Have you ever wondered if storytelling could save the world?
Before you roll your eyes at me for the absurd thing I say, I must tell you they can. But you’re right, stories might not change everything on their own; they’re just a good start. Where do you think money came from? Trees? Last I checked, a sheet of paper is worth less than a dollar.
That’s right, money started off as a story, not an objective reality.
Welcome to my odd review series, where I categorize how much novels question our beliefs about life, and how much they merely take them for granted.
W H A T I S A C O U RT OF M I S T A N D F U R Y ?
If you haven’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses, I don’t know what you’re doing here, so go read my other review first to avoid any further judgment on my end. Thank you.
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A Court of Mist and Fury. After Feyre is proclaimed the Crusebreaker, she comes back to a reality she has never conjured in her wildest dreams. Nightmares, abuse, trauma. With no exit in sight, she cannot imagine someone would come to save her at the best possible time. But hey, did they also mention war is coming?
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Before we start though, I do want to make a disclaimer. In my last review, I went too hard on Sarah J. Maas, or at least it sounded like I did. Sorry about that!
Then again, my opinions still stand; the previous book was not my type at all. This one… well, let’s just say I won’t blame the author for the way she handles the writing, the themes, and whatever ideas are woven through her words. It’s not her fault, but neither one of us can erase what is already written and what it all means.
To sum it all up, her writing is problematic. That is my truth and it is not a judgment of her person. However good or bad she may be.
F U N
If my detractor from the first book was the lack of plot in the first 50% of the book, this one compensates with a dull middle.
Feyre’s training and mental health recovery take too long to progress without anything related to the main plot ever happening in between. I got enticed by this so-called war going on, yet, no armies moved or trained, the air did not feel like an imminent-war-happening-any-second-now, and questionable things were happening throughout.
Cannot say some things amongst it all weren’t entertaining —like the heist from the Summer Court, or the attack on Rhys by Hybern—because they were. However, they all seemed to happen because we, readers, needed some excitement, not because the plot presumably moved forward.
Nonetheless, the plot was never the important thing anyway. It was the romance.
Which did not have much substance by the time the couple came together, meaning, their journey was not as satisfying as I’d hoped.
Verdict? M A Y B E ?
W E L L W R I T T E N
I don’t find Maas's story structure to be a good way to structure a story, but hey, what do I know about writing, anyway?
The last book was meant to be a fairytale about curses and trials and riddles and promises; and now, none of that applies. But it’s not just that inconsistency that pops up, no. The characters change drastically, too. Tamlin is now his polar opposite, while Rhysand… follows suit—he is nothing short of an angel now. On the same note, none of the happenings throughout the book are connected theme-wise, and character arcs never really play a part here, not to mention the prose can be cut short—as much as a big part of the book’s content.
I can’t see the appeal, sorry.
Wish I could, though.
Verdict? N O T F O R M E
T H O U G T - P R O V O K I N G T H E M E S
The most applauded of everything in this novel is the way Maas writes about mental health and recovery. That is a huge thing that does imply thought-provoking themes, but eventually falls apart; while Maas does a decent job of showing Feyre’s journey to getting better, it all changes when the series is meant to portray abusers for who they are and exemplify their MO.
By all means, Tamlin is turned into the up-front abuser; the one who hurts Feyre physically and mentally with direct behaviors that are plainly visible. Yet, this is the final stage of abuse, when the abuser knows they have completely dominated their victim.
And Maas does point this out.
But what about Rhys?
As many before have said, Rhys is the spitting image of Tamlin. Albeit in the subtle stages of what abuse is. Rhys has abused Feyre by humiliating her and drugging her in the first book, justifies it in the second, throws her into deadly situations, and manipulates her with his ‘benevolent permissiveness’. Not to even delve into the mind reading, because that is another whole can of worms.
To put it simply, an abuser got her out of an abusive relationship. If you ask me, that doesn’t say much about identifying abusers, only about justifying questionable actions when it applies.
Plus, nothing is said about abusers except to curse their existence. Nothing about why they were pushed into it at a deeper level, or what conditions had to manifest socially for that to happen.
Nope, abusers are simply born bad.
Verdict? M A Y B E ?
C R I T I C A L C O M M E N T A R Y
As mentioned above, critical commentary doesn’t show up in the treatment of abuse, even if it should have.
Now, is it anywhere else?
Uh…
Sorry to disappoint but there is none. The war is brought upon by an evil ruler. Nothing more. He wants slavery back —or the destruction of humans, I can’t recall. But why? True, it might be explored in the next book, all right, but we don’t get an inkling of anything besides the king being evil just because he is evil.
And to remind you, humans are still inferior.
Verdict? N O T F O R M E
P R O P O S E S A L T E R N A T I V E S
If ACOTAR did not propose anything, ACOMAF doesn’t do it either. If it does, it would be painting a world where lies manipulate people into bidding. Rhys and Feyre get away with it most times and won’t even see it as something inherently wrong. But if you think about it thoroughly, we don’t live in a world where that’s much different.
It’s even a capitalist world at that.
Fairies? Capitalists?
Yes, I know, wasn’t this supposed to be a medieval world?
Or what kind of world is it, anyway?!
Verdict? N O T F O R M E
To make a long story short, this book got:
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