A Court of Wings and Ruin Review:

A Court of Wings and Ruin (ACOWAR) is the final instalment of the A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series by New York-born author Sarah J. Maas. Sarah has won awards for her work on this series as well as her other ongoing series, Throne of Glass, including #1 New York Times bestselling author, USA Today and international bestselling author. Sarah wrote her first book when she was only sixteen years old and has now published nine novels in total.

ACOTAR is a modern retelling of the classic fairytale of 'Beauty and the Beast, although it does also include elements of 'Snow White' towards the end of the series. The story follows nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre Archeron. One day, while hunting to provide food for her father and two sisters, Feyre kills a wolf that turns out to be not what it seems. She is then taken forcibly from her home and over the wall which divided the human world and the land of Prythian, home of the fae and lesser fairies as well as a number of other strange creatures. She is destined to spend to rest of her days with Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court and one of the 7 rulers of Prythian. This is until the story takes a darker turn and Feyre has to fight and think for her life in order to save the people she has just met.

The trilogy tackles ideas surrounding ‘True Love’ within the fairy tale and challenges on multiple occasions that the first person you fall for may not be the person who's right for you. Any of Sarah. J Maas’s novels are an excellent read if you like female heroes who break stereotypical moulds of young adult heroine. Maas gives us female characters who are physically and emotionally abused, who take the time to get over a serious relationship before getting into a new one, who have periods and who have disabilities.

With this being the final book in the trilogy there is not much else I can talk about without mentioning spoiler so if you haven't picked up the series yet, I would recommend reading them before finishing reading this. Sarah J. Maas is personally one of my favourite authors of all time and the ACOTAR series is perfect for lovers of fantasy and fairy-tale stories. Also, beware of minor spoilers for the Throne of Glass Series.

SPOILER WARNING!!!

The story picks up immediately after the ending of the second novel, with Feyre being forced to hide her mating bond and going to live with her ex-lover Tamlin in the Spring Court. I was lucky enough that I read the trilogy in one go and did not have to wait in between books for answers. If I did I do not know how I would have made it between A Court of Mist and Fury and this instalment. Within the first fifty pages, the suspense created in whether or not Feyre’s true nature was going to be discovered was overwhelming. Throughout the entire book, this suspense is present. I don’t say this about many books but I literally could not put this book down at times because I had to find out what happens next.

We are then introduced to two previously unheard of characters, Dagdan and Brannagh. There is not much to say about these two characters as they die before the second part of the book. I did wonder if they would have a bigger part to play but didn’t feel let down when Feyre killed them. The fact that they were Daemati did add more suspense to the first part as Feyre not only had to keep up her lies but also had to fight off their abilities mentally. The twins also appear with the reintroduction of Jurien. I have more to say about this reintroduction later.

Lucien’s role in the story is one of the highlights of the novel. The last book finished with Lucien’s mate Elain being revealed but taken away by Rhysand. Lucien is then forced to return to the spring court with Tamlin, knowing that Feyre is a spy. One of my predictions at the end of the second book was that Lucien was going to change sides and he did which I was glad about as I did not agree with Feyre wanting to punish him for Tamlin’s actions. Straight away we see Lucien being sexually abused by Ianthe as mentioned in the last book. In my opinion, Ianthe is the best villain Maas has ever written which is odd because when she was first introduced I thought she was going to be a hero. Feyre sees Ianthe pinning Lucien against a tree and goes to help him. She makes Ianthe mutilate herself for her actions but doesn’t kill her, at least until later in the book.

Lucien then helps Feyre escape through the Autumn Court which I immediately knew was a mistake. I read those chapters so quickly thinking Eris was going to catch them. Eris’s role in the story was an interesting one as I found myself gaining more respect for him as the novel went on. We first heard about Eris in the first book when Lucien talks about his family and we are told that his brothers tortured and killed his former lover because she was a lesser fae. Eris was also who Mor was supposed to be engaged to before he impaled her and left her to die for sleeping with Cassian. We find in this book, however that he never did these things, although is authenticity is questionable. In order to get his father’s support in the war, Rhysand makes a bargain with Eris that he will kill his father to make sure Eris has the throne. I immediately thought this was a mistake as there was no way Eris could be better than his father, however, after seeing Beron at the meeting I was wishing for him to die so Eris could become High Lord. This was not the case, however, and Beron was left alive at the end of the book. I am interested in seeing how this deal is acted out in later installments to the series.

