*Our site contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases....hey, we had to upgrade our hosting due to our amazing number of readers...we're just trying to pay for it! ;)*

No spoilers in this review of A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas!

I have noticed a lot of love and a lot of hate for this book on-line. Why are the reactions so diverse? Maas’ storytelling ability is UNDENIABLE. She creates worlds and characters we love. Thus her books illicit impassioned responses (both positive and negative), depending on what happens to each readers’ favorite characters. I was excited to see which end of the spectrum I fell on and was surprised I landed between these two extremes. ACOMAF was really hard for me to rate, but I finally decided on 3.5 stars. Hopefully the balance between the two categories below will help explain the rating I chose:

STACY’S BOOK RATING
I give it 3.5 stars overall.
Lets be friends on Goodreads:
Stacy's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists

What I loved about A Court of Mist and Fury:

  • Rhysand – He was my favorite character from book 1, and we knew we would likely see more of him in book 2 because of the bargain he made with Feyre. I really enjoyed learning what makes him tick and all his snarky humor.
  • The Night Court – We knew we would get to see this realm since Feyre was magically bound to visit it one week each month. The imagery of the Night Court and the other places Feyre sees with Rhys is STUNNING. My favorite images of all are from the night of Starfall.
  • Amren – She was my favorite of the new characters. Her power’s impressive, but the most intriguing thing to me was her backstory. We don’t know everything about her origins yet, but what we do know sounds quite different than anyone else’s. I hope we learn all about it in the next book!

What I didn’t like about A Court of Mist and Fury:

  • Disappearing characters – There are some characters from book 1 who we don’t see enough of in book 2. If I invest time in learning their story initially, I want to know what’s going on with them now, even if it’s just brief glimpses. I needed extra time with these characters to justify the choices they made, some of which were very hard for me to buy into!
  • The tone of the book – In my opinion, this is not a young adult book. I liked the love story but think it needs to be a more PG-13 rated version if this is YA. I am also not a fan of the amount of curse words if this is going to be marketed as YA.
  • Contrived storylines – The definition of contrived perfectly describes how I felt about some of the storylines… ”deliberately created rather than arising naturally.” While these aren’t the only ones I noticed, here are a few examples:
    • One character was too good to be true. I needed a few flaws for him/her to be believable!
    • An ages-old secret was told, resulting in disaster, and it felt like it was just to create drama. I felt like something else could have been given to obtain what Feyre and crew needed.
    • A mating bond between a couple of secondary characters felt really strange to me.

Yet I am excited about book 3. At first I was afraid the climax was also going to feel contrived. When all was said and done, Maas proved me wrong! I am excited to see how Feyre will master her newest challenge! I just hope each character’s choices and motivations are carefully spelled out and believable in book 3.

Let us know what you think about A Court of Mist and Fury in the comments! No spoilers on this page please. 🙂

View all my reviews on Goodreads.

A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2)


[quads id=”1″]
What now?

Follow Book Series Recaps on Instagram and Twitter.
Friend us on Goodreads: Sara and Stacy.

Oh and share this review of A Court of Mist and Fury with your friends who might like this book!

16 thoughts on “Rapid Review of A Court of Mist and Fury”

  1. I LOVED this book. Its definitely up there with the best books I’ve ever read.

    1. I’m glad you enjoyed it! That’s definitely the consensus that seems to be emerging online. 🙂 Are you a fan of Maas’ Throne of Glass series, too?

  2. I actually loved this book better than the original. I didn’t feel like the story was contrived at all…if anything it was a pleasant surprise! I thought it was daring of her to ask the question:

    “What happens after you & your Prince walk into happily ever after?”

    I LOVED what she gave us in answer to that question.

    I do agree that it no longer felt like a YA novel though, but the language didn’t take away from the story for me. All in all, probably my favorite read of the year.

    1. Thanks for your comment, DeeDee! After initially seeing quite a few on-line people unhappy about the changes from book 1 to book 2, the response I’m now seeing is overwhelmingly positive. So you are in the majority, and I am in the minority! 😉 There were definitely things I loved about ACOMAF, especially the fact that we got to see much more of my fav character from book 1. And I think Sarah J. Maas is an author who deserves your praise because she has created worlds and characters that I feel strongly about. I love that she has created characters like Rhys from this series and Chaol from Throne of Glass. I think the abrupt turns both series have taken in a couple areas (especially in TOG) have been a little hard for me to swallow. But I am going to keep reading both series because there is still plenty I love! 🙂 Thanks again for your comment!!! 🙂

  3. First off let me say I loved ACOMAF. I liked ACOTAR but loved the second. I have to say I’m a little confused about the NA/YA aspect myself, being that I only picked it up after reading that it was a new NA series by a popular YA Author (I hadn’t read Throne of Glass yet). Everything I read said it was sexy and provocative. In fact on Amazon it says lovers of The Game of Thrones author George Martin would love this series. Nobody that is in the YA age group should be reading Game of Thrones (I said age group, I’m personally in my 30s and love YA). And yet, when you walk into any book store, there it is in with all the YA books? That’s unfortunate because I’m sure most parents don’t read the description and reviews online and trust their local stores to put the correct books into there proper sections. Book stores and publishing houses should take the responsibility to make sure their educating and being educated on the products they buy and sell. Last week I was in a local big name book store and found Abbi Glines in with the YA?!? She’s a lovely author but by no means should a 13-15 be reading her stuff. I actually found a VERY descriptive “love seen” and showed the store manager. He blushed, BUT they moved the display of books into the correct section. Sorry to rant but I read your review and had just had this conversation. ☺️ Basically if publishers/authors are going to market their NA book as NA online and in your advertisement reviews, then they need to make sure to the book stores that sell their items are following the correct guidelines when placing the items up for sale.

