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Review: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas



Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Title: A Court of Mist and Fury

ASIN: B015FELXQ0 Genre: Young Adult & Fantasy

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2016

Page Count: 626 pages

Synopsis: Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people. Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms—and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future—and the future of a world cleaved in two.


I'm sure if there are any Sarah J. Maas fans out there, they're incredibly disappointed in me. But I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. This was originally posted on Goodreads. At the time, I didn't write out a review for ACOTAR, but I may re-read it again soon and do that to balance this out. Also, there are some spoilers in here.


Also also, this might get a little long. But I am giving you as much of an abridged analysis/review that I can. So, here goes...


This was just such a bad book, and I'm very disappointed. Still.


I want to go on record as to have said, I really adored A Court of Thorns and Roses. That one. That specific, first, book. I loved it. I’m a sucker for Beauty and the Beast re-tellings. I did multiple papers on the topic in college; I read everything I could get my hands on that was classified, in a literary sense, as a BatB story. When I found out Maas provided that for me, I was head-over-heels in love. It had its flaws, but it was all forgivable.


However, I loathed A Court of Mist and Fury, and I have not even bothered with the rest of the series, if I ever will. Maybe one day I’ll work up the nerve to read the rest; but Maas’ stories are a lot of pages of self-loathing, and I am just far too greedy with my time.


This book is where Maas lost me, and she did it so quickly through her strange backtracking with both Tamlin and Rhysand. Which seems to be the main problem with Maas as a storyteller. She's what I would call a one-hit wonder. Not to say she can't be a good writer. She's done it before. The problem is she has one great idea, and it should end with the first book, but instead it's stretched out into a multi-part series (and sometimes in the case of that Throne of Glass series, you have more spin-offs than even GRRM can conceive). Maas lacks consistency. The only thing she's consistent in is how inconsistent her storytelling is.


Writing is not an easy task—which is why I don't think I'll ever be serial myself—but there's a great bit of responsibility involved with telling a story in so many parts. Your audience expects you to be able to stay true to your setting, themes, voice, characters, history. When you create a fantasy world, you take on something bigger than yourself.


Nearly everything Maas established from ACOTAR, she demolished by ACOMAF.



Trauma Responses and Tamlin


Post-traumatic stress is a real thing. Especially in a world where they faced a terrible villainess who tortured and killed so many. While I do commend Maas for trying to tackle the looming nature of PTSD, there was something incredibly off-putting about the way in which she did it. That's probably because it took 20+ chapters before we got to the actual point of this book's plot. (Please note that it took me 8 months to finally put this book down. It was... difficult.)


ACOMAF opens with Feyre and Tamlin's upcoming wedding. The pair are still struggling with their own traumas and guilt from the last book. Feyre feels guilty for having this new halfling lease on life she feels she doesn't deserve—not to mention the actual experience of torture and death. Tamlin went through his own experiences with torture and watching the one he loved most die in the trials.


It makes sense that in the opening of ACOMAF they are still trying to navigate this new world. There is peace for once, but it's a true reflection of what a post-war world looks like. You're still mourning, you're still healing, you're still fighting. Things aren't going to be perfect. I'll even give Maas that Tamlin would feel compelled to be more protective about where Feyre goes and what she does. He's scared because he loves her so much.


When we met Tamlin in ACOTAR, he was very stoic at times, and he was hardly what one might consider communicative. Using the "Beast" model again, he was hard to read and hard to get along with at first. When he did finally open up to Feyre, and they began their love affair, this need to be cut-off from his emotions ended. Tamlin was still as poised as a High Fae would be, but he wasn't held back by a need to be some stoic entity to Feyre. He could be a partner and a protector.


I suppose Maas decided to make Tamlin this way because dysfunction in a relationship makes for cheap thrills and drama. But it's not convincing to me, even under such stress. Tamlin is presumably very oldhe's an immortal High Fae. He's lived for years, seen other threats than just Amarantha, taken multiple lovers, and he would have the wherewithal to be more for Feyre in these moments. Instead, while Feyre can't sleep, is vomiting all over the place, and emotionally unhinged, Tamlin just... ignores her.


