Book Review: A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

Hello and happy Tuesday everyone! It’s been a while, but I’m finally back and ready to share my thoughts on A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas! I ended up getting the book a few days after release, finished it right after, but didn’t enjoy it all too much?? I feel like I’ve seen so many extremely positive review of this book, but it was just so *mediocre* to me. There wasn’t anything special about it, and it fell extremely flat to the prior ACOTAR books (which I loved)!

There are definitely meritable parts of this book, but I’m going to cover what I disliked first, so we can end off on a high note! I’m going to do my best to keep this review spoiler free.

Problem 1) I didn’t feel like there was much purpose in this book existing. The plot felt extremely weak, and I thought the story was too character centric. I do like my books being more character driven, but I found myself constantly asking what the point of the plot was in the grand scheme of things. In fact, I really felt like nothing happened for the first half of the novel, before we get a few plot points that seemed a bit out of place. I genuinely think that if you started the book from the middle, you wouldn’t miss out on a single thing. Everything that happened seemed like it happened for the sake of dragging the book out, and even writing another in the first place. It definitely worried me that when ACOWAR wrapped up, there wouldn’t be much to write about anymore, and it unfortunately came true.

A couple of the story arcs also seemed to parallel that of the prior books in the series. It felt a bit repetitive at times, like I was reading the same thing happening with different characters. The plot is also very predictable. I’m one of the worst predictors in the entire world (flashbacks to when I had no idea about the supposedly “obvious” From Blood and Ash plot twist), but all of the outcomes were easy to see from the very beginning. There’s also one plot twist, but I kind of saw it coming. This entire aspect made me care less about the book, because I already pictured what would happen in my head.

Problem 2) I’m okay with romance. In fact, I love having romance in my books, and my second favorite genre is contemporary romance. But all of the smut was a bit cringe for me. It was also horribly written, but I think we’ve all figured that out by the end of ACOMAF. I also found the sheer amount of it to be unnecessary. There was a certain portion in the middle of the book where nothing else would happen, and I just skipped it all. At a certain point, it didn’t do anything to benefit the story or relationships. I genuinely feel like some of it was there just for the sake of rebranding the series as adult.

Problem 3) I don’t know if too much changed in my own personal reading preferences from when I last read ACOWAR, but Feyre/Rhysand began bothering me. Like WOW, I really started hating even the mention of them on the page! I liked them so much before, but I just found them to be annoying during this book. I guess you could attribute it to Nesta’s negative bias towards both of them, but I just wanted them to be bearable at minimum?? I can’t exactly pinpoint what bothered me, but I was sighing when they came across the page.

Problem 4) While the two new characters and friends of Nesta were fun enough to read about, I found them a bit on the forgettable side. I genuinely don’t even remember their names. They were great side characters at the time of reading them, and I liked that Nesta was able to forge her own family, but I just didn’t really care about them. I also absolutely hated the hint at the new romances with them, and I will burn someone alive if they come true. I’m not joking, they have 0 chemistry and akjsdfasdllkf!! I would cry. Like please don’t put these characters in a relationship for the sake of having literally every person in the book in one.

Problem 5) The end. No spoilers here, but this one part at the end made me so upset. It’s like we get these random plot devices, seemingly out of nowhere, just for the sake of taking the story where SJM wants it to go. They barely make any sense. They shouldn’t be there. It honestly feels cheap! I reread those last few chapters just to make sure I understood the absolute absurdity of what was going on.

Despite my annoyances, there were also some good things about this book! I was your #1 Nesta hater, but this book really converted me. Her character development is one of the best parts about it, and I liked that she became more than just a rude complainer. It’s incredibly interesting to see her healing journey, as well as her making peace with herself. I think that this book also helped us see another facet of her, besides how she appeared from another POV, which helped a lot in empathizing with her character. Seeing her rationale and her thoughts definitely helped me understand why she was the way she was.

Also, this isn’t even related to the book, but the cover actually looked good in person. Yes, it’s true, your #1 new ACOTAR cover hater actually likes it! I think it’s because the glossiness doesn’t show up as well in a flat photo, while it does in person! I don’t know though. I am a cover convert though. I genuinely don’t know if it is my low expectations that made me like it, or if it’s actually redeemable in some way.

While I can’t necessarily say that this book is amazing in any way, it was still an enjoyable read. Despite all of my many problems with this, I found myself reading this in one day. It’s so incredibly long and way longer than it honestly should be, but I don’t regret any second of it. SJM’s books just have a strangely addicting quality to them, and I will still be purchasing the next.

Anyways, that’s it! Thanks for reading through my review! Feel free to comment (non-spoiler) about your thoughts on the book, even if it’s to say you totally disagree haha. I’ll be off reading Chain of Iron today, so hopefully, I’ll come up with a positive review of that one!

Happy Tuesday everyone!
-Allison