It’s always good to read outside your usual genres. How else would we discover new authors and stories? And while I like to think of myself as an adventurous reader, fantasy has often been a stumbling block for me. Sure, I was swept up in the Harry Potter phenomenon, but beyond that, the genre has rarely managed to hold my attention. So when my sister-in-law recommended Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, I was understandably hesitant. If fantasy was already a stretch, romantasy felt entirely out of my wheelhouse.
Still, against my better judgment, I picked up the first book. Before I knew it, I had read—and, dare I say, enjoyed—the second as well. And so, as the year draws to a close, I found myself ready to take the plunge once more with A Court of Wings and Ruin.
This third book finds Feyre in her most fully realized incarnation yet. She’s found her soulmate in Rhysand and completed her transformation into High Fae of the Night Court. With a firmer grasp on her powers, she’s no longer simply surviving—she’s striking back, taking delicious revenge on those who betrayed her trust and threatened the people she loves. But as much as Feyre wants to revel in the happiness of this new life, peace is not in the cards. War looms on the horizon, and she must learn to balance her magic, political influence, and divided loyalties to both court and family.
To protect everything she holds dear, Feyre returns to the Spring Court with vengeance in mind. Cloaked in a façade of obedience, she works to dismantle Tamlin’s alliance from within, carefully navigating treacherous court politics that threaten to expose her at every turn. The tension builds slowly, tightening with each revelation, as Feyre edges ever closer to the war she won't be able to avoid.
A Court of Wings and Ruin marks the strongest opening of the series thus far. Sarah J. Maas has already done the heavy lifting of establishing the world and its characters, allowing this novel to dive straight into the action—and what a welcome start it is. Feyre exudes the strength she always seemed destined to claim, and it’s genuinely thrilling to watch her harness her powers at their fullest potential.
But as strong as the opening is, it’s everything that follows—nearly 700 pages’ worth—that began to lose me. The pacing is wildly uneven. Bursts of page-turning action repeatedly give way to long stretches of exposition: characters traveling great distances only to sit and discuss politics at length. While these conversations technically move the story forward, they stall the narrative momentum and linger far longer than necessary. Add to that the sex scenes popping up every fifty pages or so, and the novel starts to feel frustratingly bloated. What began as the strongest entry in the series ultimately became the most disappointing. In the end, it left me questioning whether the series could sustain the high stakes introduced here, or if it had already stretched itself too thin.
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(2025, 98)
"characters traveling great distances only to sit and discuss politics at length"
ReplyDelete??? It doesn't sound like a clever move. And, regardless of my aversion for sex scenes in books, one every 50 pages or so in a tome of 700 pages sounds like a stretch, to put it mildly. I have a friend who enjoys fantasy from time to time, but often comments that this kind of stories are (again, often) too long for their own good...
The central story is still compelling. All the fluff that surrounds it just takes away from the rest of it.
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