    1. I totally agree, Katie!!! I love that you had the courage to show the Abbi Glines book to the bookstore manager. While they should know their books well, I’m sure they don’t read them all and often rely on publishers to market their book appropriately. I think authors, publishers, bookstores, and libraries should take care in what categorize as YA, especially because (like you mentioned) many parents don’t read what their kiddos are reading and rely on bookstores and libraries to shelve them appropriately.

  4. Love you comments on this book. I agree with all the things you liked and was excited to hear someone who saw the things I didn’t like so I felt less crazy. On the NA/YA debate, I agree completely. I thought the first book should be labeled NA and I think this one was way more explicit both in language and in “love scenes”. I am a Middle School teacher who loves to find good books for my students, and I would not be comfortable with them reading this. I too agreed with the problem of disappearing characters, why do I bother getting invested if they are going to disappear. That disappearance also adds to the contrivance in my opinion. Your contrived storylines point is well made too, with one problem for me. I am dying to figure out who you think is the too perfect character . . . please give me a hint. I have a few possibilities in my head, but it is now driving me a bit nuts. Thanks for the review.

    1. Thanks, Margaret! 🙂 I enjoy finding people who share similar views on books, especially when it’s one that goes against the norm. So I was really happy to hear you share some of my views on this book! It helps validate that I wasn’t being totally unreasonable. 😉 I want to warn readers that what I say in the section below will contain ****SPOILERS**** about ACOMAF…

      The character I felt was too perfect was Rhys. This may sound a little strange since he’s my favorite character in the book! But I feel like all good characters should have flaws, and I couldn’t really find any in him once we find out why he acted the way he did in ACOTAR and the beginning of ACOMAF. So…

      (1) He’s the best looking guy in the world.
      (2) He’s the most powerful Fae in the world.
      (3) He is 100% selfless and would (and did) literally give anything for his people.
      (4) He was going to give up someone he suspected/knew was his mate?! He only went to disrupt Feyre and Tamlin’s wedding when he heard Feyre’s desperate thoughts.
      (5) He is 100% compliant with whatever Feyre wants to do, even when he disagrees.

      #5 is the one that really sealed the deal for me as far as him being too perfect. It seemed like Maas felt like Rhys could never go against any of Feyre’s wishes just to further reinforce how awful Tamlin was. Again, I really love Rhys’ character! My favorite parts of the book included him, especially hearing his side of the story from different scenes in ACOTAR. The most (seemingly) evil character becomes the most beloved one? I’m all in! But I wish he would make a mistake or two along the way to make him seem more human. (Even though technically he’s Fae.) 😉 This very well could happen in book 3. Hopefully it will!

      Thanks again for your comment, Margaret!!! 🙂

      1. Stacy – Thanks for the explanation.
        ***** SPOILERS ***********

        I agree with you assessment and was trying to figure out if we were thinking of the same person (since in reality I would offer that most of the new Night Court characters are a little too good to be true). I agree that while he is one of the best parts of the book he is too good to be true. Flaws are good. It is as if he has to be so good to help compensate for some readers disappointment in Feyre’s change of heart. I don’t think that is necessary since the strength of Feyre’s decisions should rest on the change of her own self and growing up, but oh well. Anyway, thanks so much for the review and the response.

      1. Thanks! I know this might be a bit too much for me to ask, but [maybe] can you please make a list of the current or upcoming recaps you are/will be writing?

        1. Here are the books we’ve read and are currently recapping:
          Lady Midnight
          A Court of Mist and Fury
          Illuminae
          The Invasion of the Tearling
          The Copper Gauntlet
          The Falling Kingdoms series (4 books)

          Here are the books we plan to read and recap soon:
          Passenger
          Rebel of the Sands
          Riders

          And finally, here are books we hope to make it to before the next release in the series but it will be awhile before we get to them:
          Truthwitch
          Ivory and Bone
          This Savage Song
          And I Darken
          Three Dark Crowns (out 9/20/16)
          Strange the Dreamer (out 9/27/16)

          Also, we also plan on continuing with recaps on every book in any series we currently have recaps listed for. This is quite a list, but you can see all the books and series we’ve already recapped here…http://www.bookseriesrecaps.com/book-recaps/ I hope this helps! 🙂

  5. By far I have to say that this is my favorite book of the series. When I first read the book I swear, I couldn’t handle Rhys and Feyre together. It makes me smile every time. I love their relationship in every way. Rhys is too perfect before but when they got together I can’t think of anything else when someone asks me “What comes to mind when you think of a perfect relationship.” When Rhys was explaining this past about the mating bond I cried, I’ve never had a book make me cry before, so that should say enough about how amazing this book is. When they went to the Court Of Nightmares, one of my favorite chapters, I’m in love with this series. I used to despise reading until my Queen (my fiance) recommended this book series to me and I have to thank her, but also to Sarah for making a book as amazing as this. ACOTAR kind of reminded me of Twilight at the ending but when Rhys came to the Spring Court and spoke Feyre’s thoughts, I knew something was going to happen between them. When Rhys licked away Feyre’s tears that’s when I was 100% sure they were going to get together. I love them so much. I’m currently reading ACOWAR. I Love this series if I could I would award it with the greatest fantasy romance I’ve ever read I would!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *