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5 That Ending Left Me Dead stars/5

Reread May 2017: I still love Rhys more than life

Feyre has been newly turned into a Fae and it isn’t the happily ever after that she dreamed of. When she thought she would finally taste freedom she was instead tasting the bitter reality of cold stone walls and metal gates. Tamlin won’t let her be on her own for more than a minute because he is worried that their enemies will come for her. Then comes the day of their to-be wedding. To-be that is until Rhysand swoops in and saves the day. Literally saves the day considering Feyre was silently begging anyone to save her from the commitment. And I don’t blame her, she has every right to be reluctant. Thus Feyre is taken to the Night Court to live up to the bargain that she made with Rhysand in ACOTAR. Tamlin of course flips shit, and Feyre is pissed at Rhys blah blah blah� But thennnn things get interesting. Feyre gets her spark back in Rhys� presence. She starts to fight against him and through fighting him she starts to learn that she doesn’t like the direction her life has been heading. She relishes in the banter and the new things that Rhys is teaching her. He teaches her how to read and put up mental shields to block even the toughest opponents out. Through Rhys she discovers who the new Feyre is, and she learns that the old, mortal Feyre from Under the Mountain is long gone. It is a tale of magic, fun, loving even though you’re broken, and discovering yourself when you thought all was lost.

ABUNDANT SPOILERS AHEAD

Guys hang on to your hats cause here comes the longest review I have ever written (and will probably stay that way for a long time)

So before I go anywhere else with this review I want to rant. I want to rant against a character that I totally shipped in the first book and learned to slowly despise in this one. Yes it’s the character we all love to fucking hate, give a round of applause for Tamlin! Here are my main problems with Tamlin. After getting Feyre back out from Under the Mountain Tamlin has become Possessive, and yes I capitalized the “P� because this is some crazyyy shit. She begs him for just an hour or two alone out on the castle’s grounds and he can’t even give her that. He can’t see through his veil that screams at him to “protect� her at all costs. On top of that she, as a new Fae, is developing powers, which she has no idea how to control. When she gets upset or scared she unwillingly releases these powers in the form of talons, darkness, walls of air, and many others. She asks Tamlin to train her how to use them, and Lucien is on her side trying to convince him as well, but he explains that if their enemies find out that she possesses these powers they will use it against her and be even more prone to go after her�. Ummm what?



Honestly do any of you see the logic there? Please tell me if you do because I have yet to find it. Now on top of that he also can’t see how broken Feyre is. Under the Mountain completely ruined her spirit and she can’t even sleep through an entire night without having nightmares and being sick over all the horrible things she had to do, especially the faeries she was forced to kill. For some reason Tamlin can’t see how much she is suffering. He can’t see the haunting look in her eyes. He can’t see that she is losing weight because the guilt is eating her alive. He can’t see any of that. All he can see through are his bedroom eyes that only care about undressing her and fucking her.

"I had done everything � everything for that love. I had ripped myself to shreds, I had killed innocents and debased myself, and he had sat beside Amarantha on that throne. And he couldn’t do anything, hadn’t risked it � hadn’t risked being caught until there was only one night left, and all he’d wanted to do wasn’t free me, but fuck me."

When I read that quote I shuddered. It was deep and it made me realize how much of jerk Tamlin really was in the first book. When it’s romanticized it’s hard to see, but in ACOMAF it’s clear as day what a prick Tamlin really is. Ugh..

Ok I think my Tamlin rant is over I would like to split this review into a couple parts, parts of the book that I liked and parts that I didn’t like (which are very miniscule)

We will start with parts that I didn’t like. The number one thing that bothered me was the accelerated speed at which Feyre learned to control her magic. I honestly think it happened way too quickly. On her first day of mental shield practice she was able to actually put one up and within a few days she could block him out partially. Beyond the mental shields though, the use of her other skills were extremely accelerated also. Yeah there was a little struggle in the beginning but it seemed that after she visited the Summer Court she had it down to a science. I mean those water wolves at the Rainbow, kickass yes, but it seemed kind of advanced to me.



The next part that I wasn’t crazy about were her constant thoughts about betraying Tamlin throughout most of the book. She’s sitting there thinking what an asshole he is:

Example 1:

"And I realized—I realized how badly I'd been treated before, if my standards had become so low. If the freedom I'd been granted felt like a privilege and not an inherent right."

Example 2:

"Fae males were territorial, dominant, arrogant—but the ones in the Spring Court � something had festered in their training."

Example 3:

"I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.
I was a survivor, and I was strong.
I would not be weak, or helpless again
I would not, could not be broken. Tamed."

