By Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Mist and Fury is the second book in the ACOTAR series. This series was originally published as YA Fantasy, but was later changed to NA Fantasy due to content in one of the books later on in the series.
This series will be converted into a TV show on Hulu, but it is still early on in the development process and has no known release date as of yet.
This book deal with mental health struggles so please read with caution! Some of the material may be sensitive or triggering to some audiences.
Also a reminder that this will contain spoilers for the first book in the series!
Synopsis
Maybe I'd always been broken and dead inside. (Pg. 1)
Feyre has escaped Under the Mountain and returned to the Spring Court, but the actions she was forced to commit there still haunt her. She also hasn't forgotten her deal while Rhysand, one week a month spent with him in the Night Court in return for him healing her. As Feyre begins to understand her new life as a High Fae, her knew powers, and the complex politics, a new evil is looming on the horizon and might be their greatest adversary yet. Feyre might be the key to defeating it if she can learn to harness her new powers, as well as healing her fracturing mind and soul.
*As you can see from the quote, it's gonna be a dark one*
No Spoiler Review
“To the stars who listen— and the dreams that are answered.” (Pg. 249)
This book was so emotional. As someone who has struggled with mental health in the past, I can honestly say that I teared up several times. It was incredibly powerful, but I'll get into that in a minute.
Let's start again with our main girl, Feyre. I was so incredibly proud of how PTSD was represented in this book! I was really hoping to see it after finishing ACOTAR, and SJM gave me exactly what I wanted and then some. We start off three months after everything Under the Mountain occurred. In that time, Feyre has had an alarming decline in her mental health. She is seriously struggling with everything she was forced to endure. Also during these three months, Tamlin and Feyre got engaged!
However, things are far from perfect for them as Tamlin is also learning to cope with what occured Under the Mountain. Watching Feyre die at the hands of Amarantha has caused Tamlin to become obsessive about protecting Feyre to the point of being overbearing, something that Feyre hates. She has become claustrophobic since being Under the Mountain and even being in the house gets to be too much for her at times. Additionally, she wants distractions from her own thoughts and wedding planning simply isn't cutting it. I really hated the way that Tamlin was acting during this book. I understand that he went through a lot Under the Mountain too, but it doesn't excuse some of his behavior.
Enter Rhysand. Yes, he's back. After three months of hearing nothing from Rhys, he's back to collect on the bargain he struck with Feyre; one week of every month spent with him in the Night Court. As you can imagine, this goes over really well with Tamlin who is desperate to protect Feyre, but in the end she goes with Rhys. I definitely liked Rhys a lot more in this book. As I said in my previous review, I never hated Rhys even though he was portrayed as the bad guy, but this book really confirmed that for me. Since this is no spoilers I won't say anything else, except for this. In ACOTAR whenever Feyre and Rhys are alone he shows her a different side of himself than the others see, and this is explored more in this book.
I really enjoyed this books, despite the major feels it gave me. Seeing Feyre struggle with her thoughts and her mental health brought back some long repressed emotions, but it was so well written that I couldn't even be mad about it.
I genuinely think that I would rate this book higher than ACOTAR. I thought ACOTAR was a 5 star read, but I might have ti knock it down to a 4.5 after this one. It was so beautifully written with so many amazing quotes! In addition to seeing Feyre's struggles, we also get to see how Amarantha and Under the Mountain impacted pretty much every other character as well.
We are introduced to so many amazing, new characters as Feyre visits the Night Court. Every new character we meet is so unique. I really appreciate that SJM doesn't just copy and paste character traits onto the new characters, they all have their own personalities, as well as their own struggles and I loved meeting them and learning about them. We are also introduced to a new Big Bad in this book.
Final Thoughts Before Spoilers
This book was amazing! While I didn't appreciate some of the character's decisions, I have nothing bad to say about this book and the way it was written! It was incredible and I definitely recommend it! I've already recommended it to a few friends!
If you won't be reading the spoiler section please stay tuned for my next review! I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did if you decide to pick it up!
Spoiler Review
"I am the dark lord, who stole away the bride of spring. I am a demon, and a nightmare, and I will meet a bad end. He is the golden prince-the hero who will get to keep you as his reward for not dying of stupidity and arrogance." (Pg. 421-422)
My mate. Death incarnate. Night triumphant. (Pg. 568)
I simply couldn't decide between these two quotes, so I decided to put them both in!
