Review: A Court Of Frost And Starlight - Sarah J Maas

Genre: NA Fantasy

Published:1st May 2018

Length: 272 pages

My rating: 6/10

Overview: The novella bridging the ACOTAR series and finishing Feysand's story. Winter solstice has arrived, but not everyone in the Night Court has recovered from the war against Hybern.

Well.

'6/10?', I hear you cry in confusion. 'But Asha, Sarah is one of your favourite authors!'

I do love Sarah and this novella doesn't change that but I did feel a bit disappointed. There was basically 0 plot and honestly Feysand started to get on my nerves a little! Wow Rhys has a giant dick WE GET IT. That being said there were still some funny moments.

Let's start with the obvious: who else thought this was going to be set at the Winter Court?!? I was looking forward to seeing my faves Viv and Kallias and get to know a different court but no! *sighs*. The only rep from the other courts was Varian who actually seems really nice! I didn't really know what to make of him in the previous books but I really like him here. Then we also get a few scenes in the Spring Court. Let's get this straight: what Tamlin did in the previous books was shitty and petty and he and Feyre are 0% compatible, but he did have a slight redemption arc in ACOWAR and I expected this to be carried on. However, Rhys visits the Spring Court and is an absolute dick to Tamlin. As we can see from his first person POV he uses certain words on purpose knowing it would hurt Tamlin and honestly I thought Rhys was a better person than that. Tamlin is utterly desroyed and Rhys has everything. I'm not trying to excuse any of Tamlin's past behaviour but it upset me that Rhys would be so cruel.

The main problem in this book was the mistreatment of so many characters! Alongside TamTam, I was annoyed with how Mor and Nesta were treated. First of all, I thought Mor was gonna hook up with Viv's cute sister in this book before reading it, but no, once again Sarah drops vague mentions of her sexuality and continues to deny us a detailed LGBTQ+ romance. Sure there have been plenty of minor side characters that have been mentioned to be gay but this is not enough to be honest. If Mor does not get a cute ass girlfriend soon I'm gonna be disappointed. To be honest it felt like Mor was barely in this book for me.

And on to Nesta. Honestly do I like Nesta? No! But that doesn't mean I was okay with how the rest of the inner circle treated her in this book. Everyone was so bitchy and snarky towards her and there was a lot of slut shaming which I wasn't expecting. Even Feyre started looking down upon Nesta. All the inner circle have suffered through war before, surely they can understand Nesta is in some sort of PTSD from both that and the cauldron which is affecting her behaviour? From the preview at the end which was from Nesta's POV, I do think Sarah is not trying to condone the inner circle's behaviour and is probably on Nesta's side so hopefully in the next book Nesta will show all of them what dicks they're being!

I am quite excited for the next book moving onto new characters, becuase honestly at the end of this I don't need more Feysand. I do love them both but it go so cringey how perfect a couple they are. Every single fucking time they have sex Feyre says 'omg I shatter into a million pieces' when she climaxes, ok good for you hun? We heard you the first time you said it. I'm also not to sure how I feel about a baby. Obviously it could take them ages to conceive but Feyre is so young and has centuries ahead of her, I think she should do more finding herself first. I would also be very grateful if in the next book, Sarah could stop mentioning the war so much. I swear, every single new character in this was emotionally traumatized by losing someone to the war, which is fair enough, but does it have to be like that for every character? It was starting to drag.

So I'm really excited for the next book where we'' get more Az, Mor, Elain, and Lucien! (And hopefully a lot more of the other courts!) I don't care so much about Cassian and Nesta but I expect the illyrian training will be funny. If you're a fan of the series and are planning to read the next one, you should probably read this to enhance your understanding of what the current situation is but tbh it's probably my least favourite book by Sarah so I wouldn't get your hopes up massively.

#sarahjmaas #review #acotar