yeehaw

*Spoilers for A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, and A Court of Frost and Starlight*

Ok, so with the release of ACOSF coming closer and closer, I have been thinking about what the next ACOTAR novels and novella will be focused on. SJM said that while ACOSF is a stand alone novel in the sense that Cassian and Nesta’s story will be wrapped up within the singular book, it will also serve as a foundation for the conflicts within the rest of the series, and that each book will focus on a different couple. So here are my predictions:

The sixth queen, Vassa. Her story was left very unresolved at the end of ACOWAR with hopes of her curse being broken so I think it could be highly likely that if not a novel then at least the novella will be about her story and the mysterious man who she has to return to as part of the curse

Mor! Much like Vassa, SJM left Mor’s story on an unfinished note with ACOFAS and her wanting to explore outside Velaris so I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the novels was from her pov

Elain, Azriel and Lucien. If we’re getting a novel about Nesta and Cassian then I bet we’re getting one about Elain because the whole Elucien vs Elriel debate is real and nothing has really been resolved there. Yes, Lucien is trying to make amends with Tamlin, but I think SJM would want to explore these three and figure out that whole mess otherwise what would be the point in making Lucien and Elain mates other than getting Lucien to work with the IC? SJM could have easily done that without them being mates by just having Lucien realize how poorly he was treated by Tamlin. Also one of the editions of ACOSF apparently has a bonus chapter from Azriel’s pov so maybe that could be hinting at something?

Maybe Amren and Varian? This is lower on my list of probability just bc idk what SJM could really do with them besides Amren adjusting to her fae body and the two of them figuring out what to do since they both have powerful positions in different courts but I’m sure SJM could come up with something interesting if she chose this couple

Miryam and Drakon. I also don’t think this is very likely since their story seems to have been told and finished already but maybe a novella about their relationship during the events of the first war??

*Spoilers for A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury*

When I first read ACOTAR, I admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Feyre. In the first book she seemed just like any other YA protagonist, and while I admired her for being able to survive in the world of the fae as a human, it all felt very familiar to every other book I had read. It wasn’t until I read ACOMAF that I really began to see her something special and frankly, refreshing from every other YA book. Watching her grow from the beginning of ACOMAF as a person deeply hurt from the experiences of being a prisoner Under the Mountain to becoming the High Lady of the Night Court told a story that I had not seen before.

*Spoilers for A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury*

No matter how many times I re-read the entire ACOTAR series, especially ACOMAF, SJM never fails to break my heart with her writing. So here is a list I made of all the lines from ACOMAF that ripped me in two 🥴 

“Alone in my bedroom, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d truly laughed.”

“I might even cry for my mother, who had never cared for me, anyway. I might beg her to save me—” 

“The sentries returned in full force the next morning.”

“He’d locked me in here… He’d locked me in. He’d sealed me inside this house… I couldn’t get out; I couldn’t get out; I couldn’t get out—”

“Maybe it’d be a mercy to be ended— A broad hand gripped my face—gently enough not to hurt, but hard enough to make me look at him. ‘Don’t you ever think that,’ Rhysand hissed, his eyes livid. ‘Not for one damned moment.’” 

“Some small part of me whispered that I could survive Amarantha; I could survive leaving Tamlin; I could survive transitioning into this new, strange body… But that empty cold hole in my chest… I wasn’t sure I could survive that. Even the years I’d been one bad week away from starvation, that part of me had been full of color, of light. Maybe becoming a faerie had broken it. Maybe Amarantha had broken it. Or maybe I had broken it, when I shoved that dagger into the hearts of two innocent faeries and their blood had warmed my hands.”

“‘I’m thinking that I must have been a fool in love to allow myself to be shown so little of the Spring Court. I’m thinking there’s a great deal of that territory I was never allowed to see or hear about and maybe I would have lived in ignorance forever like some pet. I’m thinking…’ The words became choked. I shook my head as if I could clear the remaining ones away. But I still spoke them. ‘I’m thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person, and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety.’”

“‘As long as the people who matter the most know the truth, I don’t care about the rest.’”

“...when I had belonged to Tamlin and been little more than a spy and prisoner.”