Let's start with my issues with Tamlin in the beginning of this book. I'll be honest, him and Feyre were never my favorite couple, but I didn't mind him in the first book. This book is a totally different story. I don't think I've ever been more angry than I was at the beginning of this book. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt in the very beginning since he had been through a lot as well and I thought maybe he was just trying to readjust, but it got to the point where there was no justifications for what he was doing. Feyre was changed by what happened Under the Mountain and that’s totally understandable; they both were. But what’s not okay is Tamlin trying to force her to be the person she used to be simply because that was the person he fell in love with. Throwing temper tantrums and trying to control her not only isn't going to help anything, but it's also completely inexcusable. The exploding study was the biggest thing for me. If Feyre hadn't been able to harness her powers in that moment she could've seriously gotten hurt, not to mention the obvious toll that it took her her mental health. The other really big thing for me in the beginning was the fact that Tamlin was so against her learning to use her powers. I can understand that he was afraid of the other High Lords finding out and wanting to hurt her because of it, but they could've done that anyways and at least with her powers she'd be able to defend herself. I didn't think it was right for him to try to dictate whether or not she got to learn to harness her powers.
Next I just wanted to briefly touch on The Court of Dreams. This little group quickly stole my heart in this book. I'm sure most of us want to join their group and fight along side them, I know I do. I'm still incredibly curious to know what Amren is, but I still love her.
I also want to touch on Lucien real quick. I was so disappointed with him in this book. He lost all of the amazing qualities that I had originally fallen in love with and basically just became Tamlin's henchman. Lucien used to be sarcastic, loyal, loving, etc. In this book he was still loyal, but to a fault. He hardly questioned Tamlin's decisions and didn't even notice how much Feyre was suffering. The last straw for me was when he came to get her when Feyre and Rhys were practicing her magic in the woods. He had no right to do that, and he should've been able to see right away how much better she was doing away from Tamlin and the Spring Court.
That brings us to Rhysand! It should be no surprise to anyone who read this book that I absolutely fell in love with Rhys in this book! I loved seeing how hard he worked in order to help Feyre heal. He knew exactly what she needed and did everything that he could to make her happy even in her darkest moments. I was so happy when he showed up and took her during the wedding! One of my favorite scenes in the entire book might surprised a lot of people, but it was when Rhys and Feyre were walking through Velaris and he was telling her about having dinner with his friends and he mentions Amren. I won't repeat what Feyre's thoughts on the matter were because they might trigger some people, but Rhys' reaction was the amazing and I will always hold a special place in my heart. Just the way that he's always building her up and trying to make her see how important she is makes me so happy! I also really enjoyed that we got to see Rhys' trauma as well, as weird as that sounds. I think it explains a lot about why he is the way he is, but it also shows why he's able to understand Feyre and her needs so perfectly when she's in such a dark place.
I know that this is super long already, but I can't end this without talking about the ending of the book. Wow. This ending was arguably even more shocking than the ending to ACOTAR. I can genuinely say that I didn't see any of that coming, starting with Feyre putting the two halves of the book together despite being warned not to. From there it was utter chaos. I cannot express how angry I was when Tamlin and Lucien walked through that door. The fact that Tamlin thinks it's okay to work with arguably the Biggest Bad just to get his ex back is utterly ridiculous and shows just how childish he is. Not to mention that Feyre's sisters never should've been brought into this. My heart broke for Feyre, especially when she made the decision to go back to Tamlin. I can understand the feeling of not feeling important and wanting to help her friends, but she shouldn't have had to make that decision. I hate that she has to deal with that abuse again. Tamlin can say whatever he wants about how he'll try to change, but I really don't think that's possible. Maybe that's bad to say and he'll surprise me, but he said the same thing the last time she was at the Spring Court and nothing ever changed.
Final Thoughts
That was super long, but I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about this book. I absolutely loved it! It had the perfect mix of happy and funny, as well as darkness and trauma. It never felt too overwhelming, but at the same time it didn't feel like she moved on from the trauma too quickly. She fought for her recovery and it showed. I think I will forever recommend this book! I'm so excited to see what happens in the rest of the series!
Stay tuned for my review of A Court of Wings and Ruin which should hopefully be out in a week or so! Thank you so much to anyone who's read this far and I hope to see you in the next one!