A Court of Wings and Ruin | Everyone Read It… Except Me

There is a lot to unpack in A Court of Wings and Ruin and let me tell you, I stayed up to get this book read. I should have had this post written already as well, but I have been so busy lately. On top of that, I just keep getting sucked into the various books I have been reading. It is a problem, although I can’t say it is one I am trying very hard to fix.

SPOILER WARNING: Everything beyond this point is spoilers. If you have not yet read this book and don’t want to know what happens. STOP READING NOW! You have been warned!

Once again, we pick up right where we left off. Feyre is back in the Spring Court, Rhys is in the Night Court, war with Hybern is coming, and Tamlin has made a deal that I still cannot wrap my head around. There is so much happening in this book that I could probably write three posts about it and still remember something tomorrow that I forgot to mention.

I also went into this one with some very strong feelings about certain characters. Some of those changed. Some got stronger. One character managed to make me hate him with the power of a thousand suns.

I think we all know who that is.

The Permise

Feyre is back in the Spring Court, but she certainly isn’t the same Feyre who lived there before. Tamlin believes Rhys manipulated her mind and that Feyre has finally been rescued from him. Feyre lets him believe it because she has her own plans.

Meanwhile, Hybern is preparing for war and Prythian is running out of time.

This book is much bigger than the previous two. We move between courts, meet more of the High Lords, learn more about the people around Feyre, and finally see the war that has been building since the beginning of the series.

There are battles, betrayals, alliances, deaths, surprises, and moments where I genuinely wasn’t sure how everyone was getting out alive. There are also some quieter character moments that ended up meaning more to me than some of the battles.

The Archeron sisters in particular got me in this book.

Characters

Feyre: I think this is the book where Feyre really settles into who she has become. She goes back to the Spring Court knowing exactly what she is doing. I can’t say I agreed with every choice she made there, particularly because innocent people were caught in the fallout when the court fell apart, but I understood why she was doing it.

She also knows Tamlin well enough by this point to know exactly which buttons to push. She doesn’t have to invent an entirely different person. She lets Tamlin, Ianthe, and everyone around them make their own choices and then uses those choices against them.

One of my favorite Feyre moments, though, comes later at the meeting with the High Lords. Tamlin complains that Rhys stole Feyre away in the night and forced him to take drastic measures.

Feyre’s answer? “The sun was shining when I left you.”

I loved it. Tamlin keeps telling the story as though Feyre was stolen from him, and she finally says what I have been wanting someone to say. She left.

Feyre also continues to grow into being High Lady. She isn’t simply standing beside Rhys while he handles everything. She is part of the decisions, part of the fighting, and part of figuring out how they are going to save everyone.

Rhysand: I still love Rhys, although I will say there are moments when his tendency to keep things to himself drives me crazy. He and Feyre are finally together and functioning as a team, which I enjoyed after everything it took to get them there.

What I love about Rhys is that his Inner Circle really is his family. That comes through over and over again in this book. These aren’t simply people who work for him. He loves them and they love him, and there is a history between all of them that goes back centuries.

There are plenty of moments where Rhys is the powerful High Lord everyone fears, but I think I am more interested in the moments when he is simply Rhys with his family.

Tamlin: I HATED Tamlin with the power of a thousand suns in this book. There. I said it.

A huge part of me wanted to give him some grace. He went through Under the Mountain too. He has trauma from that. Then Feyre left and he genuinely believed Rhys had taken her and manipulated her mind. I can understand how someone could be struggling after everything that happened.

The problem is that Tamlin never seems to think anything is his fault. Someone else did something to him. Someone else caused his problems. Someone else forced him into whatever terrible decision he made next.

He says he has changed and will try, but then nothing actually changes. He doesn’t send Ianthe away. He continues to let her have influence. He makes a deal with Hybern and then says he planned to find a way out of it. Maybe he did. The problem is that Tamlin has never exactly been proactive.

Look at what happened with Amarantha’s curse. He waited. He sent his people over the wall knowing they might be killed and waited for the right human woman to eventually come along and break the curse. Tamlin seems to do the minimum required until he absolutely has to act.

I also kept wondering whether he ever stopped for one second and thought about what Hybern might actually do to Feyre. Yes, Tamlin made the deal because he wanted to bring Feyre home. He also admits that he had been talking to Hybern about finding a way to break the bargain between Feyre and Rhys. You are dealing with the King of Hybern and handing him access to your lands. What exactly did you think was going to happen when he got what he wanted?

Tamlin does eventually help, and I am not taking that away from him. I just don’t think one or two good actions erase everything that came before them.

Lucien: Lucien leaving the Spring Court with Feyre says so much about him. I especially loved that he wasn’t buying Feyre’s little performance about Rhys controlling her mind. Lucien knows her better than that. He may not understand everything that happened between Feyre and Rhys, but he knows enough to realize there is more going on than Tamlin wants to believe.

I still like Lucien. I think he has spent a very long time surviving by staying quiet, particularly where Tamlin is concerned. We have seen what happens when he tries to challenge Tamlin. Lucien doesn’t have a home to return to, and for a long time the Spring Court was the only place he had.

Now that is gone too. I really want more for Lucien. There is so much about him that hasn’t come out yet, and I still need him to learn the truth about his father.

Nesta: This is the book where I changed my mind about Nesta. I still don’t think she is easy. She can be cruel, angry, and absolutely exhausting. There is something going on inside her that we still don’t completely understand, but I felt so badly for her in this book.

She does step up. She helps with the wounded after the battles. She gets involved when she could have simply stayed away from everything. There are little moments where you begin to see that Nesta feels far more than she lets anyone know.

