A Court of Mist and Fury
Fantasy, High Fantasy, Young Adults
Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Thorns and Roses, Book # 2
Bloomsbury USA Childrens
May 3th 2015
Hardcover
626
English
January 16, 2020 January 25, 2020
Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people.
Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms—and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future—and the future of a world torn apart.
About the book
A Court of Mist and Fury is the second book in Sarah J. Maas’ series started with A Court of Thorns and Roses reviewed a few weeks ago on the website. If you have not read the first book please do not read further, I have to write some events from the previous book to write this review.
In the previous book, Feyre managed to break Amarantha’s curse, but in doing so she had to sacrifice a lot of her life. Here we go back to the Spring Court, where, however, Ferye no longer feels at home. Also Tamlin looks like another Fae, he is no longer the man she fell in love with at first. At some point Rhysand arrives to collect the agreement made while Feyre was locked up in the prison of Under the Mountain. Then she leaves for the Noght Court, unwillingly at the first, where she will discover that there is another threat even greater than Amarantha.
What I think
I have mixed feelings about this book since, as you will see, I didn’t like so many things, but I liked the story a lot, anyway. If I don’t consider the first book, I would give 5 stars, but obviously the first book exists and therefore I can’t give more than 4. In fact, I should lower the stars of the first book because of how the plot developed here and I think the first book is just a joke. (also you can skip the first book, because it is useless for the purpose of characters’ growth.)
I have a question, does Sarah like The Vampire Diaries? Because Tamlin is Stefan here and Rhysand is Damon (obviously Feyre is Elena who becomes a whining brat when she becomes a vampire, but don’t get me wrong, Delena till the end). Throughout the reading I was able to make so many comparisons.
Now, the ending… I can’t give more than 4 stars because I don’t like books with that topic (which I will write about later in the discussion section) and therefore I’m even more reluctant than the first time to read the third book. Last time I said that I didn’t like Rhysand and that I was scared to read the second book, since it focuses on him and his court (and let’s face it, the first book ended well), but in this case I’ve completely changed my mind. I liked him more in this book (as it seems for everyone) but if I had had some warnings in the first book about this “Rhys is perfect and Tam is a monster”, it would have been better for my reading tastes.
Why do some authors have to ruin the third wheel to make a relationship go somewhere? Or even erase him for almost the whole book so that the main character is justified to fall out with him because of the “out of sight out of mind”? To eliminate a character in this way just to embellish another… I find it almost childish.
Style
I don’t remember in the first book (which is a big issue since I read it two weeks ago) but here the author uses too many half sentences followed by dots. I don’t like it as a literary device also because often you don’t understand what she wants to say. I don’t know if it’s a translation problem or not, but I find it annoying.
For example (translated from Italian because I don’t have an English version):
And if one day I went back to the Spring Court… how could I ever convince Tamlin to send her away? What if, now that I wasn’t there, she…
She what??? I don’t understand! Or:
I blinked as I returned to the real world and understood that…
Did you understand what? It is not clear from the context! Or again:
I stiffened my back. Under his gaze my crown looked like a joke, a trinket, but…
But what??? Maybe if she used “and…” so I can understand that she was trying to say something that referred to the crown as two words before, but with “but”?
And don’t get me started on the repetitions. Does she always have to say the same verb three times? Or the same sentence? “Where are you where are you where are you?” or “I remember, I remember, I remember”. Every time she used these repetitions I wanted to throw the book against the wall, which was quite often because there were many.
I don’t remember having this issue in the first book but I don’t like this style.
Characters
I liked Feyre more when she was at the Spring Court in the first book. Here, at first, she looks like another person. And maybe she is different seeing what happened at Under the Mountain, so I understand that she needs a period of adaptation, a period of relaxation and to understand what really happened to her. I’m not saying she shouldn’t change, she has changed physically. But in the first book she was strong, she knew how to answer to both Tamlin and Rhysand. But here she is subjected to “her High Lord” (Tamlin) when she has always been a free woman as a human, but now she thinks she cannot do certain things because “she must obey her High Lord”. No. It’s unacceptable. Fortunately, this only happens for a tenth of the book.
