Send help... Collective Review : A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J. Maas

Welcome back to another collective review with Solene and Eponine. We had such a good run with This is how you lose the time war and This savage song but I guess it was too good to be true. We honestly tried our best to enjoy this book, but it was not for us in the end. If you love the ACOTAR series... I am sorry. Here is our review :

• Why did you decide to read this book?

S: We read the first book last year and it took me some time to get over it, but I still wanted to read the second one to see what all the hype was about.

E.: After the first book in the series ACOTAR, I had decided that it would be the last time I would read any Sarah J. Maas book. However, some of my friends who adore this series told me that the second book was better than the first one and that it was important that I read it. Therefore, I decided that I would be reading the second book to have a full opinion on ACOTAR.

• Before reading it, what were your expectations?

S: A lot and also … none. Weirdly enough, since I did not care for the first book, I wasn’t expecting a lot from the second one. At the same time, if I have to commit to reading 620+ pages of a book, I’d like for it to be a good book, at least. Also, this book is widely believed to be the best one in the saga and everyone kept telling me that it put the first one to shame (I really, really wanted to believe them).

E.: After the disappointment that was the first book, I initially had no good expectations for the second one but because my friends keep telling me that the second book was better, I had this weird feeling of hope that it was actually better and that I was going to enjoy this book. I wanted to badly to like this book like everyone else…

• After the first chapter, did you wanted to read more?

S: Not really. To be fair, I didn’t remember much of the first book so it took me a while to get back into it.

E.: Right from the beginning I wanted to stop. I remembered instantly why I had not enjoyed the first book: being inside Feyre’s head. The beginning of the book was boring just like the first book of the series. It was hard to get back into the world especially since we read ACOTAR six months before reading ACOMAF.

• Rate this book on a scale from 1 to 10?

S : 3.5/10. I honestly think I’m still quite generous in my rating because I was really waiting for something to happen throughout most of this, and this book put me in a reading slump.

E.: I am going to be very mean for this one but this is a 2/10 for me. It is harsh but I did not enjoy this book and it is just my personal opinion.

• Favorite character? Most hated character?

S: Amren & Mor are my favorite. Out of all the characters introduced so far, these are the only one who I actually care for a little bit. Amren’s backstory is quite interesting to me, and her introduction in this book is one of the redeeming points to me. I can’t bring myself to like Feyre, she’s still extremely immature and her growth in this book didn’t make sense to me.

E.: Just like Solene, I only slightly cared about Mor and Amren who were the most interesting characters out of the bunch. In a weird way, I also felt slightly bad for Tamlin who was struggling with PTSD from his time Under the Mountain, who watches the love of his life being taken the day of the wedding and who, let’s be honest, is actually not that bad. I’m not saying he is a good person or something but I just feel like the hate he gets is actually not deserved… The author tried so hard to make me hate Tamlin and ship this new romance between Feyre and Rhys. Moreover, my favourite character in the first book was Lucien, and in this book, we barely see him and he is considered to be one of the bad guys… For me, he deserved better. Other than that, it was hard to actually feel anything for any other character. I just did not care for them. They could have all died and I would have been completely fine with it.

• Would you recommend this book?

S.: As I stated for the first book of the series, I think I’m just not the target audience for this. So yes, in some ways I’d recommend it, but as a romance more than a fantasy. I think it’s really the kind of book you either love or are completely disappointed by.

E.: I would personally not recommend this book. I feel like smol Eponine would have loved the series even though it was clearly not for her age with all of the sex scenes. But grown-up Eponine just does not want to hear anything about this series and I would prefer to recommend other books.

• What could have been done by the author for you to enjoy the book even more?

S.: There was way too much description that led to absolutely nothing of importance, but I think my main problem with this is the ratio of action to no action scenes. Most of the plot only evolves in the last part of the book, and that means 500 pages of very few scenes I was interested in. This is really my main complaint: where was the plot for the first 500 pages? Secondly, the first part of the book was a bit weird because it basically annihilates most of what happened in the first book, so we have to go through yet another contextualisation with just adds to the feeling of length of the book.

E.: This question gets harder and harder each time and honestly, I’m not quite sure how to respond to it. I feel like I would have loved to keep the idea in book one about one true love in this second book. Feyre really goes from loving Tamlin to hating him quite quickly and it’s the same with Rhysand from hating him to loving him suddenly. I was not invested in the romance because I felt like I was being cheated from the first book. I felt like I was being forced to hate Tamlin and love Rhysand and his friends, like I had no choice in the matter.

• Final thoughts:

S. I’m still going to read the third book, because I want to see this come full circle, but I’m honestly not invested in it at all. I might also have to wait a while before I manage to do that just because I need to clear my head a bit. As for the first book, I do think I would have liked this a few years ago, and I do understand why people are obsessed with Rhysand (your fave black haired bad boy) and the universe in general. I just cannot seem to be drawn in it :(

E.: I will not be reading the third book, that is a fact. I feel like it’s important to just be honest with yourself: This series is just not for me, no biggie. I can understand the hype around the story and the characters. In the end, it’s not a terrible book, it is just not a book that is made for me.

• What’s next?

S.: A reading slump :D

E.: I was so scared of getting into a reading slump that I jumped head first into the first book I had received: Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli. It was quite the drastic change in terms of genre but it was exactly what I needed.