Then their father arrives. I loved everything about that scene. This man who failed his daughters for so long finally comes for them. He doesn’t just arrive with ships. He has named those ships after his daughters, and he is standing on the Nesta.

Then he tells Nesta how much he loves her. Knowing what happens immediately afterward makes it even worse. And then there is Cassian.

Nesta screaming for Cassian when she thinks he is going to be killed got me. Then, when they believe they are going to die together, she covers him with her own body. Cassian tells her his one regret is that they didn’t have more time. He promises that he will find her in the next life and they will have that time.

That scene!

Whatever is happening between Nesta and Cassian, there is something there. Neither one of them seems capable of dealing with it like a normal person, but it is there. I went into this series really disliking Nesta. I am leaving this book wanting to understand her.

Elain: I am still not completely sold on Elain, but I have to give her credit for one of the biggest surprises in the entire book. Nobody expects Elain to do anything.

Everyone sees her as fragile. She has barely been functioning since being Made. People are protecting her and worrying about her and trying to figure out what she needs. Then King Hybern is about to kill Nesta and Cassian and suddenly, hello Elain!

She stabs him. I loved it. Of all the people who could have surprised Hybern, it was Elain. The person nobody was watching. The person nobody considered a threat. Nesta gets the final moment with him, which I also loved, but Elain coming out of nowhere was fabulous.

Cassian: I still love Cassian. I think there is so much more to him than the giant Illyrian warrior we first met. His relationship with Nesta gets even more interesting here. They irritate each other constantly, but when it matters, they are drawn straight to each other. Nesta screams for him when he is in danger. Cassian is willing to die beside her. Neither of them seems particularly interested in explaining what any of that means.

The scene near the end where he tells Nesta that his only regret is not having enough time with her absolutely got me. I need more Cassian.

Azriel: I also need more Azriel. This man is still one giant mystery wrapped in shadows. The scene on the ice with Cassian and Azriel coming to save Feyre was FABULOUS.

Feyre is trying to get away from Eris and his brothers when Cassian and Azriel arrive. Azriel draws his Illyrian blades and calmly tells Eris to drop Feyre. I love that Azriel doesn’t need to scream or make some enormous speech. He is somehow more terrifying because he is so calm.

There are so many secrets surrounding him, though. I feel like we have barely scratched the surface of Azriel and I am waiting for the book that finally cracks him open.

Morrigan: I still love Mor, but I have more questions about her now than I did before. We learn more about what happened between her and Eris, although I still don’t think we have the entire story. There is something there that I can’t quite put my finger on yet.

Mor is so loyal to the people she loves, and I enjoy her relationship with Feyre. At the same time, she is keeping a lot inside. I think there is much more to her story than we have gotten so far.

Amren: Amren remains one of my favorites, and I am still saying she is some sort of fallen angel until Sarah J. Maas proves otherwise. I really thought we lost her.

When she goes into the Cauldron and becomes what she truly is again, it felt like we were finally getting a glimpse of the creature that has been hiding inside that tiny body all this time. Then she comes back changed.

I am very interested to see what Amren is like now because she isn’t exactly what she was before. Whatever she was, whatever she is now, I still love her.

Ianthe: I was SO THRILLED that Ianthe finally got hers. If there was ever a character who needed to die, it was Ianthe. I disliked her almost immediately in A Court of Mist and Fury, and somehow she managed to become worse. She is manipulative, power hungry, cruel, and willing to use anyone she can to get what she wants.

Good riddance.

The Archeron Sisters’ Father: I have complained about this man since the beginning of the series, so I have to give him credit here. He came. When his daughters needed him, he came to war with ships named for them. He arrived on the Nesta and told his daughter that he loved her.

It doesn’t erase all those years when Feyre was hunting in the woods while he did nothing. It doesn’t magically make him Father of the Year. But he came. And he died protecting Nesta.

I hate that it took until the end of his life for him to finally become the father his daughters needed, but I am glad Nesta got to hear him tell her that he loved her before he died.

King of Hybern: I knew Nesta wanted this man dead, but I did not expect Elain to be the one who gave her the opening. He underestimated the Archeron sisters right up until the end. Elain stabbed him. Nesta finished it. After everything he did to those two women, I couldn’t think of a more fitting pair to bring him down.

The High Lords

I loved getting all of the High Lords together because we finally got to see these different personalities and histories collide in one room. The meeting was messy, angry, and at times completely ridiculous, but it also showed just how difficult it was going to be to get all these courts to work together. There is too much history between them. Too many grudges. Too many secrets.

Tamlin arriving certainly didn’t help matters.

That entire meeting also made me realize how much more there is to learn about the other courts. We have spent so much time with Spring and Night that I sometimes forget how large Prythian actually is.

I especially want to know more about the Autumn Court and Eris. I don’t trust that family at all, but I am beginning to think there may be more happening there than we know.

On to Book …..

Next is A Court of Frost and Starlight, and after this book I am actually looking forward to something a little quieter.

Everyone has been through so much. The war is over, but that doesn’t mean any of these people are okay. Nesta in particular worries me. Losing her father, everything with Cassian, being Made, the war, and everything else she has been carrying feels like it is going to catch up with her.

I need more Cassian and Azriel. I need Lucien to find out the truth about his father. I want to know what Amren is like now. I want to know what happens to the Spring Court and whether Tamlin is ever going to take a good hard look at himself.

Mostly, I want to see what these people do when they aren’t actively trying to save the world.

After A Court of Wings and Ruin, I think we could all use a Winter Solstice and a little time to recover.