One could say he was unable to be there for her because he was also coping, but as shaken and torn as the two might have been, Tamlin shouldn't have a reason to hold back. For someone so fiercely concerned about her safety, he should have been comforting and miserable with her. Not without her. Perhaps if the framing was that they weren't what each other needed, because they grieved differently, that would be fine. Instead, Maas tries to convince me he's a villain.


So, through Feyre's perspective, he doesn't deserve empathy in his own right? You're telling me that everything you just put the character through would suddenly turn a fae, with centuries of a goodhearted personality carved into his bones, into a beast? That's certainly an odd way to invert the BatB parallel.


It was glaringly and pathetically obvious how much Maas wanted to stick a wedge between her readers and Tamlin for no other reason than she wanted to explore Rhysand and Feyre together. And while it's her characters, and she can do what she wants, this was such an unexpected tailspin. Whenever I see rhetoric online about how "awful" Tamlin is, I have to wonder if any of them read ACOTAR, or if they all just started with ACOMAF and are just taking Maas at her word.


But the character assassination came with many upsets separate from her portrayal of just Tamlin.


On multiple occasions, Tamlin and Feyre would say two distinct words to one another, and Maas would quick-cut to them having sex that night. When you're in that dysfunctional of a relationship, intimacy is one of the first things to go. Unless Tamlin was coercing her to go along with it—which I never recalled that being the case—there would be no real desire for the two of them to be together like this. If Feyre could barely make it through the night due to night terrors, nor through the day due to trauma, I really doubt she'd have the drive to be with Tamlin—or anyone. But Tamlin would also be considerate of that. Because again, he's very old and an immortal High Fae. He's not a 20-year-old just now dealing with the grievances of the world. He's been there, done that.


Maas took a High Fae—the High Lord of the Spring Court—and completely neutralized everything about him that makes him a fantastical being. She watered him down into some weird Chad who throws tantrums that obliterate libraries at the smallest prick of irritation. That scene alone felt very much like Maas trying to pull a Michael Bay explosion for no other reason than theatrics. Not to mention, the odd amounts of sex between each scene of them ignoring each other, loathing each other, or physiologically unhinged by trauma.


The most insulting truth—from the ridiculous library outburst, to the copious amounts of disconnected sex—is that at no point did it drive the story towards anything productive other than to really try to convince readers that Tamlin is no longer the Tamlin we knew. Because Rhysand clearly is the one for Feyre.



Then There Was Rhysand


Another meaty character who was tenderized and cooked until abominably well-done was Rhysand.


Rhys is a low-hanging fruit bad boy trope. We all know it. I’m not going to sit here and act as though he wasn’t that. He was the antithesis of everything Feyre recognized in Tamlin. Rhysand does everything a YA borderline-smut fantasy book would do with a character like that. He’s the dream of every teen and young woman pretending like they don’t have a bad boy phase, and for some older women he is the hot, young snacc of their cougar dreams.


Somewhere between the mouth noises Feyre wouldn’t stop making, and the strange tantrums Tamlin kept throwing, there were scenes of Rhys in his element. He was no longer held down by Amarantha, and he was free to continue to cockblock Tamlin and Feyre every chance he got. However, what started off in ACOTAR as sexual innuendo, and the indication his ventures with Feyre would include adultery, quickly turned into elementary reading lessons and brooding in gothic guest rooms. In fact, once Feyre paused to chew between inner monologues, and we got to the point of ACOMAF—again, a mere 20 chapters in—I just couldn’t be bothered to care. What happened to the Rhys who promised us danger and intrigue?


If we’re being absolutely honest with ourselves, his entire “bargain” with Feyre was laden in what could easily turn into sexual abuse or—as mentioned—adultery. The fact that we’re supposed to trust Feyre, when she regularly told audiences how much she hated him for getting between she and Tamlin in the first book, should tell you more about what their initial encounter would realistically be. It's up to you, as the reader, to decide if you want to see that for plot development, your boner for Rhysand, or guffaw as it happens.