“I had done everything—everything for that love. I had ripped myself to shreds, I had killed innocents and debased myself, and he had sat beside Amarantha on that throne. And he couldn’t do anything, hadn’t risk it—hadn’t risked being caught until there was one night left, and all he’d wanted to wasn’t free me, but fuck me, and—… And when Amarantha had broken me, when she had snapped my bones and made my blood boil in its veins, he’d just knelt there and begged her. He hadn’t tried to kill her, hadn’t crawled for me. Yes, he’d fought for me—but I’d fought harder for him… And he had the nerve once his powers were back to shove me in a cage. The nerve to say I was no longer useful; I was to be cloistered for his peace of mind. He’d given me everything I needed to become myself, to feel safe, and when he got what he wanted—when he got his power back, his lands back… he stopped trying. He was still good, still Tamlin, but he was just… wrong.”

“And maybe I was exhausted and broken, but I breathed, ‘I killed them.’ I hadn’t said the words aloud since it had happened. Cassian’s lips tightened. ‘I know.’ Not condemnation, not praise. But grim understanding. My hands slackened as another shuddering sob worked its way through me. ‘It should have been me.’”

“And it wasn’t sorrow, or despair, or terror that hit me, but… unhappiness. Such bleak, sharp unhappiness… I was unhappy—not just broken. But unhappy. An emotion, I realized. It was an emotion, rather than the unending emptiness or survival-driven terror.”

“It’d just been a relief to think that for a moment, he might have been as lonely as me.”

“He flinched. The most powerful High Lord in history flinched. And I knew I’d hit hard—and deep. Too hard. Too deep.”

“‘And yet I found myself deciding that if you took his hand, I would find a way to live with it. It would be your choice.’ I sipped from my wine. ‘And if he had grabbed me?’ There was nothing but uncompromising will in his eyes. ‘Then I would have torn apart the world to get you back.’”

“‘I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would never be a gentle grower of things, or someone who burned like fire—but that I would be quiet and endurining and as faceted as the night… I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for this place—looking for you all.’... ‘I was looking for you, too,’ Rhys murmured.”

“And I saw the pain and sorrow in his eyes. Saw it and didn’t care, not as that thing in my chest was twisting and breaking. Not as my heart—my heart—ached, so viciously that I realized it’d somehow been repaired in these past few months. Repaired by him. And now it hurt.”

“And there it was. A future. The future I saw for myself, bright as the sunrise over the Sidra. A direction, and a goal, and an invitation to see what else immortality might offer me. It did not seem so listless, so empty, anymore.”

THE ENTIRETY OF CHAPTER 54 BUT I’LL JUST GIVE THE HIGHLIGHTS:

“‘And then—then I learned your name. Hearing you say it… it was like an answer to a question I’d been asking for five hundred years.’”

“‘I knew that you were my mate, and you were in love with another male, and had destroyed yourself to save him, and that… that I didn’t care.’”

“‘If you were going to die, I was going to die with you. I couldn’t stop thinking it over and over as you screamed, as I tried to kill her: you were my mate, my mate, my mate. But then she snapped your neck… And I felt you die… And this beautiful, wonderful thing that had come into my life, this gift from the Cauldron… It was gone.’”

“‘But I felt you through the bond, through your open mental shields. I felt your pain and sadness, and loneliness. I felt you struggling to escape the darkness of Amarantha the same way I was. I heard you were going to marry him, and I told myself you were happy. I should let you be happy, even if it killed me. Even if you were my mate, you’d earned that happiness.’”

“My friend through many dangers. My lover who had healed my broken and weary soul. My mate who had waited for me against all hope, despite all odds.”

“If I hadn’t already been in love with him, I might have loved him for that—for not insisting I stay, even if it drove his instincts mad, for not locking me away in the aftermath of what had happened yesterday. And I realized—I realized how badly I’d been treated before, if my standards had become so low. If the freedom I’d been granted felt like a privilege and not an inherent right.”

“‘Don’t let him take me,’ I sobbed again. ‘I don’t want to go back.’ And when I looked at Mor, at the tears streaming down her face as she helped Cassian get upright, I knew she realized what I meant.”

“‘I don’t give a shit if she’s your mate. I don’t give a shit if you think you’re entitled to her. She is mine.’”

“I cleared my head, my shattering heart—breaking for what my mate had done, sacrificed for me and my family. For her sisters. Because she hadn’t thought… hadn’t thought she was essential. Even after all she had done.”

*Spoilers for A Court of Mist and Fury and A Court of Wings and Ruin*

From the first moment Feyre mentions Elain clinging to Azriel should she ever come to Prythian, I was sold. Like Feyre, I saw a certain gentleness between the two that would be very compatible. 

