Book Review: A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2.25 stars)

Synopsis:

“Feyre has returned to the Spring Court, determined to gather information on Tamlin’s maneuverings and the invading king threatening to bring Prythian to its knees. But to do so she must play a deadly game of deceit-and one slip may spell doom not only for Feyre, but for her world as well.

As war bears down upon them all, Feyre must decide who to trust amongst the dazzling and lethal High Lords-and hunt for allies in unexpected places.”

This book turned out to be exactly as people described. It took me forever (approximately a week or two) to get through this last book, and part of me regrets even reading it in the first place. There wasn’t much I liked about this book besides maybe a few parts of it. Everything else after was just… not it. I really enjoyed the beginning of the book where Feyre is as petty as she can be towards Tamlin. I lived for Feyre deceiving Tamlin and being petty toward him and his betrayal and overall shittiness as a person. She sacrificed so much to save him and in return he abused her and betrayed and sold out her sisters and Prythian. It was also nice to see Feyre go against Ianthe and just overall be a petty person for valid reasons! (Fuck those bitches up Feyre!!)

I also enjoyed how this book was a bit more plot focused compared to the other two. It gave more direction to where the story was going (but the plot itself is another story I’ll get to soon). I also enjoyed Feyre and the Night Court getting super badass old gods on their side to join them in the war. The process of convincing those gods to fight alongside them was also really fun to read. The only other thing I liked about this book was Mor coming out as bisexual! We love a bisexual queen! 

But in all honesty the critiques heavily outweigh the praises in this review. The plot itself just wasn’t good and I felt like there were some plot holes and inconsistencies in the magic system. Why would SJM hype up all these strong, old gods to have them die moments into the final battle? How is it that when the other High Lords resurrected Rhysand, he didn’t get their powers like Feyre did? And what the hell is Amren supposed to be? There were so many unanswered questions that detracted some of my enjoyment of this book.

In terms of writing, it was so much worse than the previous books. The battle scenes felt rushed and it became apparent that SJM doesn’t really know how to write good battle scenes. Sentences were choppy and terse, making it harder to read and get through the book. And I was so fucking tired of the word “mate.” It was overused (around 200 times according to one GR user) and at one point it felt cringey; even now I can barely look at the word without dying a little inside. The fact that SJM tried to give Tamlin a redemption arc… bitch I think NOT. Him telling Feyre to “be happy” doesn’t erase his manipulativeness and abusiveness and doesn’t come close to excusing his actions toward her. Lastly, the way Mor’s sexuality was written bothered me. Just because she is bisexual doesn’t mean she is up for threesomes?? Like definitely bisexuality doesn’t work that way, and the way SJM wrote it showed how SJM herself is cis. There were some enjoyable moments but there were so many problems I had with this book that it took all my willpower to get through it.

- lian