Review by harleig_h - A Court of Silver Flames

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harleig_h 's review for:

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

5.0

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I loved this book so much. After the first three ACOTAR books, a lot of people either hated Nesta or thought she had promise. I was one of the few people who had middle of the road feelings. She had done a lot of really awful things to the characters that I love, but at the same time I did not think she was a lost cause. After having read this book, I feel as though I might love her more than I loved Feyre. The way in which Sarah J. Maas (SJM) crafted her character and made us feel for her journey was very well done. Nesta doesn't like Rhys all that much, and while I loved Rhys in the other ACOTAR books SJM was able to make me kind of not like Rhys in this book. Not because of anything he did, but because Nesta's viewpoint and emotions were very real.

Going through my feelings throughout the book, starting with the very beginning. I disliked the way in which Nesta was just forced to go to the House of Wind. There could have been better reasons/circumstances as to why Nesta had to train and work in the library. The dual perspective of Cassian and Nesta was nice because you really got to feel for both of them, but as much as the other books talked about Cassian, Rhys, and Az being a trio and brothers they barely spent time together without other members of the court and I think I just expected that friendly companionship to contrast with Nesta's loneliness. A lot of the book was spent focusing on the idea of the Valkyries, but it ultimately ended up being anticlimactic to me, up until the bitter end I definitely was rooting for them. At the end though it was just kind of like "and they continued to train as Valkyries...except for Gwyn". It just could have used a bigger oomph at the end. Speaking of Gwyn, I'm upset about the fact that at the end of the book she just ended up where she started but with muscle. Unless SJM is going to give her a book, I'm upset that her character arc was erased. One thing that I really loved in this book that wasn't expected was Nesta's found family. I was worried that SJM would just slowly indoctrinate Nesta into the Court and expect her to just be Feyre 2, but I am really glad that SJM gave Nesta her own family outside of the court. On the other hand, I think that this left some of her relationships with the court underdeveloped, since at the end there wasn't much to support her acceptance within the court besides her saving Feyre and the kid. Another thing that really bothered me is the fact that 90% of Nesta and Cassian' relationship was sex, and not because I dislike the sex scenes (they were hot) but I feel like there should have been more threads connecting and building their relationship outside the physical. Another thing that really bothered me was the fact that the whole "Feyre might die because of her pregnancy" thing was just a smaller plot point and deserved much more unpacking than it got. Lastly lets discuss the ending. Briallyn's death was much too anticlimactic for the amount of build up that it had. And I'm a bit upset that Nesta gave up her powers because her powers were so vast and horrible, but her decision to almost never use them or to use them for good was key to Nesta's character. Taking that away just doesn't sit right with me, I understand why she did it and all of that but I wish things could have been different. I also would like to shortly address the pacing of this book. I thought that the pacing of Nesta's journey and her training and the romance for the most part were good. The pacing of the Dread Trove plot was not good though because we would spend a lot of time without the book really talking at all about the Dread Trove or Briallyn and I think that it felt disjointed.

I talked a lot about what I didn't like about this book, but I really did love it. No book is perfect, but I was in tears at the end of this book just because I had so many emotions. I wish that Nesta and Cassian could have had a two book arc because a) I don't want to hear about the end of the Koschei plot from another point of view b) Having a two book arc could have given SJM the time to develop some of the other things I discussed in the spoiler section. I wish Nesta and Cassian had more books because this is probably my favorite SJM book so far, but I'm interested in seeing who the next book is about and if SJM can top this.

Content Warnings