So when SJM decided to pull one of her infamous plot twists and made Elain mates with Lucien instead,,,, I wasn’t here for it. At that moment Lucien was still on Tamlin’s side. He was helping him get Feyre back despite her telling them  multiple times she didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want someone as kind as Elain to be with a character I was so mad at.

Even when we got to see more of Lucien in ACOWAR and got a look at a different side of him, I still thought he was incompatible for Elain. As she was suffering from her transition to fae, Lucien tried multiple times to help but nothing he did made a difference. Azriel on the other hand, in the moments he was there, he was really there. He didn’t try to force Elain into anything she wasn’t ready for. ALSO HE LITERALLY GAVE HER TRUTHTELLER. That scene ended me. 

Plus I think I like the fact of not every character being bound by a mating bond and seeing a character openly reject it in favor of something or someone else.

However, I’m not going to lie, despite how much I like the idea of him and Elain, there’s a part of me that also feels like SJM was just using their relationship as a way to get Azriel out of the whole Mor situation when she decided to make Mor a lesbian (bc let’s be real that move was probably just to appease the masses wanting more diversity and representation in characters!)

*Spoilers for A Court of Wings and Ruin, Heir of Fire, Tower of Dawn, and Kingdom of Ash*

You know what I’ve always found a lil sus? The fact that we never got a map for  Wendlyn in Throne of Glass despite a large portion of the series taking place there. Like, when we got Chaol’s novel with TOD set entirely in the Southern Continent, we got a new map for it. Yet when all of HOF and major scenes from the rest of the series takes place in Wendlyn,,, nothing? Idk I  just always found  that a little odd.

And  then you look at the maps for ACOTAR and literally every book has a slightly different map with more things labeled as Feyre discovers more about Prythian (yet still by ACOFAS she doesn’t know where Tamlin’s manor is!! uH oh!) even with the edge of the continent gaining new information each book. Yet we don’t even get the faintest of indications towards what Wendlyn looks like. So I have a theory.

And let me preface this by saying I know this theory is ridiculous and highly improbable. But I just wanna share it anyways.

During quarantine I did a full reread of both series (bc what else would I do with a bunch of free time!) and in ACOWAR there’s a scene with the Bone Carver who says “Clever, that Fae warrior. Her bloodline is long gone now - though  a trace still runs through some human line… She could not kill them in the end - they were too strong. They could only be contained… I knew that long before she ever trapped them…” And when I read this passage I immediately thought of the final wyrdkey scene from KOA where Aelin traps Mala and the other gods.

If the Bone Carver is actually speaking of Aelin then that means the ACOTAR world is actually the TOG world just many years into the future. And I KNOW someone is gonna be like “but Aelin falls through the ACOTAR world literally right after the wyrdkey scene and sees Feyre and Rhys so this isn’t possible.” TO WHICH I SAY I KNOW. I know this theory is impossible. I just wanted to point out some interesting connections.

So getting back to the whole lack of a map of Wendlyn. What if the reason that we never got a map of Wendlyn is because we already have one??? Let me tell you, my quarantine brain did some weird things and made some weird connections. BUT if you flip the TOG map upside down then the western border (which is actually the eastern border but flipped) very faintly resembles the coastline of the continent on the ACOTAR map. But since we can assume from the Bone Carver’s speech that ACOTAR takes place a good few thousand years later, obviously the coastline has changed due to erosion (bc erosion still exists in fantasy duh). And even the mountain range and forest kind of lines up with each other!! THEREFORE PRYTHIAN IS ACTUALLY WENDLYN AND THAT IS WHY WE NEVER GOT A WENDLYN MAP.

*MAJOR Spoilers for A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, Empire of Storms, and Kingdom of Ash*

It might just be me, but every time I read the Weaver scene from ACOMAF I just get the feeling that the Weaver isn’t exactly who we think she is,,, that she might actually be,,, Maeve from TOG. 0_o Now now now I know that this is technically impossible with the scene from Kingdom of Ash with Aelin flying through the several different worlds, one of which being the world of ACOTAR thus proving the canonicity (??) of their worlds existing in the same universe and relatively at the same time. Obviously Maeve cannot exist in both TOG and ACOTAR at the same time. But let me explain.

In the scene where Feyre is sneaking into the Weaver’s cottage but ultimately being caught she says the Weaver has black hair just like Maeve, which I know is not a lot to go off since several characters in both series have black hair, but it got me to start thinking. In EOS  it’s revealed that Maeve is actually a Valg queen, specifically of the stygian spiders and in Feyre’s battle against the Weaver says that the Weaver would “climb up like a spider- like I was a fly in her web-” which was a little more than suspicious.

