When A Court of Thorns and Roses first came out, I read it, enjoyed it, and didn’t think much else about it. This was back when it was marketed as YA and before social media exploded the Maas-verse.
This year, I was adapting to a new chronic illness diagnosis and treatment protocol, and struggling with burnout partially caused by that illness, plus working and helping with care for a loved one with dementia. I took my ass to lay on the beach for a week and I inhaled the ACOTAR series in that time.
I am not a mega fan of this series but I do really enjoy it.
Is the writing the best? No. Not with watery bowels all the damn time and the main love interests switching in book two.
Is it fun? Yes.
What I think I really enjoyed about the series wasn’t necessarily the romances or the world-building. It was that Maas has the ability to create an ensemble cast of characters that feel real and drops the reader in the middle of them in a way that feels like you’re part of these friendships. Her secondary characters don’t feel like secondary characters but like people you know and care about and want to spend time with.
Which is all to say I downloaded A Court of Splintered Harmony.
These are my non-spoilery thoughts:
This book doesn’t feel like a complete novel, which the author explains in the forward. She wrote a really huge story intended as one arc but had to break it up because it was too large to physically print. It feels like the first third of a book – which makes sense because that’s exactly what it is.
I think some readers will be annoyed by that and will want the entire thing before they start reading, while others will be fine with this book acting as sort of a prelude.
The conflict in this book centers around another big bad rising and the Inner Circle are the only ones in Prythian who understand the danger and are willing to rise to the challenge…again. Also some of the Fae might enslave humans again and everyone else is basically too tired to care.
The fact that this group is the only one in all the courts who sees the immorality and injustice of what is brewing and is speaking up is both exhausting and also super relevant to our current moment. The real Big Bad here feels like apathy and honestly, I’m tired of it in real life so I didn’t really want to read about it here.
That said I’m also missing ⅔ of the plot so the bleakness might be forced perspective.
Overall it was okay but I should have waited for the entire story to be published before I started reading.
Now for my spoilery thoughts:
Many spoilers!
Proceed with caution!!!
Mega spoilers here!!!!
A lot of people are going to tune in to see who Elain ends up with and the answer is we still don’t know, although she and Azriel do some naked heavy petting.
What I find really interesting is that she’s the only character we don’t get a POV for (with the exception of Amren). Even though she is central to so much conflict, we have no idea what she’s thinking.
The Lucien/Elain/Azriel conflict is fracturing the Inner Circle in this book, which I’m thinking is intentional. The lack of Elain’s POV plus the fact that she’s pretty much at the core of the group fractures make me think Elain is not Elain.
Maybe she’s possessed? Maybe she died in the Cauldron and has been some kind of other entity this entire time? Maybe she’s being controlled?
I think if Elain turns out to be the villian the entire time, it’s gonna blow some minds and be very cool and I am here for that plot twist.
We do get Azriel’s POV a lot and… remember when he was angsty and mysterious? Yeah. Turns out I like that better.
I am always here for a scarred hero with some baggage, but this boy needs some EMDR therapy and maybe SSRIs. Turns out that mysteriousness was cPTSD and now I’m sad.
My guess is Maas is setting up Azriel to be with Gwyn, and eventually Lucien and post-mind-control Elain will be a couple.
There’s also a ton of baby stuff in this book, but I don’t like babies or reading about them. I’m glad our main couple is happy, but I am the reader who gets bored when they’re being schmoopy over their infant. Infants are kinda gross and a lot of work and often only appeal to their parents and I’ll pass.
So overall I didn’t rate this book very high because it didn’t feel like a book to me. It’s setting up some interesting things but it cut off too soon for me to really engage.
I suspect if I’d read it as one story (which to be fair was how it was written) I would have enjoyed it. I’m going to finish the series, but I would advise fans who are cool with waiting to read this as one whole unit not by itself.
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Thanks!
I am planning on waiting for all this new cycle to be out, thanks for the confirmation.
I liked ACoTaR fine, couldn’t stand the love interest so I was delighted when things changed. I find the idea of one true love tiresome, but much of Romancelandia operates on Highlander rules for affection (There Can Be Only One). Which is extra weird given Sense and Sensibility is one of our earliest romance novels, so why Marianne Dashwood’s immature and disproven view of romance would still have such sway…. Anyway. Changing love interests was a highlight for me, although I agree the watery bowels were not a perq.
But the biggest problem for me (and it is hardly unique to this series) is when the court politics for ruling a kingdom boil down to who’s getting taken to the ball and what will they wear, like these thousands of years old magical creatures are obsessed with junior high prom. I didn’t actually know any teenagers who gave a shit about that when I was one, so like, not even real world junior high, but like junior high kids in a tv show, with Boomer era dating/gender rules. Possibly from before the Boomers? But not at all how sexual politics worked in the 1500s either so not retro in any sort of relevant sense.
Anyway! Absolutely, perfect sort of series for when the burnout is really bad, although I am sorry that is such a necessary category.