02/04/2025
⭐: 4/5
🌶️: 2/5
Quote:
"Night Triumphant - and the Stars Eternal.
If he was the sweet, terrifying darkness, I was the glittering light that only his shadows could make clear."
Synopsis:
Looming war threatens all Feyre holds dear in the third volume of the #1 New York Times bestselling A Court of Thorns and Roses series.
Feyre has returned to the Spring Court, determined to gather information on Tamlin’s maneuverings and the invading king threatening to bring Prythian to its knees. But to do so she must play a deadly game of deceit and one slip may spell doom not only for Feyre, but for her world as well.
As war bears down upon them all, Feyre must decide who to trust amongst the dazzling and lethal High Lords, and hunt for allies in unexpected places.
Review (🚨spoilers🚨):
There are so many quotes I could have chosen to feature for this book. Rhysand's talk to the group before the battle was beautiful, but is a rather long passage. Some of the shorter quotes that stuck out are, "only you can decide what breaks you," and "you bow to no one," or when Amren tells Nesta "when you erupt girl, make sure it is felt across worlds," but we'll get to Nesta's story later, so I didn't want to focus too much on her. I feel like the quote about Rhys being the darkness and Feyre being his light embodied their relationship and dynamic, something that proved to be so essential in this story's plot.
The first third of the book was great. Feyre was in the Spring Court, making Tamlin think she went back to him when actually she was playing him. It was awesome. There were so many random times she would do something and then reveal that it was to corrupt his people against him or get inside his head and every time I watched it play out, I only felt bad for him a little because deep down I felt joy in his pain. And then when she finally went back to the Night Court, she brought Lucien with her. I love Lucien. He is so sweet and underrated, even though he might have been difficult in the beginning. I wish all the best for him in the future stories.
Once she gets back to the Night Court, she finally gets to see her fae-turned sisters and the bat boys who were badly injured in the fight at the end of ACOMAF, and she gets to see Rhysand, whom she had been communicating with through their mating bond. At this point, the goal was to plan for war and convince the other High Lords to join them and their cause. I loved getting to know all the other High Lords in this one, and seeing some more of the courts that we hadn't been able to see yet. And I loved seeing the dynamic of having Feyre as the only High Lady with her High Lord.
I also think this book really showed the stark contrast between Feyre's relationship with Rhysand versus the relationship she had with Tamlin.
So much went on in the last half of the book. There were scenes of pure war and battle and bloodshed. Several of these scenes played out in my head with the same level of hype as the Battle of the Bastards in Game of Thrones. They had to make a lot of deals with some pretty dark creatures to even have a chance of winning. And then it started to fall a little flat.
I did not give this book 5 stars. I wanted to. The ending had so much happen, and then it was all undone.
Amren died a very noble death. THEN RHYSAND DIED. I figured he would come back (duh, there are more books). But they brought him back the exact same way they resurrected Feyre in the first book. Then, boom, Amren is all of a sudden alive and well; she's just "mortal" now as a high fae. I honestly would have respected keeping Amren dead. We just had this bloody and devastating war and then it all wrapped up in a big happy bow, (except the Archeron's father. He stayed dead).
It was a good ending, other than that. We finally got to meet Drakon and Miryam, and we got some semblance of a resolution to previously established plot points. Amazing book, but not the most satisfying on the landing. ACOMAF still holds the crown for this series, but I am excited to get into A Court of Frost and Starlight to wrap things up for Feyre and Rhysand and get into whatever happens with Nesta and Cassian.
