#bookishthoughts

I know some of my posts might come off like I hate Feyre. But the truth is: I don’t hate her. Well I don’t particularly love or like her either.

What I do hate are her actionsn and what was done to her.

When people say ACOMAF is their favorite book, I just can’t relate. For me, it’s the least favorite in the series. I went in expecting an epic love story. What I got instead was manipulation dressed as romance.

I’m a feminist. A loud one.

An aggressive one, even. And as a feminist, I can’t turn a blind eye to what happened to Feyre.

This is a teenage girl being mentally and emotionally manipulated by a centuries-old man known for his mind control. That’s not empowerment. That’s grooming.

You want me to believe that a woman who was sexually assaulted—a woman who was forced to wear body-revealing clothes for months, traumatized by it, is now suddenly fine doing the exact same thing willingly... for the same man?

I'm sorry, but that doesn’t track. She went from being his puppet to playing his perfect whore without any believable emotional recovery in between.

And in ACOWAR? That was the breaking point for me. She dragged an entire court, an entire people down!! out of nothing but stupid revenge!! The same citizens she claimed she wanted to help. To protect. To die for.

Then ACOSF sealed it. Rhysand hides a life-threatening pregnancy from her, controls everything, and she… forgives him? Just like that?

How can I convince myself this isn’t long-term mind manipulation? How can I watch this unfold and still call it love?

So no I don’t hate Feyre. I pity her.

Let’s talk about Tamlin. No, seriously. Not Feyre’s Tamlin, not the fandom’s Tamlin, not villain arc Tamlin — just Tamlin as a character. Because I think something strange happened to him narrativamente… and it’s worth unpacking.

When you reread A Court of Thorns and Roses, something becomes glaringly obvious: Tamlin isn’t evil — he’s uninformed. Like, painfully, repeatedly, narratively left out of every important thing that happens. He doesn’t know about the curse specifics. He doesn’t know what Lucien knows. He doesn’t know Feyre can read. He doesn’t know how to communicate. He doesn’t know how to process his trauma, either. He’s not malicious — he’s stuck. Emotionally, developmentally, narratively.

And what makes it all more telling is that he starts strong. The first few chapters are trying to make you like him — the wounded fae lord with the tragic past, the slow-burn protector, the mysterious-but-gentle stranger in a beast’s mask. We were going Beauty and the Beast-coded! And then… mid-book… the tone shifts😬 And the shift is NOT subtle: there's no awkward moment of silence here, no vague discomfort there, but rather, suddenly, the writer decides that Tamlin is not a viable option. And we never really get him back.

Let's be clear: Sarah J. Maas does improve her writing as the books go on, and in the beginning, the development of most characters is pretty weak. In my opinion, the first book is written around two major events (meeting the fae and the Under the Mountain arc) that are somewhat awkwardly stitched together. That's probably where a lot of the poorly handled of Tamlin as either a villain or a morally gray character comes from. In fac...

🧍‍♂️ Ironically, his moment of greatest developmenthis is the one where he stops speaking entirely — the Under the Mountain silence. He’s paralyzed by fear, guilt, helplessness — and it’s frustrating, yes. But it’s real. It’s the closest he gets to an arc, and we skip over it. Because the narrative doesn’t stay with him. He becomes an obstacle to Feyre’s growth — not a participant in his own.

So is Tamlin the villain? Narratively, sure. Emotionally, he’s a failed promise. A character who could’ve been complex and tragic and redeemable — but instead was dropped halfway through the book, never fully picked back up, and handed to the discourse with a “do what you will.”

😔 And it’s a shame, because the story could have explored something deep and painfully real — the kind of people who, while believing themselves to be good, end up sustaining toxic relationships. But instead, we’re left with someone who’s simply never told anything, never given any real explanation, and therefore can’t logically be expected to act differently.

I'm heading straight into book two after that ending.

I enjoyed the first book, liked the FMC, and thought the mates were sweet. There are still a lot of questions I want answered, and I'm curious to see how the relationships develop from here.

I'm especially interested to see when the FF romance enters the story, since that's one of the things I enjoy most about this author's books.

I finished a romance novel last night, and in my dream, the main character came to dance with me. His hand was warm, his smile exactly as the author described. Now I’m wondering, does that mean he’s in love with me, or did I just fall too deep into the story?

You never know when something will hit you: racism, Islamophobia, queerphobia, exotification.

When you know your book is ending but you’re not ready to let go, so you keep rereading some lines, hoping more pages get magically added..