And then there’s the fact that when Feyre throws bricks at the Weaver when trying to escape she says “Bone crunched and she roared, black blood spraying.” BLACK. BLOOD. SPRAYING. Who else has black blood??? Oh just MaEvE, QueEn oF tHe VaLG.

There’s never an explanation given for where the Weaver came from and she’s not described to be fae but something else more powerful. Rhys mentions how some creatures came in through folds in the world that would leave them trapped there and WE KNOW MAEVE HAS DONE THAT TO ESCAPE HER HUSBAND triggering the events of TOG.

Also also the Weaver’s name is Stryga and that sounds a LOT like stygian so that has to mean SOMEthing.

Plus we know that Maeve’s gift is death and when the Weaver is unleashed on Hybern in ACOWAR she goes through the army with EASE.

It’s also said that the Carver and the Weaver are twins and in ACOWAR the Carver explicitly says he found his way to Prythian to hide from his siblings who are DEATH GODS,,, which if you ask me sounds pretty similar to some characters from TOG

So if the Weaver is not Maeve, then at the very least I think the Weaver is from the same world of the valg and found herself trapped in the folds of the worlds like Maeve stuck in TOG. But if the Weaver actually is Maeve hiding out from her husband, then just *chefs kiss* to SJM for her sneaky easter eggs.

*Spoilers for A Court of Wings and Ruin and A Court of Frost and Starlight*

That’s never going to be easy to say I swear. ANYWAYS apparently SJM said that ACOSF is going to be her steamiest book yet, and let me just say, I’m ready for it. To be fair, she also said the same for A House of Earth and Blood and not even gonna lie, I didn’t think it was that bad especially compared to the scenes from ACOMAF.  I genuinely don’t think anything could beat chapter 55, but I’m ready to be proven wrong.

Since it will be nearly three years since the publication of ACOFAS, I am eager for new content, but at the same time I have a lot of hopes for the book. Things I want to see include:

Nessian training scenes with spoicy repartee

Shirtless illyrians 0_o

Feyre pregNANT?????

Subsequently rhys reacting to feyre pregnant hohoho

Nesta dealing with her trauma and some heartbreaking bittersweet moments between her and cassian

Cassian not being a total alpha busybody and showing his real feelings

REVEAL OF WHAT WAS IN THE BOX FROM ACOFAS (which sjm has thankfully confirmed will happen!!!!)

I don’t know about you, but i’ve already pre-ordered it and will be putting aside everything on February 16 to read it as i have been deprived of some good SJM writing for too long >:( 

*Spoilers for A Court of Thorns and Roses, and A Court of Mist and Fury*

Many people have been turned away from ACOTAR because of the transition from Rhys as a villain to the main love interest and thinking it’s promoting unhealthy and abusive relationships. If I had strictly only read the first book and found out that Feyre ends up with Rhys, I could understand where they were coming from. I admit, even halfway through ACOMAF my first time reading it, I was still rooting for Tamlin. Even as I fell in love with Feysand there was a part of me still hoping Tamlin could redeem himself.

He was the good guy in ACOTAR, he was Feyre’s first love and since I had yet to read TOG, I based my expectations off every other YA book I had read before where the first love interest is the last; that somehow they will find their way back to each other. But as I read the series now, it’s easy to see the differences in Tamlin and Rhys that display just how wrong Tamlin is for Feyre after Under the Mountain.

One of the biggest distinctions I always see when reading is Tamlin’s response every time Feyre asks to accompany them either in a meeting or on a trip to a nearby village versus Rhys’ reaction to the plan to nullify the Cauldron. While Rhys worries about leaving Feyre and not being able to help her, he tells her that at the end of the day it is her choice, and Feyre’s reaction to it is heartbreaking. “If I hadn’t been already in love with him, I might have loved him for that—for not insisting I stay, even if it drove his instincts mad, for not locking me away in the aftermath of what had happened yesterday.” Tamlin says no every time she asks to go with him, every time she wants to know more about something, he says no so much that his first line of the book is no. Let me repeat that. Tamlin’s first line of the book is NO. If that doesn’t say something about where his character is at during this time… And not to mention that when Feyre finally stands up for herself and says that he can’t stop her from coming, he locks her in the house, knowing how broken she is from being in a cell Under the Mountain for three months.

