please note that this review will contain minor “spoilers”
quotations because some things shouldn’t be viewed as spoilers, in my opinion.
Title: A Court of Wings and Ruin (Book #3)
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Genre: New Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Synopsis from Goodreads:
A nightmare, I’d told Tamlin. I was the nightmare.
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.
if you read this book and loved it, please don’t take this as a personal attack. this is just my standpoint and personal opinions. i’m going to be real here and just say that after this book, i will no longer be supporting this author due to the reasons below. let’s get started!
i was very excited for this book! especially after how much i absolutely loved A Court of Mist and Fury (book 2). and after seeing the ending of book 2, i was left with the ultimate book hangover. i had found myself scrolling through tumblr days after looking for fan art, aesthetics, conspiracies for ACOWAR…EVERYTHING… but then, Empire of Storms which is the 5th book in SJM Throne of Glass series happened and i saw a lot of similarities to A Court of Mist and Fury. i had my speculations, i thought that maybe Sarah J. Maas was really tired of the Throne of Glass series and just wanted to spend her time on her newer stuff. no, i was wrong. A Court of Wings and Ruin happened and that proved my little theory so wrong.
i’m not going to lie and say that i hated ACOWAR from beginning to end. i was really into the first 200 pages or so till i started rolling the hell out of my eyes noticing a lot of inconsistencies in the plot and it was dragging as well. i completely understand that the plot is going to drag on, now that more books are going to be added but c’mon! this could’ve been sooooo good! i feel like this book had so much potential to be great.
i also noticed that she was still pretty much copying and pasting from one series to the other. there’s a theory out there that Throne of Glass and ACOTAR are parallel universes to one another and i’m starting to semi-believe it. or maybe it’s just that SJM has gotten lazy. she started adding witches and pirates into this series too…ahem…ToG
it doesn’t stop there though!!! FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD PLEASEEEEE STOP MAKING YOUR CHARACTERS HISS AND GROWL. i already had to endure it with ALL OF THRONE OF GLASS.
i’m still not done ranting. i have a lot more heavier things to discuss like sexuality, race, and abuse. but in the meantime can we discuss how Rhys and Feyre were having sex all the freaking time while there was a war going on?!?!? hoooowwwww, whyyyyyyy, like who has sex in the middle of a war camp?!?! i’ll tell you who! Rhys and Feyre. there’s just some things i don’t understand at all. when it came to book 2, i completely understood the angst and them getting with one another. but in this book?! they’re preparing for war and there is war, like Sarah…i do not care about the page long sex scene between the two..there are more important things than how they make love to one another after fighting in a war. YA NOT TIRED FROM ALL THE FIGHTING?! CAUSE I SURE AM!! issa no from me.
which leads me to two things…sexual favors and pinching. Sarah has this way of twisting her characters around out of the blue, like i found Rhys and Feyre a little too different for me. now, i completely understand growth with characters but SJM loves to switch on them. i can name a few characters from both series but i’m going to keep my focus on Rhys who’s like the biggest softy in book 2 but yet is asking Feyre for sexual favors when something is done and it’s like wait what? and i feel like he’s being a complete douchebag and wanting Feyre on the sidelines at all times and i was like “where’s Rhys from book 2 who was all about equality and feminism?”
and the pinching which i consider abuse..they kept pinching one another and it was so disturbing to me. regardless of the context and how “playful” it was, i couldn’t deal with the two pinching one another a few times throughout the book. stop pinching one another, some people associate that with abuse. also, although this book is New Adult, Bloomsbury targets this as YA and i think about the audience that reads this book..i don’t find it appropriate for teens to read about pinching their significant other. this was normalized behavior in this book.
now can i talk about race for a second here?
sarah j. maas is known for her lack of people of color (PoC). like literally, they are in the books and don’t last much. or they’re usually in the background..like we always are in media…and i say we because if you don’t know, i’m Puerto Rican *waves the flag high and proud*
i was already pissed off and wanted to DNF this book with everything else that was mentioned above but then my blood started boiling when the war had just started and the first people that get attacked is the court that’s filled with PoC. this is when i have a problem because in media, when you have white people who are the main characters, the first ones to die are us PoC. this is a fact. this has become an actual joke between us PoC. we can watch a movie and be like “how much you wanna bet that the first person to die is the PoC?” i obviously cannot speak for every PoC but with my interactions with others..this is a thing that happens.
and i cannot support authors who keep doing this and making it okay to use us for their advantage and plot point. i know this is something that a lot of us in the book community speak up about. i also know that it’s our fault as consumers that we keep purchasing these books. because it gives the okay to publishers to keep pushing these types of books out.
which leads me into my next point…sexuality.
so people are going to dismiss the fact that SJM literally stereotyped the living shit out of a bisexual character by stating that he wanted a foursome with other characters? like if bisexuals in real life don’t get enough shit by people who think they’re promiscuous and confused and just want to sleep with everyone?
annnnnnnd let’s not forget that Mor all of a sudden is lesbian and SJM seriously wrote that scene like a fucking PLOT TWIST. sorry not sorry but umm stop making the LGBTQIA+ community as a plot twist.
issa fail.
and i am sure that SJM pulled this when she realized their was a deal of adding more books because she obviously needs to extend the series and it’s characters. BUT SHE COULD’VE DONE SO MUCH MORE THAN PULL THAT CRAP! like her main plot was already being pulled into a million different directions and so were the characters. so now all of a sudden, Mor is lesbian and you had to tell us that in book 3? FOH! annnnd it’s also still a secret cause she only told one person. therefore, SJM now has you stringing along to keep buying her other books to see how Azriel finds out about her being lesbian. mmmmm k.
the only reason why i gave it a 2 star was because SJM definitely builds it up for the future books to come and she knows how to keep you on edge. there are characters that i care for and liked what she did with SOME of them. she definitely left me with tons of questions which i feel like will eventually be answered in the next 3 books but i won’t be reading them. i will forget about this one in a few days.
and that is it for my ranty review. any thoughts? let’s chat in the comments ❤
Instagram: @chicnerdreads
Twitter: @ChicNerdReads
chicnerdreads 