Well I couldn’t detect any new plagiarism in this one at least. So point for her, I suppose? Also my guess is that she got some shit from people beforWell I couldn’t detect any new plagiarism in this one at least. So point for her, I suppose? Also my guess is that she got some shit from people before this book was published about lack of diversity because all of a sudden, all at once, we have gay people! Bi people! Lesbians! People who are not evil or unique unicorns with dark skin! We’ve got your alt-right/Trump supporter standins to hate just so it’s super clear she’s super down or whatever. It was just very not present and then all of a sudden this cornucopia of stuff. Again, I mean, good. Yay, this is good. But my sense and what I have heard is that this was likely reactive rather than organic. Mor’s thing, for example,… again, good, but 500 years of stringing someone along who would have been awesome about it if she just told him privately… I don’t believe she would do something like that. Retconned in, for sure. I also liked that she pulled back at least 10% on the character murder she did on Tamlin in the last book, and that Lucien had some realistic developments.
Feyre continues to be a selfish little asshole more than she thinks she is- omg that thing with Lucien where it’s like “oh so which place do we go- the place where I will die or the place where you will, obviously we’ll pick the one where you’re in danger without a second thought.” or the thing where Tamlin is like “MAYBE you shouldn’t have destroyed the unity of my court right before an invasion” and he’s right and there is no response from anyone saying otherwise- and I DEFINITELY wanted to be in that room with the mirror with her and actually see her materially face some of the shitty stuff she’s done in this series and say out loud how shitty it was. Instead it’s left vague and not specific as to what she sees and is treated as a love yourself self-care exercise AND as a mea culpa/wipe the slate clean moment. Which, fine, but pain and honesty ON SCREEN first please. I don’t forgive you if you don’t state very specifically what you did wrong. Like. Good for her getting her ending and Rhys definitely deserved it but I wasn’t 100% on board with her being let off scot-free quite yet. The Lucien/Elain/Vassa/Azriel thing could be interesting if she goes through with it. Other than Rhys Azriel deserves the bestest ending of everyone. Poor guy on many many levels. Nesta is and always has been a raving bitch and if she weren’t a rich Special girl someone would have killed her a long time ago. Like, she has sucked since line one and nothing at all has redeemed her for me. I don’t understand why Maas keeps including her. Cassian deserves better. As far as the plot, I guess it all wrapped up fine, though she had to draw from some old bags of tricks and repeat herself to do it. I also have never cared for extended battle sequences on paper- they bore me. So parts of this bored me especially when we had not just one Final Battle described in detail, but several. I can see there are more books but I’m unclear why unless it’s like one of those family romance novel series where they do a Christmas special epilogue where they match up a secondary character. Like… it’s over. The stakes cannot be topped. … ok I just looked it up and it’s a book about NESTA?!? Nah, man, I’m out.
Side note: I really thought this was the series everyone I know read and told me to stick with of hers and it would get better like a revelation, but like that definitely never happened here and I have a sinking feeling they actually meant the Throne of Glass series and I don’t know if I can do it. Not after this....more
Look so, I am not sure I buy the 180 in this one. I think what she did to Tamlin didn’t 100% work with book 1. But she had her point and she stuck to Look so, I am not sure I buy the 180 in this one. I think what she did to Tamlin didn’t 100% work with book 1. But she had her point and she stuck to it I guess. And she did say that it’s okay that people fit once and then don’t because they change- even if she then went on to totally negate that by emotionally justifying everything by making anyone who stands in her MC’s way the Worst Person by the end. And fine, Rhys is hot and stuff but like…. Ooh man the erasure of what he should really be like emotionally after 50 years of doing what he did if what he’s really supposed to be like is true. And man do they gloss over that shit real quick while letting MC wallow in pain and make sure her every feeling is a 1000% priority. Like. This is what we’re doing and I bought in by the end, but… she didn’t have to do Tamlin like that. It’s a better message to the teens if she doesn’t.
