Review: A Court of Mist & Fury by Sarah J. Maas (Spoiler-Free)

3.5 stars. At the heart of this series, there is something amazing. Unfortunately, for me, it is masked by hundreds of pages of unnecessary scenes. If there's one thing for certain, it's that Sarah J. Maas can write, and she can do it extremely well. Images are always vivid, and characters are usually well-developed. I understand the motives of every person, but I feel like the emphasis on this became a little repetitive. There were scenes upon scenes and dialogues upon dialogues describing exactly why one character felt the way they did when merely one or two scenes describing this would have sufficed. However, while I did find myself bored for some large chunks, the story at the heart of this series is incredible. At first, I didn't really like Feyre and couldn't relate to what she considered to be struggles. But, by the end of this book I was able to see her as a strong and selfless woman. She is also amazingly cunning and performs impressively under pressure. Those are aspects that I look up to in her, and seeing that come out at the end makes me want to continue reading and root for her in the third book. My thoughts on Rhys are complicated. At first, I didn't get the hype around him at all, and to be honest, I still don't feel it. However, I do understand why others love him. He has a great redemption arc, and the details revealed about his perspective from the first book show a whole new side of him. He's basically the model partner, especially after Feyre's experience with Tamlin, but that made his character feel a little unrealistic. The action scenes, and scenes with plot in this book were some of the best I've ever read, and that's typical for me and SJM's books. I wish more of this book focused on that, and that the few hundred pages of nothing happening were cut. Now that I have an appreciation for Feyre, however, I'm hoping that even if there are these pages in the next installment, I'll have more reason to enjoy them.

Song I was reminded of while reading: Dance Monkey