieved what she wanted to achieve.
Rhysand in the first book seemed very morally complex and had a mystery about him that made you want to know more about him. He does start off that way in this book, and then he once again changes as Tamlin did. He changes into this absolutely perfect character who is the prince charming. That's all well and good if it didn't feel like Maas was SHOVING him down my throat. It was so obvious that Maas wanted the readers to root for Rhys and she could have achieved that in a way that wasn't so forceful. I would rather have chosen Rhys (and I would have) rather than have him shoved into my face.
Overall, it just felt as though Maas flipped Tamlin’s character and made Rhys the perfect prince charming so that the readers are essentially forced to root for Rhys and Feyre, which isn't a great feeling especially since you grow to love Tamlin in the first book.
I actually really loved the relationship between Rhys and Feyre. They had good banter and flirting for majority of the book. It wasn't rushed and had a good pace for most of the book. I feel like it does get a little rushed later on, but not to the point of me rolling my eyes. The spicy scenes were pretty good and got me a little hot under the collar I must admit but it thankfully didn't overwhelm the whole plot and become a softcore erotica as some books do.
The plot itself was quite slow though I didn't get bored. There was a lot of waiting around for the main plot, but other parts of the story fill in those gaps so you don't get bored. Those other aspects also helped me to get to know the characters and their relationships a bit better. I loved all the new side characters, particularly Mor and Cassien who are more outgoing, and Amren and Azriel who had a more mysterious appeal.
I also found myself loving the growth of Feyre as a character. She has a lot of self development and I loved watching that journey of hers and she tried to slowly heal. Additionally, though she has new powers after her rebirth, she isn't handed everything on a platter as some authors do sometimes. She trains and only then does her powers develop which is much more realistic than the aforementioned situation. A characters suddenly become overwhelmingly powerful with no training or learning is one of my biggest book icks, I won't lie.
Throughout the plot, I feel like there were also some plot twist attempts or a shocking revelation, but to be honest, I found a lot of them to either be highly predictable or cliché. As well as that, I did find that a lot of information we are given to feed into the plot was done through info dumping through a monologue. Like the last book, I personally find that a long monologue of information being spewed can be rather off-putting or ruin the pace and rhythm of the book. However in this book, the monologues were slightly shorter and therefore slightly more bearable than that one incredibly dull monologue in the first book (I'm sure some of y'all know which one I mean).
Overall this book was significantly better than the first in my opinion, and was the book that sent me on a little book shopping spree for the rest of the series. I loved the characters and connected with them a lot more in this book and I also found that the romance was better paced. There are some things that did bother me and some parts were rather predictable, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the rest of the series.
After defeating Amarantha, Feyre is now with her beloved Tamlin and preparing for their wedding. However, the trauma of the past has changed both her and Tamlin and things aren't as cheery and bright as they wish it to be. As well as dealing with the trauma, the bargain with Rhysand is still looming over them.
One of the first praises I have for Maas is how well the trauma and PTSD Feyre is struggling with is depicted. It was realistic and it wasn't just swept under the rug or dismissed easily. The impact of what she had endured was so clear and so overwhelming as it would be for a trauma survivor that I cannot help but praise Maas as that is an incredibly hard experience to explain and express.
However, what I didn't love as much was how this same trauma was shown through Tamlin. I heard many readers say that by the end of this book, they hate Tamlin and think he's the worst person ever. Though I see where they come from, I think that Maas has morphed his trauma and how it affected him, to make him turn into this absolutely evil, abhorant character that was basically a completely different character to who you see in the first book. I felt this was essentially to easily boot Tamlin out of the romantic equation and set it up for Rhysand who I'll get onto in a second.
I also understand that Feyre is struggling with the situation, however, she does literally nothing about it. She whines and whines but does she ever have a genuine conversation about all her feelings and emotions with Tamlin? Absolutely not, and that infuriated me to no end. Either way, you do end up hating Tamlin because he's pretty much a different character so I guess Maas achieved what she wanted to achieve.
Rhysand in the first book seemed very morally complex and had a mystery about him that made you want to know more about him. He does start off that way in this book, and then he once again changes as Tamlin did. He changes into this absolutely perfect character who is the prince charming. That's all well and good if it didn't feel like Maas was SHOVING him down my throat. It was so obvious that Maas wanted the readers to root for Rhys and she could have achieved that in a way that wasn't so forceful. I would rather have chosen Rhys (and I would have) rather than have him shoved into my face.
Overall, it just felt as though Maas flipped Tamlin’s character and made Rhys the perfect prince charming so that the readers are essentially forced to root for Rhys and Feyre, which isn't a great feeling especially since you grow to love Tamlin in the first book.
I actually really loved the relationship between Rhys and Feyre. They had good banter and flirting for majority of the book. It wasn't rushed and had a good pace for most of the book. I feel like it does get a little rushed later on, but not to the point of me rolling my eyes. The spicy scenes were pretty good and got me a little hot under the collar I must admit but it thankfully didn't overwhelm the whole plot and become a softcore erotica as some books do.
The plot itself was quite slow though I didn't get bored. There was a lot of waiting around for the main plot, but other parts of the story fill in those gaps so you don't get bored. Those other aspects also helped me to get to know the characters and their relationships a bit better. I loved all the new side characters, particularly Mor and Cassien who are more outgoing, and Amren and Azriel who had a more mysterious appeal.
I also found myself loving the growth of Feyre as a character. She has a lot of self development and I loved watching that journey of hers and she tried to slowly heal. Additionally, though she has new powers after her rebirth, she isn't handed everything on a platter as some authors do sometimes. She trains and only then does her powers develop which is much more realistic than the aforementioned situation. A characters suddenly become overwhelmingly powerful with no training or learning is one of my biggest book icks, I won't lie.
Throughout the plot, I feel like there were also some plot twist attempts or a shocking revelation, but to be honest, I found a lot of them to either be highly predictable or cliché. As well as that, I did find that a lot of information we are given to feed into the plot was done through info dumping through a monologue. Like the last book, I personally find that a long monologue of information being spewed can be rather off-putting or ruin the pace and rhythm of the book. However in this book, the monologues were slightly shorter and therefore slightly more bearable than that one incredibly dull monologue in the first book (I'm sure some of y'all know which one I mean).
Overall this book was significantly better than the first in my opinion, and was the book that sent me on a little book shopping spree for the rest of the series. I loved the characters and connected with them a lot more in this book and I also found that the romance was better paced. There are some things that did bother me and some parts were rather predictable, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the rest of the series.