Cauldron boil and fry this book.

WARNING: BIG HATEFUL RANT INCOMING

I am halfway through ACOWAR and I think I'm finally in a place to discuss why I did not enjoy a single thing about this book. I am aware this is not exactly a popular opinion on this platform, but it is mine, and what I think of it should not affect or influence what you think of this or the series. ("but Robin", you ask, "if you didn't enjoy the second book why would you go on to read the third?" Because I am a firm believer in the sunken cost fallacy and in the pleasure of hate-reading, now buckle up)

Let's start with the positive, shall we.

The good-ish

• If you disregard the, uhm, entire context, the depiction of domestic abuse survivors is actually decently done I think. The message is conveyed effectively and I can see why some people would find this empowering, and if that is you I'm genuinely happy this meant something for you.
• The Weaver and the Bonecarver as concepts honestly fuck severely, could genuinely read a book focused solely on them (possibly written by someone else)
• I uhh like Amren? Kind of? More like I find the mystery behind her character compelling.
• I actually really like Nesta but god her one character trait is being mean and angry, Maas could do SO MUCH MORE with her.

Alright that's out of the way, now choo choo goes the hate train!

The bad Most of the problems I had encountered in ACOTAR persist in this book: inconsistent prose (now even more inconsistent!), all characters having the same exact voice, vague as heck worldbuilding and magic system (they have flushable toilets??) and, boy oh boy, conflicting or contradicting characterisation. The latter was my biggest gripe with this book and, I am willing to bet, is going to be my main issue for this whole series. We'll get to that.

The first installment in this series, while not exactly original by any stretch of the imagination, at least had the excuse of being a Beauty and the Beast/Love and Psyche retelling, and therefore it had certain narrative tropes and beats to follow, and did so maybe not groundbreakingly, but at least efficiently and satisfyingly enough. This book, on the other hand, takes anything that was established in the previous, chucks it out the window and then goes completely off the rails.

The structure itself I found... so repetitive? After the initial whatever that was in the Spring Court, the entire plot consists of the gang finding some contrived reason to go retrieve some magical artefact or another, one after the other after the other after the other. All sandwiched between flirty-bordering-on-creepy banter, and sexy times between our dynamic duo, of course. This being a romantasy, the enjoyment of any of its aspects relies mostly on the reader rooting for the main couple and wanting to see them end up together. What an absolute shame for me then that I don't give a damn about Feyre and cannot fucking stand Rhysand!

Do I even need to go over the Feyre argument again? How she is an absolute blank slate of a character with no discernible personality? No? Good, next. Where do I even begin talking about Rhysand. This book spends so much time just bending over backwards to show what a good guy Rhysand is and always was, how he never did anything wrong, ever, in his life and if he did it wasn't even his fault, the traumatised poor little meow meow. At least when he was a bad guy he had something going on for him. There was nuance, there was a trajectory. Here he is basically jesus our saviour who died for our sins. It's like this book desperately wanted a redemption arc, but without doing any of the work. So instead, it retcons. Goes back to stuff that happened or was mentioned in the first book and rewrites that completely so that Rhysand is, and always was, the tragic hero. I was bored out of mind half the time. But in order to highlight what a great guy Rhysand is and how much better he is for Feyre, there was something else that needed to happen. Enter my other biggest gripe with this book:

The Character Assassination of Tamlin. I want to make it extremely clear I am not a Tamlin girlie, I'm no one in this book's girlie. Tamlin did his half-assed job of covering the role of the Beast in the first book and was passable at that. In this book, however? He might as well have been Satan himself. Controling, possessive, dismissive, massive anger issues. Goes from refusing to associate with his family (especially his father) and their cruelty and slave-owning, to reinstating their same iron-fist regime in the Spring Court, down to the alliance to the notoriously slavery-positive allies. Anything established about him from book one might as well have been a fever dream. I've read people argue that his trauma from book one made him this way. Yet Rhysand's trauma also makes him act shitty, but he gets his trauma validated, while Tamlin gets... well, fuck all, to be honest. I feel like Maas had to purposely make him appear as bad as possible so that Rhysand would look great in comparison, which is just about the laziest conceivable way to go about it. So what we get is a Tamlin who wants Feyre to be quiet and stay inside, a damsel in distress for him, the Man, to save. Rhysand, on the other hand, is a Feminist King, and thinks women should have a voice! Go out and do what they want! Decide their own fate, even! All hail!

Just remembering the mental gymnastics this book made me do has me exhausted really. But I am unfortunately in too deep to quit at this point.

I don't even know where to start with this one. The entire book was masterfully written, the prose gorgeous, and the characters captivating.

This novel centers around gender and how it is perceived, performed, and felt. And the author did not merely skim the surface. They hold a mirror up to us the reader and asks us to question our own perceptions with every character they put on the page.

Our main character is a force of nature who seizes and embraces their destiny in such a commanding way that we're left with no choice but to believe in it just as strongly as she does. This, contrasted by our other main character who resists the call of his destiny with the same conviction until it is forced upon him and he becomes a force just as strong pushing in the opposite direction. There are no immovable objects, just unstoppable forces.

And again, I cannot understate how beautiful the writing is in this book. Each sentence is intentional and beautiful and if I were to compile a list of the best quotes it would be enough to fill a different book.

Endlessly recommending this book.

Just to note, if you avoid spice like I do, there is a rather spicy scene late in the book that shows up with no warning but when it does show up you can jump ahead without missing anything!