The downside to this section of the book, however, is that love interest Tamlin entirely disappears while Feyre takes center stage. Readers are then introduced to a different male character very much in depth, who quickly becomes far more interesting than Tamlin. When Beauty and the Beast are finally reunited…I found myself not really caring. I wanted the other guy. It looks as if I’ll be getting my wish in the second book to see more of the new guy, but that doesn’t satisfy me. I can’t help docking stars from a book that drops its own love interest and makes the ending super anti-climatic, no matter how much I liked the rest of the book.
And so this is my major issue with A Court of Mist and Fury. I really like Rhysand--I liked him even in ACOTAR--but Maas has to do so major work to convince readers that Feyre's prancing off with him instead of Tamlin, instead of the man she risked everything for and was willing to die for, is a good idea and a romance we should be invested in. Because, frankly, it's a really tough sell to say that the actions Feyre took in book #1 were meaningless or misguided or directed at the wrong man. If someone would do all that for a guy who was completely wrong for her, what on earth does true love look like?
It's a conundrum, so Maas relies on two major crutches to try to fix it all. 1) Do a bait and switch and suddenly make Tamlin a villain. Sure, she foreshadowed some protectiveness in ACOTAR and used the ending to imply maybe Tamlin's not as great as we thought he was--but implying Tamlin just isn't right For Feyre at this point isn't enough. Maas relies on a time-tested cliche: making the former love interest so villainous that readers and the protagonist simply can no longer consider him a viable option. 2) Maas squeezes the world-specific concept of "mating" for all its worth. Love, marriage, and mating all all separate things in this place, but mating is binding and surpasses everything else. Thus, readers are forced into believing Rhys is best for Feyre because they are mates. Anything else she experienced in a romantic relationship before might have been true--she may have really loved Tamlin--but it's all superficial compared to the mating bond.
Now, my personal problem is that I actually do enjoy Rhys as a love interest. He's caring, intriguing, playful, complex. But the cost of making Rhys complex for Maas is making sure that Tamlin is not. Anything characterization Tamlin had in ACOTAR disappears; readers and Feyre are left only with a man who is a selfish abuser and appears to have minimal reason for being one, despite the meaningless speculations Feyre tries to make that maybe he was "broken" Under the Mountain, too. Because in this book, Tamlin's brokenness doesn't matter; the references to it have no substance. Apparently, only the brokenness of Rhys and Feyre is worth being explored.
So, yes. I enjoyed reading about Rhys and Feyre. I'm interested in seeing more (and I can only assume Maas isn't going to pull a bait and switch on readers again since Rhys and Feyre are mates). However, I think the way the romance was accomplished was a bit disturbing. Tamlin is being thrown under the bus for the sake of plot, and it seems unfair.
That said, the plot of ACOMAF is breathtaking. One of my major complaints about ACOTAR was that there didn't seem to be much of a plot at all under Feyre went Under the Mountain (so, you know, for most of the book). Here. Maas compensates for that spectacularly, and I can't wait to see what happens at the end of the series.