(4 / 5)
A Court of Thorns and Roses #3
A fantastic and moving ending to the series (at least this part of it). While not quite the masterpiece that A Court of Mist and Fury was, this novel was full of adventure and drama as you’d come to expect from Maas’ epic fantasy. I particularly loved Nesta’s character in this installment and feel like there is still so much more to explore with her (I hope she shows up in future Prythian novels). Maas’ writing style is rich and engaging, though I think that she has a tendency to send some of her plots a bit off the deep end. The pacing too of this installment was a little lacking, with a significant slow swath in the middle.
I had a few issues with this novel plotwise too, most notably the lack of character growth in our protagonists (it was there, but minimal compared to the amazingness that was its predecessor). Some of the most glaring and specific plot issues I had are discussed below in the spoiler section, but note that you shouldn’t read them if you haven’t already read the book (they are BIG spoilers). You have been warned!
SpoilerSecond, I didn’t like the “resurrection” of Rhysand, and how it was accomplished in the exact same way as it was with Feyre. Some may call it poetic, but I felt like it was a just a “cop out.” Feyre has come to be this weirdly powerful fae, powerful in ways that even she doesn’t understand. I wanted her to “find a way” to bring him back on her own, despite that fact that she’d drained everything. Perhaps she would start to pull energy from the very world itself, pull on the darkness within her, leeching life from the earth to bring him back. It could have been scary, it could have been dark, it could have been epic…instead it was just bleh.
And lastly, and I think perhaps most importantly, I do not feel that Tamlin got the ending or the closure that he deserved. Tamlin is the hero of the first novel, then turned into the villain in the second. This book was supposed to be his chance at redemption. And he does get some of that, as we see in how he helps and saves Feyre again and again. But yet, Feyre still seems to look at him with a measure of loathing and indifference. She loved him once, and it’s ok that people change and their love changes, but she needed to realize that she wronged him too. That it’s not his fault she fell out of love with him, not entirely anyway. And there should have been a confrontation between them. There should have been something! Some of the things he did were terrible, but some of the things that Feyre did were terrible too. There should have been a reconciliation of that.
But while it wasn’t perfect, I still thoroughly enjoyed A Court of Wings and Ruin. While Feyre’s story might be done, I look forward to more tales of Prythian with the coming novels.