A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas | Book Review

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

Published: May 2016
Read: October 2019
Series: ACOTAR #2
Rating: 5 stars

This is book 2 in the series, my thoughts on A Court of Thorns and Roses (book 1) can be found here. There will be some spoilers for book 1 below.

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This book. This BOOK! I loved it! It was utterly unputdownable and I felt completely at the author's mercy. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to sleep, I didn’t want to work, shower... all I wanted to do was devour this story.

Maas has some kind of power, I knew before starting the direction this novel would go in, and I was firm that I would not like it at all, but... even as it was unfolding before me, I knew I was falling for it, and... I just simply didn’t care. I could not get enough.

To explain, in book 1 I really enjoyed Tamlin and Feyre’s romance, but towards the end, it felt eye-rollingly obvious that the second book would bring some kind of love triangle between Tamlin, Rhys and Feyre, probably resulting in Feyre being torn away from Tamlin and the Spring Court again and blah blah etc etc *cue the cheesy YA love triangle we have seen time and time again*... but oh boy, was I wrong! Move over Tamlin and hul-lo Rhys!

Spoilery discussion ahead

Even though I was originally all for Tamlin and Feyre in book 1, I just LOVED Feyre and Rhys together and appreciated that there was no insta-love here. I loved how Rhys treated Feyre and empowered her to grow and better herself (they are such a powerhouse!). And! the Inner Circle (well all of the side characters really) they were all so fantastic and well fleshed out, I really care for them and could read their bantering all day long.

That said, I was disappointed by the way Maas turned Tamlin into a villain (he’s just so awful now). To me, the shift from book 1 to book 2 felt drastic. I have a feeling Maas might have done this to propel the plot in a certain direction “justifiably” (a.k.a Rhys and Feyre), but it felt like a jarring 180. It didn’t feel authentic and I just don’t feel turning Tamlin into a villain was necessary to justify Feyre's change of heart. I guess I just found it a bit rough how his character was so thoroughly dragged through the mud. This was the only thing I didn’t like about this book though, so I do feel like I'm nitpicking here.

End of spoilers

Overall, some things were cheesy and had my eyes rolling. But oh man this one was good, so so good. On sheer enjoyment alone and for what this book did to me (I have never read 700+ pages so quickly, I was hooked!) it, of course, gets 5 stars from me.