My personal Acotar reading experience
Okay, those of you who've read my posts probably know I'm on the acotar critical side of the fandom. Not in the 'My fave is Tamlin/Lucien/Eris, and they're being treated so unfairly' way but in the 'I just think the whole series is bullshit' way. But then, some people might ask; 'If you didn't like the books, why did you read so many of them?', and here's my answer to that.
So, about eight and a half years ago, I first saw Throne of Glass in a bookstore and bought it, and I really loved it and ended up reading the whole series within a month(or, until Empire of Storms, because Tower of Dawn and Kingdom of Ash weren't released at the time). I won't pretend that it was a literary masterpiece or anything, but it was entertaining, and I liked reading about Aelin and her journey. I fell in love with almost every single character there, and I wanted to read more books like those.
And at the time, the popular consensus seemed to be that the ACoTaR series were way better than the ToG series. So I read the first book.
And, honestly? It was kind of a meh for me. Feyre was likeable, but didn't click for me the way Celaena/Aelin did. Tamlin was boring. Rhysand was my favorite character in the whole book because he was sort of mysterious and seemed cool(and I had the whole theory about him being part Valg! or Maeve's son! Both of them were sadly debunked in the following books..)
But reddit had convinced me that the first book was more of an introduction, and the series doesn't pick up until the second book! And since my trust in Sjm's writing skills hadn't been destroyed, at that point. So I read Acomaf.
Well... it was entertaining, to say the least.
First, Rhysand was the new love interest, instead of the morally grey anti-villain role I liked in the first book. But, well, Rhys being the love interest meant that I would see more of him, so I considered it a win. Oh, and I really hated Tamlin by the end of Acomaf(what with him being abusive and allying with Hybern), but I didn't like him to begin with, so no loss to me.
On that note, I read Acowar, because Acomaf had been sort of fun to read, and hey, you can't resist reading the next book with a cliffhanger like that!
I turned out that the war with Hybern ended in that book, and that was probably the biggest surprise for me. Like, the Hybern dude seemed to be the big boss of the whole series, and he's suddenly dead? Well, it turns out everything's getting wrapped up. Tamlin turned out to be a spy and got a sort-of-redemption-maybe arc, Feyre made peace with him and goes on to live her life, and everyone goes back home. Oh, and we still don't know what Mor's power is supposed to be. I was a little disappointed that the series was ending, but hey, a christmas special seems to be coming out! Reading a short book about the happy ending would be nice, right?
First, the scene where Rhys went to spring court and just... hated on Tamlin just made me have cognitive dissonance. Now, I know that you're probably thinking, 'OP, didn't you say multiple times that you liked Rhys and hated Tamlin? Why did you have a problem with that?' To answer that question, I have to admit that unlike a lot of wonderful deep thinkers here on tumblr, I am not that deep of a reader. For example, in Acomaf, where most people thought 'Oh, Tamlin has been traumatized in utm which led him to be hyperprotective of Feyre! But that's not what Feyre needs after utm, and the lack of communication between that is what turned him abusive and (insert another page of character analysis or something)'. No, my simple brain just went 'Tamlin bad now. Rhys good.' And in Acowar, 'Tamlin bad' changed to 'Tamlin bad but trying to make amends and has made peace with Feyre'. So when Rhys, who was 'good', went to Tamlin, who Feyre had made peace with and just vented his negative emotions on him, that was just a tad uncomfortable to me.
Also, the ending where Feyre sent Nesta to an Illyrian camp? That was just a '?????' for me. According to my very simple brain, Feyre, who was 'good', sends her sister to an Illyrian war camp, which, if we are to trust Rhys, sounds real brutal. That just felt like Sjm making a cheap excuse to write a book about Nesta in an Illyrian camp surrounded by villains.
Neither of those instances, alone, made me hate Rhys or Feyre or the Acotar series in general, but they did make me apply a more critical lens to the earlier series. And as I went over the earlier books, especially Acomaf and Acowar, I noticed some inconsistencies with the 'Rhys good!' 'Inner Circle good!' narrative that my brain had accepted without a doubt. Especially the part about Rhys supposedly being a great ruler.
Okay, first, Rhys was... not a fair or kind or good ruler to his so-called court. Yes, the Court of Nightmares is fucking awful, and you know what? That's generally what happens when you put all the awful people in one city, cut off their contact with the other non-awful people, and maintain that divide for countless generations. The Court of Nightmares is a consequence of Rhys' ancestor's actions, and I wished that was acknowledged once. And for that matter, Rhys, when you show up just to torture them for shit and giggles, don't wonder why they hate you.
Oh, and the Illyrians. Yes, according to Rhys, the Illyrians are super misogynistic., and that's probably true. And the women of Illyria suffer, and they're trying to fix that. But it also seems that the Illyrian boys are conscripted in to war camps where *checks notes* they are given three lashes for 'encouragement' and are whipped to death when they misbehave? It seems that the Illyrian boys suffer plenty too, and that maybe the war camps they grow up in aren't exactly environments that produce open-minded, fair men. Hey, aren't you gonna try to change it, Rhys? Offer the boys options that don't involve going to war camps and learning how to kill enemies? Or aren't you even going to comment on that at all? And of course, they are expected to die for Velaris citizens.. what has Velaris ever done for Illyrians? Or the Court of Nightmares, for that matter? (Notes: I am not denying that Illyrian women suffer at the hands of the Illyrian men. But my opinion is that the Illyrian system brutalizes both boys and girls in different ways, and yet one half of this problem is completely ignored by Rhys.)
Okay, why does that matter? Because, my friends, in Acomaf, we were constantly told 'Rhys good ruler. Tamlin bad ruler'. Rhys being a fair ruler caring for is court was part of why we were supposed to like him over Tamlin in the first place. And when that fell apart... I guess so did my love for Rhys.
And in case anyone is wondering, I did not read A court of Silver Flames after this, because I just couldn't continue. That's why I never mentioned anything that happened in the book- like the (in)famous pregnacy secret- on my anti-Rhys posts. I didn't feel adequate to comment stuff I didn't read.
Anyways, this was my experience reading acotar. Iād love to hear about your reading experience too, especially if your opinion of the series changed as it went on. Feel free to comment!