Anyway my biggest beef with this is there is some STRAIGHT plagiarism here. Remember how I said on #1 the emotional beats were stolen from Hunger Games? (And the end from Twilight honestly.) This one has like straight scenes and characters and pieces of world building and even description choices lifted RIGHT from Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels trilogy. The one time she acknowledges Rhys’ damage it’s ripped right from Daemon’s life and thoughts and the way Bishop has men talk about sexually pushy women (down to how he calls being forced to have sex with powerful women “servicing” them). The vocabulary changed to sound like Bishop’s. All of a sudden people started “crooning” and “snarling” and everyone is suddenly “males” and “females” for this section, which is the language the group in Hell uses in Black Jewels. Feyre calls Rhys Prick, which is Lucivar’s nickname in Black Jewels. The Illyrians are the Eyriens (she barely bothers to change the name) with the same warrior training and tools and rules about bastards and “rings” they work in, even!! The mating bond thing is the Consort acceptance thing… it’s SUPER blatant. It was like she hit pause on her own world and jumped into Bishop’s for many pages. Maas and I clearly read the same books and love a lot of the same things, which is why I’m reading these but that also means I’m gonna see it every time she does this. Anne Bishop has a plagiarism case here, y’all. It was super ick. There’s homage and there’s clear fanfic and this stuff was WAY over the line into playing in someone else’s world....more
I really really disliked the main character for at least half this book, especially the first third. I just cannot with stories about rounds and roundI really really disliked the main character for at least half this book, especially the first third. I just cannot with stories about rounds and rounds of teenagers being horrible and horrible again continually while the world is expected to revolve around them. I understand that’s YA but ugh so tiresome. I almost gave up on it. The last bit got better in an action movie sort of way, and I could see she was laying the groundwork for a twist at the end, but.. sigh. God it took a long time for anyone here to be tolerable. Except Lucien. Bless Lucien.
Beyond this… I dunno man. The emotional beats were stolen from the Hunger Games- some scenes, too. The main plot is the Beauty and the Beast plot. The end has a scene stolen out of Star Wars. I dunno- I got weird vibes. It pulled me out of the plot how much a lot of her stealing was not veiled enough. I mean I continued because people told me the first book is almost deliberately bad but this was not impressive. ...more
The eat the rich of faerie tales. This one focuses on a maid who is very good at stitching and a faerie who is not very good at helping. Together theyThe eat the rich of faerie tales. This one focuses on a maid who is very good at stitching and a faerie who is not very good at helping. Together they both try to help each other through a deal where the faerie helps her marry a gentleman she’s in love with and where she embroiders the world’s most beautiful coat in return. But only because a faerie must ask for something in return you see! He wouldn’t otherwise- because he wants to learn how to be virtuous. Really virtuous, human style. Unfortunately his attempts cause many mishaps and hjinx ensue. And he is wholly charming at it!
I honestly just found this too preachy to be as absorbing or lovely as the first one. I felt lectured to and hectored rather than swept away - especially as the story went on. There’s something stern about it’s morality. Stern and self-approving and hard backed chair Protestant which my Catholic raised soul has never responded to. It dissipates when Blackthorn the faerie is about, or in the Lady Hollowvale scenes and the ones with the lovely neighbor guy- Mr Jessen I think his name was- that I wished we’d had a book about instead. I’d loved to have read his and Lydia’s story. I just… I dunno, I agree with the politics in theory I just can’t take it that far up into my face.
Ah well- perhaps the magic will return in 3?...more
This is not nearly as good as Midnight Library. The whole thing felt like it was happening so far at a distance. I couldn’t connect to the characters This is not nearly as good as Midnight Library. The whole thing felt like it was happening so far at a distance. I couldn’t connect to the characters at all. I thought the main character was just wildly dumb on a couple of points, too. The plot went on forever with nothing and then super quickly resolved in a way that did not give it the four hundred years of weight it was supposed to have. There are a couple of pages of lovely musing about life, some even better ones about memory. But this was far more forgettable than Midnight Library. It might make a beautiful movie though if they rework it a bit- we’ll see what Cumberbatch does with it. ...more
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