A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Wings and Ruin picks up right where A Court of Mist and Fury left off – Fayre, now High Lady of the Night Court and mate to Rhysand, is back in the Spring Court with Tamlin, letting him think she still loves him while she gathers intel on Hybern and his plans to destroy the wall to send back to Rhys.

Feyre has to keep her wits about her as she plays dangerous games of deception with people who want her dead. We follow Feyre, Rhysand, and their friends and family as they try and figure out who they can trust before war breaks out and threatens to destroy them all.

This is going to be such a hard review to write, mostly because I don’t want to spoil anything but I’m also DYING to fangirl about everything! I’ll do my best to find a happy medium, and I promise that there will be no big spoilers! That said – if you’ve read the book and want to talk about it – PLEASE feel free to message me on Twitter @blondelikesbook! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Can I first just say how much I love and missed these characters?! I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I started reading the book! I just love Feyre and Rhys so much that I couldn’t wait for Feyre to get out of the Spring Court and get back home to Rhysand. I will say that the beginning of the book felt a little slow, and I felt myself getting slightly impatient to get to the good stuff!

I adored the plot of the story. I felt like it was so well thought out and I was constantly in awe of Maas for coming up with such a well laid out war story. I imagine that took a lot of planning, because as I was reading it and following the war strategy and maneuvers, I felt like I was reading Game of Thrones and not a New Adult book! I am also absolutely head over heels in love with the way these flawed, broken, damaged characters banded together so well to form their little family unit, and that they would all be willing to die for one another without even batting an eye. Regardless of what had happened in their pasts, our core group was just so strong emotionally, and I loved that so much. Nesta and Elain having both recently been Made into high fae against their will both had some major adjusting to do, and I enjoyed seeing Feyre switch between different roles in the story – sister, mate, High Lady, and regular woman (well, Fae, but you get my drift).

We got to see some characters redeem themselves, and some surprise us – both in good ways and bad. We also saw a lot of character growth and development, both personally and within relationships. Cassian grew to be one of my favorite characters, and I love that we got to read more of him! Aside from Feyre and Rhys, I won’t say which relationships develop, but I will say that I’m a fan of allllll of the ships, and I really hope the new books Maas is writing that will be set in the Prythian world will focus on some of them so we can see them develop outside of only what Feyre sees.

Overall, this book gave me so many FEELS. It’s been a long time that a book has made me have so many emotions (many of them vocalized out loud…). I laughed out loud, I cried on the train home from work (how embarrassing), I gasped, I said “awww”, and I got goosebumps on more than one occasion, and I love that the book drew me in so much that I felt so many emotions about it.

There are definitely some sex scenes in the book, so if you didn’t like that aspect of ACOMAF, then you definitely won’t like that aspect of ACOWAR. Personally, I loved it, ha!

I think we are all aware that not everyone is a fan of SJM, and that’s okay. Everyone has a right to like or dislike whatever authors and books they want, so I will say that if you haven’t enjoyed SJM’s other books, you likely will not enjoy this one. She’s not for everyone (no one is), but I will say that in reading ACOWAR it seems like she’s learned a lot from her past books and worked really hard to fix that here. There is a lot of diversity, both in race and sexual orientation. There is also a lot of vulnerability in characters sharing their stories and struggles with things like abuse, trauma, shame, and self esteem, and I really appreciated that she worked to improve in those areas.

Without giving anything away, I will say that I loved the ending and really liked how everything was wrapped up. I had enough closure to feel like the story ended, but definitely enough open doors to make the new books without feeling like they are forced.

Overall, I loved the book and it was a definite 5 star read for me. I have no idea how I’m going to get out of this book hangover, so I may have to re-read the series again soon 😉