A Court of Mist and Fury (Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)

by Sarah J. Maas

[Jennifer | Pushing Pages]

Update, many moons later: I found the energy to review this. Some of this is ripped out of a blog post I did that only really focused on Rhysand and other antagonists across entertainment.

Let's see where else I go on this journey...

Some of my inspiration and visceral might seem unwarranted to the Maas fans who love to come into these reviews and say, "I agree with you, but also I loved this book". But let me tell you folks. I'm not the one.

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There are many different types of readers. I like to think I can be quite the casual one, depending on what I pick up. For example, as much as I find it fun to dissect the Twilight series - on a literary level - I actually remember enjoying the first book of that series in high school. I've even considered going back and reading that series again, to see what I can spot with my special-adult-eyes that I couldn't before. When you're casually reading something for entertainment, that series - and even this one, on some level - pass for okay. Even amusing.

I say that, because I don't want to seem as though I am looking down on someone for enjoying themselves with subpar entertainment quality. I mean, I watch reality TV while also drooling over classic literature. So, I like to think I can be fair and balanced for my bad taste and good taste.

But we have to be honest here: 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.

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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.

But…

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.

The point is, ACOMAF 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 GRR Martin can conceive).

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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. 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. (Or, if you also have a bad editor as she did in her others books, you might inappropriately use "decimated" here. Because... Sure, why not.)

Let's dive in.

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 uncommunicative again because dysfunction in a relationship makes for cheap thrills and drama. But Tamlin is presumably very old because he's an immortal High Fae. He's lived for years, seen other threats than just Amarantha, maybe 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 of 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.

Frankly, I was so very bored with Tamlin and Feyre. 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.

On multiple occasions, Tamlin and Feyre would say maybe two distinct words to one another, but then Maas would quick-cut to them having sex that night. When you're in a dysfuctional relationship, intimacy is the first thing to go. Unless Tamlin was coercing her to go along with it - which I never got that vibe from what I can remember - 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 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.

She 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 - which felt very much like Maas trying to pull a Michael Bay explosion for no other reason than theatrics - and added in odd amounts of sex between each scene just because she could. My guess is, she was told her sex scenes were good in the first book, so she had to milk that for all it was worth before splitting them up. But the sex was so boring and out-of-place, it became the perfect example of things you didn't need to include in the story.

If she even has an editor at this point, it's clear they aren't there for the quality of a story.



And again. I have to stress... That big outburst was so stupid. Tamlin has lived so long. That just shouldn't have even been in the book. She spotlighted his power in that scene so much, just to have Feyre run off again and not speak to him as a result. It didn't spark anything, it only served the purpose of: "What mediocre thing can I do to get Feyre back to the Night court"?

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. Maybe even Maas’.

Somewhere between the mouth noises Feyre wouldn’t stop making in ACOMAF, and the strange tantrums Tamlin kept throwing, there were cut-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 and/or – as mentioned – adultery.

This, with the caveat that if it isn't abuse, she’d probably hate herself for being into it – or she would have to admit to herself she’d always considered him and enjoys it from the start – but still. 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.

If abuse, this isn’t exactly excusable, and I’m not saying I would prefer it to have happened in the books. But it’s a little odd this is what Rhys leaned into only to… Waste our time and just “save” Feyre whenever she was complaining about her fiance…

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 – AGAIN, 20+ chapters in – 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 is, for Maas this had to be done. It's asinine logic, but there it is.

Similarly to the way E.L. James’ eventually castrates an already bland Christian Grey – with no offense meant towards the Spider or other lovable eunuchs out there – 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?

Speaking of lobotomy.

In ACOTAR, we established the "ritual". You know the one. 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. In spite of myself, I chose to believe Maas that it was something of a little thrill but a lot of scary considering in the POV of 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. Has a little fantasy cheese in there, but I really enjoyed that ritualistic introduction in ACOTAR. 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. I'm not sure if this is a misunderstanding of how you can have thrills while having a dutiful partner - because there are too many forms of media to count that confuse this - or if she thinks she has to make her writing so opaquely juvenile because of its genre. Either way, she doesn't get a pass from me for this.

By ACOMAF, as mentioned, Chad and Feyre were busy randomly having missionary-styled bland sex between trauma-strokes - which that in itself feels awful to read, not only for its poor timing in prose, but when we knew the couple as they were.

Then, as mentioned, the promise of some sexual adventure with Rhysand turned into reading lessons and boring dinners. However, once Maas did go so far as to give me a backstory for this Night Court bat, 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, which also crippled them. Despite Rhys' mother's efforts to fly under the radar, she was discovered when she got her period, and the Night Court assumed the "mating bond". This ritual was described by Rhys has horrendous for the women of these camps, and it was a tradition the Night Court still kept. More of his personality - that I could actually support - came out when he told this story. It was obvious he hated the entire thing because of how his mother was the victim of it.

Unbeknownst to Feyre, from the time of her resurrection in ACTOAR, through some mystical whatever, Rhys and she were destined to be mates. Because sure. 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 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?? RIGHT?????



The amount of times that Maas used sex in ways I don't even think she's fully explored psychologically is fascinating. Every time she's thrown trauma to the wind for gratuitous sex, or taken something that's supposed to be dark and dangerous and made it soft and secure, has been incredibly misguided and boring.

I didn't even come here for the sex. The sex in ACOTAR was a surprise. And you want to know why it worked? Because it actually mattered to the story and served a purpose. She even wrote it in ways that were fun to read and didn't come with phrases like "he put his shaft in her flower" or whatever the hell people do these days. The sex in ACTOAR wasn't just there to be there, but her readers were foaming at the mouth for more, and this is what you get when you ask for too much from a one-hit wonder.

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.

As much as I enjoyed ACOTAR, and the way Rhysand toyed with Feyre and even hinted at something more for later was fun, 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.