Book Review: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
A Court of Mist and Fury (ACOMAF) singlehandedly threw me to the wolves, left me for dead, resurrected me from the afterlife, and changed the course of my life forever.
Can a book do that? Yes, this book can.
Before I start this book review, I want to make a few things clear:
I was not a romance reader before this book series. I held some internal misogyny that books that centered female stories were cringey and dumb. (But that’s for another post.)
I didn’t realize what I had lost by not reading fantasy books until I started reading them once more. Reconnecting with worlds beyond our own — ironically, during my year of traveling this world as a digital nomad! — ended up healing me in ways I didn’t realize I needed to be healed.
The themes of this book series are undeniably pure: sacrificing for those you love, the idea that small acts of kindness return to us, and that within each of us are vast inner wells of strength. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to read books about these themes to reconnect in a much deeper way with aspects of my humanity.
Does this sound like a serious and somewhat dramatic opening to a book review? Yes? Good. Because it is.
If you don’t pick up this book series by the end of this book review, I have failed you.
(And this is book #2 in the series, so you’ll need to start with A Court of Thorns and Roses first.)
What I Love About A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
This is not a review that will share details about the plot, because I don’t want you to be spoiled before you read it.
What I can say is that I have never been as surprised as I have been reading this book. I have never been so thoroughly engrossed in a book that 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, and 5am would pass me by in a blink as the book could not be pried from my hands — even at the expense of sleep.
Even still! To this day! It is 12:38am on a Monday morning and I have just finished my re-listen through the entire series and I’m still awake writing this book review because I just. cannot. sleep. This book continues to haunt my waking and sleeping hours, even months after I’ve read it for the first time.
If you ask other women why we love these books, you may get some flippant or funny answers. You may hear them talk of “book boyfriends” or “chapter 55” or the more sexy elements of this book.
And, sure — the romance genre has so often been boiled down to giggles and scenes that don’t just fade to black. It’s part of the genre just as how HBO made its mark on premium cable by showing gratuitous sex scenes to prove its “adult” nature with shows like Game of Thrones. Content can always be distilled to its most boundary breaking or titillating elements.
ACOMAF is a romance. It’s a fantasy. But it’s also a book about the family we create for ourselves. It’s about how we choose to deal with love and loss. It’s about what it means to pick the person you love: and the complexities that come with that choice. It’s about the futures women pick for ourselves — and the futures picked for us.
This book series is heartbreaking and funny and sexy and deeply devastating.
I love how this book completely evaded every single guess I had at where the plot was going. I love that it defied all of my expectations. I loved how the characters chose to sacrifice for each other, how they chose to fight and why they made their choices.
The depth of the characters and the sheer fun of the escapism in this series continually had my jaw on the floor.
I became the floor, melting through it, returning to the earth, where I was healed.
What I Didn’t Love About A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
That it ended, and I was changed forever.
Final Thoughts on A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
My final score: 5,000 out of 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice rating: 3 out of 5 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️
Do I recommend this book? 👍 Yes, a thousand times yes.
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Saffron Vale wakes in a ruined wedding dress, locked in a prison for the kingdom’s deadliest criminals — with no memory of who she is.
To survive the brutal Ash Trials, she must outlast shifters, spellcasters, and something even more dangerous: the truth about herself. Her only allies? A traitorous commander from her past and an assassin who swears she’s the real monster here.
The truth could save her — or destroy everything.
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