A Court of Wings and Ruin

I have so much to say about ACOWAR...too much–I dare say.

First off, the grammar of this book is atrocious. I listened to ACOTAR and ACOMAF on Audible, so I hadn't been exposed to the overuse of em-dashes and ellipses until now, and I gotta say, SJM needs a new editor. Assuming she used one at all for this.

I will say that the first two hundred or so pages of ACOWAR were top notch and super engaging. When Feyre and Lucien made their escape from the Spring Court and had to take on the twins, muah. Give me more of that SJM. That level of engagement fell off hard when she returned to the night court and the plot came to a crawl.

The WAR part of ACOWAR was more of a let down than the smut part of this book, and even that was non-existent. Although, that may be because I'm used to reading epics such as the Horus Heresy where war and characters are the primary focuses, not bat wings, throat bobbings, and ten pages worth of Rhys shoving his hands in his pockets. What is he even doing that for? Are we playing with ourselves in public now? All of the battles, or around 99% of them, are watched from afar as Feyre is left behind under the care of Mor, which is fine, but SJM shows that her ability to convey the nitty-gritty side of war and the emotional losses that come with it is severely lacking.

Secondly, the pacing of the last two hundred pages was insane. We spend around 300 - 400 pages in the night court where the main group are worried about unifying the realm. Then, when it comes down to the battle, we fly through it in maybe one hundred and fifty pages with twenty allocated for epilogues. The final twenty or so chapters go like this: “OH NO! Problem has arisen!” to “It's aight, we'll solve it in a three or four page chapter :).”

Overall, I'm disappointed to say that this was my first book I finished in 2025. I wish I could take it back, but alas, my throat bobbed and my hands needed warming, so I shoved them in my pants. One out of five. Read it if you must, but abandon all hope ye who must put up with Nesta for another page. I'll see you ACOFANs in the next book!

SPOILER: Using the high lords to resurrect Rhys in the same manner that Feyre was in ACOTAR was a lame maguffin. Better to have not killed him off in the first place as it ruined his sacrifice. The same went for Amren. There were no stakes in the end. Sure, you can make the argument that the Bone Carver, The Weaver, and Feyre's father (who SJM didn't even bother naming???) lost their life, but those are side characters. I'm also pretty sure they didn't bother giving the Archeron's father a sendoff? Though, maybe I missed that singular paragraph.