Book Review Monday- A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas(Contains Spoilers)| It'sCarenzaB

Title- A Court of Wings and Ruin
Author- Sarah J Maas
Series- A Court of Thorns and Roses
Published- May 2nd 2017
Page Count- 699
Publishing House- Bloomsbury
Rating- 4/5 Stars

About the Author 

Sarah J Maas is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Throne of Glass series and A Court of Thorns and Roses series, as well as a USA Today and international bestselling author. Sarah wrote the first incarnation of the Throne of Glass series when she was just sixteen, and has now sold in thirty- five languages. A New York native, Sarah currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and dog. (Taken from Sarah's website)

Plot

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.

Taken from Goodreads.

Opinions

Following A Court of Mist and Fury, I had very high hopes for this book and sadly my high hopes weren't met. I have been a fan of Sarah's since 2015 and managed to catch up with all her books very quickly. I can say that I prefer the ACOTAR series as I prefer trilogies, so when I knew that this part of the series was coming to an end, I was excited to see how Sarah wrapped it up. I know that a lot of fans of the ACOTAR series were either happy or let down by ACOWAR, but I fall somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed it, but it didn't compare to ACOMAF. I ended up giving it 4/5 stars, which is still a lot more than you would have thought. 

Trying to turn my opinions into something articulate with structure is going to be a challenge, so I'm settling for articulate rather than structure. One thing I loved about this book was how fast paced it was. I was sure that it was going to be a very long time before Feyre and Rhysand were reunited, but it happened after over a hundred pages. I think the pacing of the book was one of the reasons why it got higher than what I was initially planning on giving it. It hooked you in and was almost impossible to put it down. I haven't felt that way about a book in a very long time.

Something I had an issue with was the way Sarah handled Mor's sexuality. I know that several fans of the series have had issues with this part of her character. For someone as big as Sarah in the YA writing world, the lack of diversity in her books is shocking. But when she did included some diversity, it was (in my opinion) poor. Having a character who is gay suppress their sexuality for hundreds of years and lead someone on is just wrong. It was a chance for Sarah to have some great representation of diversity in her books and in my opinion, she just threw it away.

The character development from ACOTAR to ACOWAR is amazing. These books have been very character driven, which is something I am not usually a fan of, but in Sarah's books it is something I like. I think that this is what invested me in the story line when I picked it up last year. Characters such as Lucien, Cassian and Azriel are the ones I am the most invested in. I know that lot's of people are invested in Feyre and Rhysand's story, but I personally don't care for them. I found them quite irritating in this book and considering they were both narrators, that's not a good thing.

Like I mentioned, I wasn't invested in Feyre's story line as I found her annoying as a narrator. When you find the narrator annoying, it's never a good sign. I found her very whinny and self-centered in this book. All the things she did to Tamlin were cruel and even if Tamlin made many bad mistakes to get Feyre back, what Feyre did to Tamlin was equally as bad. Putting an entire group of people at risk because one person made a bad mistake is idiotic and selfish.

I'm very glad that the remaining books in this series won't focus on Feyre and Rhys as I'm done with their story. I am going to be continuing with this series, but I am looking forward to reading more about some of the other characters.
Love,
Carenza x    

Book Review Monday- A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas| It'sCarenzaB

Hey Guys!
How are you?
So it's been a while since I posted a Book Review on here but I've wanted to review the A Court of Thrones and Roses series (the first two books in the series) by Sarah J Maas for a while. I read these books back in July and words can't convey my love for this series. So as per usual, this review will follow the same style as my other book reviews.

ACOTAR and ACOMAF by Sarah J Maas- Contains Spoilers

Non-Spoiler Thoughts

Okay, you might want to prepare yourself for some fangirling in this post. I loved these books so much! They were what I needed after being in a reading slump for the first part of 2016. I had read all of the books in the Throne of Glass series that had been released at that point and was really looking forward to starting this series. When this (ACOMAF) came out in May, my twitter was filled with tweets about ACOMAF. If you love fantasy, then you need to read this series.

Cover Review 

Now you may notice that one is a paperback and the other is a hardback. I bought the paperback and my dad got me the hardback signed by a friend of his (his friend got it signed for me, they didn't sign it, Sarah signed it and it's my pride and joy) End of slightly long story

I love these covers so much, I love the hardback more and plan on getting more hardbacks in this series. I love the block colours and how the people are really detailed.

Plot

So I am going to be doing a very brief summary of the plot for the overall premise of the series and these summaries are from Goodreads

ACOTAR

Feyre is a huntress.

She thinks nothing of slaughtering a wolf to capture its prey. But, like all mortals, she fears what lingers mercilessly beyond the forest. And she will learn that taking the life of a magical creature comes at a high price...

Imprisoned in an enchanted court in her enemy's kingdom, Feyre is free to roam but forbidden to escape. Her captor's body bears the scars of fighting, and his face is always masked - but his piercing stare draws her ever closer. As Feyre's feeling for Tamlin begin to burn through every warning she's been told about his kind, an ancient, wicked shadow grows.

Feyre must find a way to break a spell, or lose her heart forever.

This was taken from Goodreads, the average rating on Goodreads is 4.3/5 stars and this is from 122,283 ratings.

ACOMAF

Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people.
Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms—and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future—and the future of a world cleaved in two.
With more than a million copies sold of her beloved Throne of Glass series, Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her seductive and action-packed series to new heights.  

This was taken from Goodreads, the average rating on Goodreads is 4.74/5 and this is from 67,372 reviews.

Character Chat

So I am going to talk about 3 characters and they are Feyre, Tamlin and of course Rhysand (the fandom would kill me if I didn't talk about Rhys.

Feyre

I will be honest, at first I wasn't the hugest fan of Feyre. I found her too similar to Celaena/ Aelin at first. But I soon fell in love with her, she stood up to the powerful men in the world she lives and has too put up with so much from her family. I really enjoyed reading from only her perspective and I thought that she was a very strong character.

Tamlin

I really liked Tamlin at first, he was really nice in ACOTAR and he showed compassion towards Feyre. I felt that Tamlin and Feyre were a perfect couple and that there was no way Feyre could end up with anyone else. But in book two, I hated Tamlin. He was so controlling and needy. He just needs to chill, and I can't believe he would do those things to Feyre and Rhysand.

Rhysand

I love Rhysand! I want to get candles that smell like him and prints with him and Feyre on! I thought that Rhys wasn't as bad as he was painted to be in ACOTAR. I knew that he was doing these things to protect Feyre. His relationship with Feyre was perfect and I could read scenes about them all day.

Opinion

Like I have said countless times, I love this series. This book has such beautiful descriptions, amazing fight scenes and seriously steamy sex scenes. If you do not like graphic sex scenes, then I would advise that you don't read these books. But I loved the fantasy world they were set and loved the descriptions of the various courts. I am way too excited for the next book to come out, I'm not sure if this is the final book in the series as earlier this year we got some news that ACOTAR will be a 8 book series. 

So that concludes my review of ACOTAR and ACOMAF, I hope you liked it and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Love,

Carenza x