Not only that, but also both of the males’ responses to finding out Feyre was picking the other says more than anything IMO. Rhys: I heard you were going to marry him, and I told myself you were happy. I should let you be happy, even if it killed me. Even if you were my mate, you’d earned that happiness. Versus Tamlin: I don’t give a shit if she’s your mate. I don’t give a shit if you think you’re entitled to her. She is mine. Sorry, honey, Feyre is her own person and doesn’t belong to anyone.

To the readers who claim they hate Rhys and argue he’s more abusive and manipulative than Tamlin but haven’t finished the second book, that’s exactly what SJM was going for. In the first book, you’re not supposed to like Rhys. He’s working for the villain as her whore and right hand. He’s Tamlin’s enemy and since Tamlin is the good guy in the first book, he’s also the reader’s enemy. You not liking him is exactly the goal. That means SJM is a good and effective writer. 

At the end of the day you’re entitled to your own opinion so if you want to hate Rhys, then that’s your choice. But I’m going to love my cinnamon roll <3

*Spoilers for the A Court of Thorns and Roses Series*

Is it just me, or do you not really like the new cover style? Like aesthetically they’re fine and I understand that they’re trying to target and appeal to an older audience, but I just can’t get behind it. Especially the ACOSF cover they just revealed. After waiting so long for the next installment, I was disappointed by the design. Like the covers for the main trilogy and ACOFAS were one thing because they were one-toned; one color for the background with the black ink drawing over it. But the orange and grey for ACOSF,,,, idk I want to like it, I do. 

But then there’s the issue of the fact that the new covers simply don’t match the content of the books. With the original covers we see Feyre’s journey from human to High Lady of the Night Court, the transformation from a crown of roses and antlers to a crown of moons and stars. The new covers don’t tell me anything really about the series. And I know you’re not supposed to judge a book based off its cover, I know. But let’s be honest, we all do, at least a little bit. And I know a lot of hard work went into the new designs, I just wish they more accurately reflected what the stories were about in addition to their goal of attracting older readers. Because I admit that some of the content of the series definitely does not belong in the young adult genre *cough* chapter 55 *cough*.

I just wonder how did we go from the masterpiece that was the cover for House of Earth and Blood to this? Maybe I’m just biased and don’t want anything to change. Also the fact that ACOSF won’t match the rest of the series and I do anything for the bookshelf aesthetic. But also we’re finally getting new ACOTAR content from SJM so I can’t really complain. You already know I’m gonna preorder it and wait anxiously until 2/16. And we might be seeing a pregnant Feyre???? I’m not ok and the book doesn’t even come out for another five months.

“Someone: Are you ever going to stop being obsessed with SJM books?

*Spoilers for A Court of Mist and Fury*

Yes, that is a word I just made up.

There’s a reason why A Court of Thorns and Roses is my favorite series, and A Court of Mist and Fury is my favorite book. I could say it’s the intriguing plot, the compelling character dynamics, the twists and turns I never see coming, which it is. It’s all of those combined that makes it so I can read the books over and over again and never get bored of it. As soon as I finish one I immediately want to start it over because I don’t want to leave the world of the Night Court and the family of the IC. Compared to that, the real world just seems boring and lacking. 

SJM crafts her stories in such a way that even when I’ve already read her books, I find myself wanting to know what happens next as I’m reading. I don’t want to stop because I know one of my favorite scenes is coming up, and then once that comes I want to keep reading because let’s be real, the entire book of ACOMAF is my favorite part and I just want to get to all of it but never leave any of it.

That’s what makes ACOTAR so different from every other book I’ve read. With other books I get sucked into the world as I’m reading, but as soon as it’s over I feel myself leave and come back to reality. But SJM writes in such a way that the characters and the worlds stick with me long after I’ve finished. I can barely make it through the first 120 pages of ACOMAF because it hurts to see Feyre go through such pain, to watch a character I care so deeply for to deal with such horror all alone for months on end.

I cry everytime I read the scene of Feyre sparring with Cassian as she realizes how horribly she was treated by Tamlin after Under the Mountain. I squeal during the cute romantic scenes in ACOFAS, I swoon over Rhys’ smooth lines and witty retorts, I fall apart during chapter 54 as Rhys finally confesses everything he’s been holding back from Feyre as she was putting herself back together.

