Full Review : A Court Of Mist And Fury (A Court of Thorns & Roses #2) by Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses) (Amazon Link)

Series : A Court of Thorns And Roses
Volume : 2
Year Published : 2016
Genre : Fantasy, Romance, New Adult/Young Adult

Edition : Kindle
# of Pages : 624 pages
Time Spent Reading : 11 Hours

Review

This sequel is better than the already good first installment and the world Feyre gets to explore has broadened. The fantasy aspect is more developed, though still light. Which is fine, I think the main strength of the book is its romance, friendships, YA and NA type coming of age matters. I really like the characters and am invested in continuing with the story- the climax and ending was good enough that I just want to immediately dig into the third book but am putting continuation on a long hiatus because I struggled to enjoy a big chunk of this novel.

It felt bloated and overly long, as if not edited sufficiently to keep the pace up. There would be scenes that would envelope 15 pages that could have easily been accomplished in 5, and the limitations of what Feyre can see or do can really get in the way of how well some characters can develop as we’re so dependent on them telling her about themselves and what they’re doing or thinking instead of directly connecting to them.

Thusly, I’d come to the realization of what would have made me go from ‘like’ to ‘love’ with this series or this book in general.

The presence of either of these two things-

1. A third person perspective with a wider scope of character focus or
2. Just have Feyre and her sisters all be main characters with their own perspectives and chapters. They each have wildly different personalities (the acerbic Nesta, the sweet Elain, and Feyre being somewhere between the extremes) that happens to be PERFECT setup for a multi-perspective novel!

That would have done wonders for picking up the pace by having frequent switches from chapter to chapter (think Six of Crows or Game of Thrones) adding so much variance to the mood and making for a more eventful time. More of these YA romances need to do this. If you’re going to give us 600 page door knockers, we should at least have multiple viewpoints and multiple love interests to switch to when one gets boring. (I’m only half joking.)

624 pages is a lot for Feyre when there are all these other characters full of potential just lying around waiting to be explored. There were so many trivial moments and Feyre rehashing old feelings/thoughts.

I do want to mention one upside though, the slow burn nature of the romance in this book is handled well and benefits from all the pages of build up. Rhys is an enjoyable character but I just liked him, if I loved him this would probably get at least a guilty pleasure 10/10. As it stands, I am still very open to the third book in this series.

Also worth noting, this sequel does have adult content. It’s not a whole lot, perhaps 10-15 or so pages out of the 600+ that amasses this book but the moments do stand out quite a bit and are more explicit than nearly any YA novel. I would classify this as New Adult (NA) while A Court of Thorns And Roses with its lesser detail could be placed in the YA category. But the writing style as a whole hasn’t changed dramatically and it still has that YA feel.

Overall Rating – 8/10

Why You Should Try It – If you had any lingering interest in Rhys and liked A Court Of Thorns and Roses, this is certainly worth trying. This installment comes off as mindful of weaknesses from the previous one and seeks to create more detailed and lavish environments, more characters to meet and get to know, and a deeper (yet slow burn) relationship on the romance side of things.

Critique – It felt too long, not so well edited. Some situations or explanations could have been greatly trimmed to help with pacing. This book needed multiple perspectives more than any book I’ve ever read before.

A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses) <- Amazon Link)