A Court of Wings and Ruin

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Title: A Court of Wings and Ruin

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3

Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens Books

Release Date: May 2nd 2017

Rating:

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’smanoeuvrings 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.

In this thrilling third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Sarah J. Maas, the earth will be painted red as mighty armies grapple for power over the one thing that could destroy them all.

– Blurb courtesy of goodreads.com

There may be slight spoilers for A Court of Wings and Ruin in this review. If you haven’t yet read the third book in the Court of Thorns and Roses series I’d recommend skipping this review until you have.

As always this review may contain spoilers for previous book(s) in the series.

My Thoughts On…

…The Plot

“What we think to be our greatest weakness can sometimes be our biggest strength. And that the most unlikely person can alter the course of history.”

When it came to A Court of Wings and Ruin my expectations were sky high. While this last book in the series more than met my expectations I am struggling to review it because I don’t know where to begin, or how to properly express how much I loved this book without my review being hundreds of pages long.

After coming face to face with King Hybern and being forced to retreat Feyre is once more back at the Spring Court, only this time she is determined to tear it to the ground, hoping that will make it easier to defeat Hybern. Every move Tamlin and Ianthe make only play into Feyre’s hands but it’s not enough; not when Hybern has sent his niece and nephew to inspect the wall, not when he still has the Cauldron in his hands and not when war between them is more of a certainty than a far off threat to try and avoid.

“But this is war. We don’t have the luxury of good ideas—only picking between the bad ones.”

Feyre and Rhysand need all the allies they have gained, need to convince all of Prythian’s other Courts to fight alongside them, but Hybern’s forces are much more vast than their own. Feyre, Rhysand, Nesta, Elain and all of the inner circle find themselves making some bad, though necessary, decisions in order to have even a hope of facing Hybern on the battlefield.

It felt like everything, even the first two books in the series, were building up to the climax of this third book. Amarantha in the first book was only a taste of what was to come when Hybern starts his approach on Prythian. There is no easy path for Feyre to walk in this book, instead she has to make the best of what she has and hope for the best. Sarah J. Maas did an amazing job of writing her characters and setting the scene to show how the war was affecting all of their lives. The danger in this book is very real, and every single page in the run up to the end of this novel was tense.

…The Characters

“I repeated their names silently, over and over into the darkness. Rhysand. Mor. Cassian. Amren. Azriel. Elain. Nesta.”

Feyre is forced to make some hard decisions in this book, not just for the good of her people back in the Night Court but also for the good of Prythian and the good of the humans on the other side of the wall. She makes some mistakes, errors in judgment that could end up costing them something valuable in the fight against Hybern, but she holds her head high and accepts that. She simply turns and tries to find another way to keep moving forwards.

The development Feyre’s character has gone through since the very first book has been amazing. She still suffers after the events Under the Mountain at the hands of Amarantha but you can see her healing a little more in this book. She still has nightmares and flashbacks, only made worse by some of the things she sees during the war, but she fights through them knowing it’s not just her own life she needs to save but plenty of others now resting on her shoulders.

“I would have waited five hundred more years for you. A thousand years. And if this was all the time we were allowed to have…The wait was worth it.”

Rhysand, despite the facade he presents to the world, has scars that run just as deep as Feyre’s do. His past is a dark one and the things he did while Amarantha ruled still haunt him the way Feyre’s actions haunt her. Rhys believes that he has to protect the world, and he is willing to throw himself into any danger that comes along if he thinks it will save his people. There is a lot more to Rhys than meets the eye, as the other High Lords discover, and it was interesting learning more about him in this book.

The relationship between Feyre and Rhysand is perfect. Honestly there are no other words for it. While they don’t live completely in one another pockets, there are things Feyre keeps from Rhysand and vice versa, they make a strong team and know when they can rely on the other when needed. Rhys gives Feyre the space she needs to grow, the space to heal and the space to call him out on his bad decisions. In turn Feyre gives Rhys peace, she accepts his past without question and is fiercely protective over anyone who tries to throws Rhysand’s past in his face.

“When you erupt, girl, make sure it is felt across worlds.”

After what happened to them in the Cauldron at the end of the last book both Nesta and Elain are suffering. Nesta is angry at the world and the fae, she is closed off and at first chooses to attack the people who reach out to her rather than accept their help. In comparison Elain is almost catatonic, she doesn’t eat or move or speak. She lost everything when she was turned into a fae and doesn’t accept her new life or what she lost in her old.

One of the main things I loved in this book was the amount of representation we saw, and not just in terms of the PTSD Elain and Nesta, and even Feyre still, suffers through. There were plenty of POC characters and characters of different sexual orientations in A Court of Wings and Ruin, and what’s more their diverse aspects weren’t their whole character. Each had their own personalities which made them more than their skin colour, culture or sexual orientation, which is how I think diversity should be portrayed in books.

…The Setting

“This is—my home.”
I could see the details now sinking in. The lack of darkness. The lack of screaming. The scent of the sea and citrus, not blood and decay. The laughter of children that indeed continued.
The greatest secret in Prythian’s history.
“This is Velaris,” I explained. “The City of Starlight.”

A Court of Wings and Ruin took us all over Prythian. We saw the Spring Court again, in turmoil after Tamlin’s deal with Hybern and what it meant for the people that made their home there. Unlike in the first book the Spring Court is not seen as a place of beauty, but a place where there is something dark and rotten at its heart. We go back to Velaris, the City of Starlight which has always been my favourite setting within this world, a city healing from a horrible attack but still a place of peace and sanctuary for anyone who needs it. We even get small glimpses of some of the other Courts as Feyre and Rhysand travel through Prythian on their journeys. Sarah J. Maas wrote the approaching war really well. The battles the characters fight aren’t something that happens to one person at a time depending on whose eyes we’re reading the story though. They’re something that happens to everyone, and something that touches people’s lives in dark ways even long after the fighting has ended.

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Like pretty much everyone else who loves Sarah J Maas’s writing and this series my expectations for A Court of Wings and Ruin were sky high, and I ended up loving every single second of this book. The action started at the beginning and didn’t slow down, there was a masterful build up to the ending which you can see hints of even in the first book of the series.

All in all I could not have asked for anything more from A Court of Wings and Ruin, and if I could rate this book more than five stars I would in a heartbeat.

What did you think of A Court of Wings and Ruin? Was it a favourite of yours or could you just not get into the story? Let me know.