Other books have made me cry, yes, I cry easily once I get into a book. But with other books if I return to them I never experience such a strong reaction as the first time. But with ACOTAR I would say it’s actually the opposite. The more I read it, the stronger my emotional reactions are. Yes, the initial shock factor is gone as I know what’s going to happen, but everytime I read it, I grow more and more attached to the characters that when I see something good happening to them, I smile and when one of them is hurt, I hurt. Like I read in an article for a class about fans, I feel a sense of ownership over the characters in a way that I care about them as if they were real and want the best for them.

Back in seventh grade I had to give a speech on book burnings after reading Fahrenheit 451 and in it we had to talk about one book we would memorize just in case it was ever destroyed. At the time I probably gave some suck up answer about a classic book with a deep meaning to it trying to get a good grade. But if I was to answer it now, I would say ACOMAF, not because of some great message the book gives (because let’s be honest, SJM’s books are not ones that make you think critically long and hard as you read them, though they do touch on some serious topics), but because if you could only have one book ever, wouldn’t you want it to be one that you loved?

“mor: in this world it’s yeet or be yeeten

azriel: yeeten?

cassian: Y0ot

lucien: *looking around at the inner circle whispering* what the fuck did I get myself into”

*Spoilers for A Court of Thorns and Roses & A Court of Mist and Fury*

I will be the first to admit that when I read A Court of Thorns and Roses, I was head over heels for Tamlin. Portrayed as an attractive brooding male, he was the typical YA love interest that has been shoved down my throat in dozens of books I’ve read. But I didn’t mind. In fact, I was gung ho for it. Even halfway through the second book I still had hope of Tamlin redeeming himself as Feyre and I both fell in love with the character of Rhys. I didn’t want to believe that a character I admired so dearly could become so abusive and toxic. Reading the series for the first time, as I was new to the world of SJM, I had no idea that the first love interest the protagonist has is never her last, or in the case of Throne of Glass, neither is the second or third. Compared to every other book I had read, the first love interest is always the last. No matter what happens, somehow they always make it back to each other.

So that’s what I was expecting to happen. Even as I saw the dark and twisted side of Tamlin, I was convinced he would redeem himself. 

I want to make it clear that I do not condone any of Tamlin’s actions in A Court of Mist and Fury. But in the scene where Lucien finds Feyre near the river and begs her to return to the Spring Court with him, I understood where Tamlin was coming from. I saw a post on Instagram that had me thinking from Tamlin’s perspective. During the months of the bargain, Feyre never told Tamlin that Rhys was teaching her how to read. She never told him that she was finally learning how to write beyond her basic letters. So how was he to believe that the letter Feyre sent was truly from her? Looking solely from Tamlin’s perspective, I understand to some extent why he acted so rashly in the end. He genuinely thought Feyre had been kidnapped and was being tortured by Rhys. He genuinely thought he was doing the right thing and trying to save her. 

But that does not excuse his actions from the beginning of ACOMAF. I first read the series in 2017 just before the third book came out, and since then I have read the second book nine times, and each time I read the first hundred or so pages, I feel my heart break for Feyre. I go into it, thinking maybe this time it will be different. Maybe this time Tamlin won’t do what he does. Maybe this time Feyre will get out sooner. But every time I read it I cry as Tamlin explodes on her, as he locks her up, as he ignores her not eating and throwing up every night from the nightmares, as he watches her waste away and does nothing about it.

It wasn’t until I experienced my own not so great relationship and got out of it did I truly realize how horrible Tamlin treated Feyre following their time Under the Mountain. Like the characters, my ex and I were both dealing with our own issues and challenges. But that never excused his actions or mine. It never gave him a pass for snapping at me, shutting me out, acting like everything was fine when I was dying inside from how he made me feel. And that should translate for the characters we read about. As a fan, you want to believe the best in your favorite characters, but sometimes there is no redeeming them. Sometimes they are just bad characters. And I think that’s my biggest issue with SJM surrounding Tamlin is that she tried redeeming him in the end. She tried to make excuses for him and ultimately give him a redeeming arc. She tried to make the reader sympathetic to his circumstances. But in no situation does it justify becoming physically abusive and mentally manipulative, especially on the people you love. 

So as I read the series now I have little compassion for Tamlin. I don’t deny that he went through some terrible stuff Under the Mountain, but it’s no excuse for how he treats Feyre after, especially considering she arguably went through much worse.

And then there’s the whole issue of the High Lord meeting in the third book but that’s a whole separate topic. 

I will forever be mad

That Colm Fahey