Tamlin… I don’t know what to say about him. He changed in a way that I don’t like. On the one hand I understand his desire to protect the woman he loves, but on the other I don’t understand why. Why, now that Feyre can defend herself, do you treat her that way? And this is what makes the book loose stars because Maas created a story in the first book and then completely distorted it in the second and I can’t stand this. Never, not only here, also in other books of a series, I never like when the characters or the plot change so much. And I go back to what I said before, why does she have to ruin one of the protagonists in a way that we can only hate him?
Rhysand. I must say that I like him here. If only there were some hints in the first book of the direction in which Maas wanted her plot to go, as said I would have liked it more. And if this were a stand alone book, I would give it 5 full stars. I like the path Rhys chooses to follow, I like what he did for his people and I like what he did for Feyre. But Maas could very well have created his relationship with Feyre, she could very well have proven that Rhys wasn’t the monster we all thought he was in the first book without making Tamlin a monster. I would have changed my mind about his character anyway (I repeat, I didn’t like Rhys in the first one) even without making Tamlin a beast. Although I must say that Rhys is too perfect here (as Tamlin was perhaps in the first one).
Conclusions no-spoiler
So in conclusion. In my opinion, this book is better than the first. Too bad there is no continuity in the characters. I can understand Rhysand who obviously was not the protagonist in the first one or anyway he played a big role almost at the end of the first book, but the other characters seem different. Continuity is something that must be present in a series to be beautiful, according to my taste of course.
Discussion
Now, if you haven’t read the book please don’t read from here on, I’ll say some spoilers because I need to write about certain things that happened in the book.
First of all Rhysand tells Feyre that she is not a prisoner in his court just like Tamlin tells her in the previous book. Eh, and from there I knew that the whole story would be upside down. Then Feyre’s marriage to Tamlin. Why? I understand from a book point of view why, but not from a human point of view. Too hasty, especially from Feyre. You have just become a Fae, just relax a little.
Rhaysand seems to know or suspect everything. He knows that the King of Hybern wants to attack even before he and Ferye go to the prison to interrogate the prisoner (I don’t remember the name, something with bones, at least in Italian), but he doesn’t say how he knows. He knows about the book. He knows it’s in a language that only Amren knows. Or rather, he suspects all these things, but how does he suspect them in the first place? Did Amarantha tell him?
In the first book Tamlin is Prythian’s most powerful “male” (and the only one who can kill Amarantha with his full powers), but now the most powerful is Rhysand? Why? Because the author decided that Rhys was more popular with readers and therefore changed her mind? Also, why did she destroy Tamlin’s character that way? I mean, as mentioned, there is no continuity with Tamlin seen in the first book. If I had some signs in the first book, I wouldn’t be so angry with the author.
Then, and this happened also in the previous book, when Rhys and the Court of Dreams are in the Court of Nightmares (hope those are the English names) to steal the sphere of truth (again, hope this is the English name), why do they have to stage that disgusting scene when Rhys is the High Lord and therefore can order Keir to give him the sphere? I know he does not want to let others know the purpose of its use but Sarah could invent three thousand other excuses rather than belittle Feyre in that way. And why does she have to be dressed (or undressed) like that?
Leggings. Please don’t put leggings in a fantasy world. Or rather use them, but give it another name.
I like the fact that Feyre has all the powers of the courts in her and I like the fact that Feyre and Rhysand are life-partners (don’t know the correct English term used in the book) as well as Lucien and a certain sister (and when I read it I burst out laughing). But why, then, did you introduce Tamlin as if he were God on earth? As I said, the first book is useless as character-wise.
Conclusion with spoiler
Now, the ending. But why should she introduce an “undercover mission”? I don’t like this topic, even when I read detective stories I can’t stand it (it’s one of the topics that makes me say no to a mystery and I mean sometimes policemen/women go undercover!) and now Feyre has to pretend with Tamlin for how much longer? Please, tell me that Tamlin comes to his senses and understands the plot immediately so I don’t have to put up with chapters and chapters of Feyre who rubs herself on Tamlin. (Obviously don’t tell me if you know, because otherwise I won’t read the third book anymore). I was so excited to read this saga in the beginning, now I don’t know. But for heaven’s sake, as you see, my opinion is positive. 4 stars isn’t bad at all. But if I had to give a rating to the whole saga and not to each book, I don’t think it would reach 3 stars.
