Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - A Court of Mist and Fury

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah J. Maas

42 reviews

lizzydreadful's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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crockpot's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is a really intresting exploration of charachter trauma in a way I haven’t seen anytime recently. I found this to be the most compelling book in the first four in the series in terms of charachter growth, overcoming struggles and how those skills help charachters better face what other battles lie ahead.

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alices13thdiary's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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jenna_justi2004's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I wanted to read this book as I’ve never read any of Sarah J. Maas’s work and I was interested to see what the hype was all about. I was kindly gifted this series and Throne of Glass by my parents. So I thought to start at the beginning. I enjoyed the first book and decided to carry on with the series. I enjoyed this book, but it is slightly overhyped.

This book is based on Feyre. Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she has now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people. As her marriage to Tamlin approaches, Feyre’s hollowness and nightmares consume her. She finds herself split into two different people: one who upholds her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court, and one who lives out her life in the Spring Court with Tamlin. Whilst Feyre navigates a dark web of politics, passion and dazzling power, a greater evil loom. She might just be the key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future and the future of a world in turmoil. This is a new adult fantasy fae romance.

Again, the side characters in this book, kicked ass and saved this book. I loved Amren and Mor, they saved the book, and I loved the trio of them constantly mocking Aziel, Cassian and Rhysand. I just loved the found family aspect of this book. Tamlin made me angry more in this book than ever. I didn’t really get him or like him in the first book and I couldn’t stand him in this second book. Feyre finally started to grow on me now she has got her head on straight. But I think the only thing I liked more about this book than the previous book was the found family and the dynamics of the Night Court and how that was what I wanted the Spring Court to be. The book ended with a cliff hanger than kept me wanting more and it kept me intrigued.

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deedubb's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I love series like this, but objectively it is a bit slow at some points. So many twists in this book.

Spoiler

no on of importance dies thank goodness

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randi_jo's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

FINALLY finished. Finally. :( The burning question for this book since I picked it up was: 'is it better than book one?' The answer is yes. But the bar was set SO LOW that I think it would be very difficult for it to not be better than book one. Overall I'd give this a 1.5 but rounding down because it wasn't a good book either. It had some good moments, but they certainly did not outweigh the bad.

I think I had 3 major issues with this book:

1) Fayre is a massive hypocritical asshole. Is she traumatized? Yes, and that's okay. People are allowed to hurt and to be angry. But all of Fayre's anger is misplaced and misguided and is never, ever addressed properly except for a half sentence in chapter FIFTY TWO when she thinks 'wow, leaving Rhys in the freezing mud while wounded (whilst protecting ME no less) and refusing to listen to him and going off on a hissy fit and running away to a cabin a literal day after I told him I'd never walk away from him, was a little bit of a dick move'. Also just the fact that she never really tells Rhys any of this, just solves it in her own head and the fact that Rhys just info dumps book 1 backstory is enough to mend ~everything~ and ~prove his love~ is underwhelming. Like at least give this girl consequences to her actions, PLEASE. Instead, we're beaten over the head with "I'm hurt and broken," in lieu of any kind of proper apology or growth.

2) The inclusion of Fayre's sisters. It was unnecessary. Like at this point they're only here because SJM is into recycling characters for all they're worth? Because there could literally be no other human liaison, assuming there even needed to be one? And then to have them

Spoiler

become FAE and ALSO HAVE A VERY RARE BOND THAT MOST FAE NEVER SEE IN THEIR WHOLE LIVES IMMEDIATELY WITH LUCIEN AND CASSIAN (you cannot tell me it's not obvious that Cassian and Nesta aren't fated mates) is stupid as fuck

. Like even having Lucien attached to Elain so that he won't do something/say something about Fayre at the end is a flimsy motivation at BEST. Nesta is at least interesting, so I can get why'd there'd be a book in her POV but also... meh.

3) The setting. Why does it feel so different than book one? It's more modern than book one presented it to be. It has flushing toilets? Electricity? Team sports?? Modern mountain cabins with running water? Surprisingly this took me out of the story way more than the weak plot (which was more like an RPG side quest plus a couple fetch quests). The fact that most of these things are in filler text and offhand descriptions makes it feel like SJM was trying to hit a word count and not really thinking critically about what kind of setting she wanted to perpetuate.

Oh and I guess 4) why did SJM have to do Tamlin dirty like that? I didn't particularly like him in book one, but she turned him into a raging, borderline incel, and for what? To give an excuse for Fayre to 'break up' with him? To highlight Rhys' white-knighting and make that seem attractive? They're in a constant juxtaposition of good/evil, kind/mean, open/closed; and even when Rhys is like STOP COMPARING ME TO HIM, Fayre is just like lol no I'm not and then CONTINUES TO DO SO LIKE, Tamlin is GROSS but Rhys is BEAUTIFUL. Please stop. Why does one have to be utterly evil in order for the other to be good? Why isn't Rhys allowed to be kinda evil? Why can't Tamlin STILL BE GOOD BUT JUST NOT RIGHT FOR FAYRE? Maybe Fayre just isn't good enough for HIM?

I did like Rhys' inner circle since they seem to have interesting dynamics, though Amren is probably the most interesting and I wish there was more about her

Spoiler

it'd be cool to see if she ever goes back to her 'true' form

. And all the coolest places they visit seem to be underground, but otherwise some of the action scenes were fun. I wish the magic system was explained better, especially since Fayre gets protagonist bias and is OP, it would be nice to better understand just HOW she differs from all the others beyond "you have ALL the magic types!!".

The most impactful part of this book was learning that there are organized team sports in the fae lands, despite 50 continuous years of genocide and war. I wonder how long a fae's contract is to play on a team... 🤔

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sluji's review

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medium-paced

3.25

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merenguita's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I reeeally liked this book, more than the first one tbh. What I like the most is the gradual expansion in the world-building, it kept me intrigued the whole way through, and also the depicton of trauma and depression, I find that in some fantasy books the MCs go though some really shoking scenes and then just go about their day as normal, and tha fact that you can see how the characters here are impacted and deteriorated, subtly first, is really refreshing.
Now to spoilers:
Things I liked:

Spoiler

The way Feyre slowly starts to notice the abuse she went through, how Tamlin is a thret in the background in a way you almost forget about him at times until the end and then just uff... the BETAYAL! Just Mor in general <3 and also Nesta <3

Things I didn't like:

Spoiler

I'm nor really a fan of the whole mate thing, between Rhys and Feyre is fine I guess, I just don't like the thought of Rhys loving her even before she really knew her, but the relization of Lucien and Elain I wasn't a fan of, I feel like it's just way too convinient for the plot. Also I can't really get completly behind the relationship between Rhys and Feyre because of what he did to her in the first book, he drug her and used her and I'm not sure the author is really seeing how problematic that is, because it is brushed aside really fast in this book and idk, it makes me a bit uncomfortable... and just kind of as a pet peeve: once Feyre knows they're mates she refers to Rhys as "my mate" way too often and it just gets repetitive

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isamt_20's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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