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

adventurous slow-paced

2.0

Sarah… you have mostly lost me! This book took me 100 years to finish and the ending only kind of made up for it. The amount of times i said to myself “that’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!” when reading this was too much. Like, I can’t say I’m an expert, but I just don’t think that’s how war would look, feel, or be. I don’t think that’s how immortal people would act. I don’t even think that’s how a regular person would act! Everything just felt strange to read, nothing felt natural and I could never account for anyone’s behavior. It was also just far too long, this could have been like a 200 page book. And as usual with this series, it was wild how inconsistent people’s abilities/magic/etc. were, I never knew where the boundaries of power were, and it was always surprising when they could suddenly do something that they said they couldn’t earlier.

I also am very much anti Rhys and Amren coming back from the dead. This could have been a poignant ending, showing the very real consequences of war. But right when the emotions of this loss hit (and it did make me gasp!) they were brought back to life, rendering basically the entire conflict of the novel meaningless. There was a lot of that in this book, where something was built up as scary or dangerous to immediately be shown as easy or not too bad. Like the whole Ouroboros story line was maddening, omg everyone goes crazy when they look in the mirror, except for Feyre, for which it was totally fine. Omg the war is going to kill us all! Except it won’t, we’re totally fine. Omg meeting the bone carver is super dangerous. Except it’s not, they’re all friends. Idk, if you’re going to make something sound deadly, scary, and dangerous, please show us some real risks. Otherwise it just doesn’t matter.


The only reason I’m going to continue with this series is because my book club will bully me otherwise, and because I am genuinely curious about Nesta’s character arc. Otherwise, I don’t think I’d be able to continue!
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