After thinking all this she still seems to have doubts about whether she should be doing this to Tamlin. It looks like my Tamlin rant wasn’t over� Oops. But seriously gosh girl please let it go already. Once again ugh�

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Now onto things I found magnificent in this story (which is pretty much everything else) I want to start with something that I have seen a lot of people complaining about. A lot of people have been saying that they don’t like hoe broken Feyre is in the first few 100 pages or so. Yeah maybe it was a little boring to read, but it was extremely realistic in my eyes. You don’t just snap back like a rubber band from the things that she had to do. It would not be any normal human’s reaction. Unless she were a totally heartless bitch like Amarantha that is but clearly she’s not. She has a conscience and it’s fighting her for the things she did. She can’t even stand the thought of herself and thinks that she is worthless and a waste of space. I love this. It makes her character that much more complex. It proves to the reader that she has feelings past her puppy love for Tamlin. It proves she’s different from Amarantha, which clearly sets her up as the kick ass protagonist that she becomes later. Without her feelings of love and guilt she would not care as deeply as she does and would not be able to accomplish the things that she did. Instead of defending the Rainbow she may have run and hid. Instead of giving herself over to Tamlin in the end she may have tried to fight her way out. Her love for those she cares about guides her to make important decisions every step of the way, and she would not have that love were it not for how desperate she was for it in the beginning. All she wanted was someone to understand and it came in the form of the sexy High Lord of the Night Court. Which will be my next topic of discussion.




High Lord of the Night Court. Rhysand. Rhys. Whatever you want to call him he is perfection. Beyond perfection. In fact he holds my Number 2 Book Boyfriend spot (he would be #1 but I’m sorry no one will ever pass Draco Malfoy� starts to daydream� anyways back to Rhys). Like I said perfection with a sexy bod and a sassy attitude. Exactly what I’m looking for in a love interest in a Fantasy Romance novel. On top of that he is extremely complex. The way that we learn about his past with his parents and how his mother and sister were killed� so sad and the past he had with Amarantha. All the way down to the dreams that he would have of Feyre which led him to her in the first place were just thought up so perfectly. It is clear that Sarah J. Maas knew how this series was going from the second she finished the first chapter in ACOTAR. It’s not her being fickle with love interests. The underlying plot of Rhysand and Feyre together was there the entire time, but us as readers were mostly too blinded by Tamlin and his abs to see anything meaningful. It takes true magic and a true genius to piece together plots like the way Maas has done here and it makes me want to kiss the ground at her feet. And then get in her face to demand to find out what is happening in the next book NOW! Seriously though Rhysand turned out to be such a caring person just hiding behind veil after veil that was crafted to protect the ones he loved. And not Tamlin’s form of protection either but actually protecting them from real evils in the world. He's just so amazing!




Now onto the thing that everyone seems to be losing their panties over. The sex. Honestly, yeah it was great, it was hot, it made me love Rhys even more. But honestly guys� I don’t find it overly explicit. There I said it. Maybe my mind is too dirty. Maybe I’ve grown too used to reading smut. Whatever the reason may be, I found it to be sort of tame. I mean I think I read the word “cock� only once? Please correct me if I’m wrong. But there was certainly no over-abundance of “bad words.� Yeah it was more explicit than normal YA and yeah I’ll give it to you that it’s a little NA-y butttt in my honest opinion nowhere near as explicit as most NA on shelves today. Let’s be honest here, every person reading this book will have heard in great detail about sexual relationships either through school, TV, their friends, or their own experience. So there’s really nothing wrong with showing young people that it’s okay to have a consensual and loving relationship with someone they care about. There is even a tonic talked about that seems to work as the morning-after pill. So therefore it is also teaching people to practice safe sex or suffer the consequences! I highly approve!



Moving on. I’ve seen people talk a lot about Rhysand’s Inner Circle. I love them. I love how they supported Feyre. I love how they work as a family. I love their pasts and their individual quirks that make them unique. I don’t really think I can go on and on about them except for the fact that I cared for each of them and that’s hard to do when introducing 4 new characters at once. I could tell them all apart easily and they all added a little something special to the story.

Now the last thing that I want to talk about� the plot twists and ending! Gahh I don’t even have anything to say about them but I did not see any of the following coming: the golden queen helping them out, Tamlin working with the king, and Feyre going back to Tamlin. It was just mind blowing and mind boggling and I absolutely can’t wait to read the next one. Is it 2017 yet?

Some of my favorite quotes

"A fitting end would have been me in a grave, burning in hell".

"The issue isn’t whether he loved you, it’s how much. Too much. Love can be a poison."

"But I forgot to tell him that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key."

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