Synopsis:
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.
In this thrilling third book in the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling series from Sarah J. Maas, the earth will be painted red as mighty armies grapple for power over the one thing that could destroy them all.
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Review
*Warning: While this is spoiler-free for ACOWAR there will be spoilers from the first two books in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. Read at your own risk.*
First, I think it’s worth noting that we, the fandom, overhyped this book. We were too hype. A Court of Mist and Fury was an amazing novel that is still my favorite book out of the three and I think everyone went into this novel with very high expectations that would’ve been difficult for any author to meet. With that being said, though I definitely don’t feel like A Court of Wings and Ruin met my expectations, I still throughly enjoyed this book.
The novel began where ACOMAF left off. Feyre was now in the Spring playing the doting… something to Tamlin. It doesn’t seem like the term girlfriend exists in this world but they weren’t exactly engaged either so I’m not sure what you’d call it. Regardless, Feyre played her role well and that’s where we found her at the start of the novel. One of the first things that bothered me about this novel was that I really hoped it would be told in alternating POVs between Feyre and Rhys and that was not the case.
Ninety-eight percent of the novel was told in Feyre’s POV, which was fine, it is her story after all. I just would’ve loved to see more of Rhys’ POV. I wanted to know what was going on at the Night Court while Feyre was away. How was the Inner Circle handling things? How were her sisters? I understood why Sarah J. Maas wrote it out this way. If we, the readers, saw what happened at the Night Court it would’ve been redundant when it was revealed to Feyre. Still, I just really wanted more Rhys.
That aside, I truly enjoyed this novel. The wittiness was still there, making me literally laugh out loud at times. I also legitimately cried at least twice, so badly I couldn’t see what I was reading, so look forward to that. I also loved that we got to know Azriel more. Because he’s so quiet and literally hides in the shadows, I think he went unnoticed at times in ACOMAF. He’s way more involved in this novel and he became one of my absolute faves. I 100 percent support a book just about Azriel. He’s too good for this world, honestly.
What I loved most about this novel was the world building. We got to see so much more of Prythian in this novel and learn more about the other courts and High Lords, which I really enjoyed. Because of this, the novel was also more diverse, including more characters of color and LGBTQ characters, which was a very nice improvement.
There was one character’s sexuality that really took me by surprise though and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. To me, personally, it seemed to come out of nowhere and while I love inclusivity this kind of felt forced, especially because it was revealed closer to the end and the situation around the reveal wasn’t really resolved, if that makes sense. This brings to what I believe is a lot of people’s issue with the book: it didn’t feel like a conclusion.
In theory, this is the end of Feyre’s story, however, there will be three more books in the ACOTAR world as well as two novellas. For some reason, everyone’s under the assumption that these three books will be another trilogy, which would make sense, however I don’t believe SJM ever said that would be the case. If it is great, but I’d be interested to see how she connects all the loose ends in this novel into another trilogy. To me, it felt like she laid the groundwork for multiple different stories to occur, but it’s possible that’s what the novellas are for and the three books will indeed be a trilogy that follows another character, just as this trilogy followed Feyre.
I say this all to say that I too felt very unresolved with this ending. Particularly, there was one major plot twist that left me confused because the people involved in that twist don’t even know about. I kept waiting for Feyre to say something and yet she didn’t, which I thought was so strange. I wanted to see that reveal, wanted to know what happened when they found out and then it didn’t happen. That irritated to me, but again I’m almost 100 percent positive SJM purposefully left that open ended and I’ll have to wait until we get more information about what these next books will be about before I can truly decide how I feel about this ending. (If you’d like to know the specific questions I’d like the next books to answer you can find them here. They’re spoilers, obviously.)
Additionally, this specific plot twist that I’m referring to also kind of annoyed me because it felt way too similar to a plot twist that occurs in SJM’s other series, Throne of Glass. If you’ve read that series, you’ll know what I mean when you read this book. I also kind of felt that way about the sexuality reveal I was talking about as well. It just felt like I’d read that before and while I enjoyed the twist it just felt too similar for me to be really excited about it.
Lastly, while I did enjoy the novel overall and was for the most part satisfied with the ending, I did kind of feel like it was a cop out though I did appreciate the full-circle feel to it. I can’t really explain what I mean without spoiling it so I’ll just leave it at that. Still, faults aside, this was a great novel, and I have so many tabs in this book of scenes and quotes I want to reread. I can’t even begin to imagine all the merch that is going to come from this book. I already want all of it.
If you’ve finished ACOWAR already, what were your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. If there’s a spoiler in your comment please put in a spoiler alert so you don’t spoil it for anyone. Thanks!
Borrow or Buy: Buy it! Like I said, I’d give it a reread.
Stars:
Favorite Line:
“I missed you. Every second, every breath. Not just this but…talking to you. Laughing with you. I missed having you in my bed, but missed having you as my friend even more.”
Zakiya N. Jamal 