But look, I'm reasonable. I recognize that Rhysand’s imprisonment affected his facade in ACOTAR. So much of who he was included ploys devised by Amarantha, and the general loathsome life he had with her. We even see glimpses where he seemed to feel bad for Feyre as she struggled through her trials towards the end of the book. At one point, he fights for her. He had layers, I’ll give him that. Yet, every single scene with Rhysand in ACOMAF, up until they finally start to make plans to take action, was so dull. Occasionally he might smirk between caustic words towards those who should be his allies—a glimmer of that dry humor and cunning. Still, like Tamlin he seemed so regularly unhinged and on the verge of throwing a fit, it made every male character in this book seem overbearingly juvenile.


The truth for Maas is, Rhysand had to be watered down into a loving partner in order to be palatable for the one who wrote him, and the people afraid to just fall for the “wrong” character. It’s not chic and Pinterest-cute to lust after the reprehensible villain. But it’s as if he suddenly became a lovesick puppy—clipped and lobotomized. Nothing says true love like all the aesthetic and none of the substance, am I right, women? I love a good enemies-to-lovers trope, but I wish the Maas did, too. Because if this is her idea of executing on that, it might be time to diversify your bookshelf.



Speaking of Lobotomies


In ACOTAR, we established the "ritual". Calanmai, the Fire Night. It's the night that turned things hot and heavy for Feyre and Tamlin, but it had a rough history. That's how we were introduced to it. It was something of a little thrill but a lot of risk considering for Feyre—a mere mortal—something like this could seriously harm her. As noted in that book, the Great Rite overpowers the High Fae, and he goes on a quest to find his Maiden to signal in spring and fertility for the court's crops and people. All-in-all, for an animalistic-based fae story, this works out pretty well. It has a little fantasy cheese in there, but I really enjoyed it. It gave the Spring Court even more history and character.


This however opened up the doorways for Maas to layer in instances of sex with problematic behaviors. And while I don't necessarily think that there's anything wrong with that being in a book. It all depends on the framing. Unfortunately, the second time Maas introduces a ritual into this series, all she was really doing was heading towards me with orbitoclast in-hand.


Rhys' mother had a really rough story. Amongst the Illyrian war-camps, women were used for breeding and labor. They even went so far as to clip their wings so they couldn't escape. Despite her efforts to stay under the radar, she was discovered when she got her period, and the Night Court assumed their "mating bond". This is, incidentally, the moment at which Maas started using "mate" far too often. And I've since learned, I do not care for "mating" based plot-lines. At least none called by that name. Fated Mates, and anything of that ilk, just isn't for me.


The mating bond was described by Rhys as horrendous for the women of these camps. Yet, for some reason, it was a tradition the Night Court still kept even though he would have at least enough pull to halt it entirely. Still, we got to see Rhysand's personality as he told his mother's story. It was obvious he hated the entire thing. And still, that doesn't seem to matter at all; because unbeknownst to Feyre, Rhys and she were destined to be mates. He kept this from her to try not to anger her, but after she found out and pitched a fit, they still mate anyway making the bond permanent. Because when you're a High Fae, and you hate the rituals of the court you preside over—and the memory of your mother's misery still haunts you—the first thing you want to do is inflict that on your crush right?


There's unfortunately so much more I could break down, but I don't know if you know that this book was edging towards 700 pages long, and there's a huge chunk of the first 20 chapters that could have been reduced by half. But I wanted to establish the core issues with the main beats that drive the rest of this plot, and unfortunately the rest of the series. It's a direction I didn't expect, and it was one that I cannot abide by. In some ways, this series could have been completely saved if there had just been an epilogue that wrapped up Tamlin and Feyre, so we could move on after the first book.


As much as I enjoyed ACOTAR and the way Rhysand toyed with Feyre, if I had known this is what I had to deal with later on, I would have given a hard pass back when it was announced.



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