This is not the only questionable deal made in the book though. After Feyre returns to the Night Court she makes two deals. The first is my personal favourite character, the Bone Carver, in return for his help in battle, the bone carver asks for Feyre to fetch the Ouroboros, which alludes to the magic mirror from Snow White. Although Feyre does not get the mirror until the end of the story we are still given lots of interesting about his character. The first thing we are told is the form he takes. The Bone Carver takes a different form depending on who is looking at them and we never really find out why. Feyre sees a little boy who is revealed to be her future son by the Carver. We also find out that he is a chthonic immortal being of immense power from another dimension that the Prythian Fae refer to as one of their "Old Gods". He and his siblings, Koschei and Stryga (The Weaver), are referred to as "death gods" because their powers allow them to eat life itself.

Koschei is the second being that Feyre makes a deal with. Koschei lives at the bottom of the library. He was actually mentioned in the second book when Rhsy tells the story of an ‘old God’ who could make its enemies see their worst fears. This reminded me very much of the Valg from the Throne of Glass Series and when we see him in battle at the end, a kind of silhouette surrounded by black mist it made me think that maybe there was a connection between the two. Sarah has confirmed that, although the two series are not directly linked, they exist within the same multiverse. For those of you who've read Throne of Glass, you’ll know that it deals with entities from other universes crossing into one with the help of magical objects. The Valg are one of these species whose aim is to conquer all universes. We already know that similar portals exist in the ACOTAR series as we are told Amren fell through one. I’m not saying that Koschei is one of these but there is a similarity and it definitely brings a whole new perspective to the series when you view the ‘Old Gods’ in this light.

Feyre actually makes two deals with Koschei. The first is to save her from the Ravens when they attack the library. In order to be saved from them, Feyre offers to bring people down for him to talk to about life. The second deal she makes is for his help in the war. In return for this, all he asks for is a window. Both of these deals are left unfulfilled by the end of the book, however, as Koschei did not return to the library after the battle. Rhys makes a deal with the third Old God for help in battle as well in return that the wards on her cottage are broken.

One of the parts where the book shines is in the diversity of its characters. During the meeting, Rhysand spent the first half of the book arranging we are introduced to the other four high lords that previously weren’t in the other books. Out of the seven high lords, three have coloured skin and one is bisexual. One of the criticisms of the Throne of Glass series is the lack of diversity within its characters. Clearly, Sarah has learned from those critics and has displayed a diverse range of characters in a way that doesn’t’ feel forced.

We also later find out that Mor is homosexual. This was such as big reveal as it was previously hard to connect with her character due to her secretive personality. I particularly didn’t like her when she slept with Helion after the meetings in order to spite Azriel. Her coming out to Feyre, however really makes the reader feel sorry for her and makes us see why the others say she is kind as she was acting in Az’s best interest.

That being said I did feel as though Az was a little left out at the end of the story. It seemed as though Sarah was teasing the possibility of Az and Elain getting together despite Lucien being his mate. Rysand told Feyre that the mating bond does not mean the two are right for each other and when Lucien left to find Vassa after the meetings it seemed as if this was going to be the case when he left to find Vassa. Azriel helped take care of her and showed and tended the garden with her. In general, he just seemed like a better match to her than Lucien, being quieter and reserved like Elain, not to mention it would be a good representation of a character ignoring the mating bond. But when Lucien returned at the end of the novel it seemed as though Az was followed. Hopefully, this will be cleared up in a later novel. I do believe the next one if going to be about Lucien and Vassa so maybe there could be a relationship between those two but we’ll have to wait and see. At the end of the day, the ships don’t matter and are not why I read the books but it just seemed like an odd choice for Sarah to make.

The ending of the novel is where I felt the novel was at its weakest. This is because there were a lot of convenient events that took place just when Feyre needed them the most. This was also the case in the last book as Feyre’s father is always conveniently away whenever Feyre returned to see her sisters. The opposite was true in this book as the father fittingly brings three ships with troops on them to help in the final battle. As well as this Drakon and Miryam also mysteriously appear to Feyre’s advantage at the same time, despite being hidden for most of the book. Even the reason they came, because they thought Rhys would need help, did not account for their timing in the battle. All of it felt a little rushed and unplanned for Maas as most of her endings are well thought out. I hope this serves as a practice for the ending of Throne of Glass which concludes May next year.

There were other conveniences that I didn’t mind too much, however, like Feyre looking into the Ouroboros. Ultimately we knew that she wasn’t going to go mad but I was expecting a little more to be written about her. I understand Sarah’s decision not to include what she saw as it is personal to everybody and it is something Feyre does not want to tell Rhys so it makes sense that we don’t know either. There was also the events surrounding Jurien switching sides. This was teased at the start of the book with Jurien’s actions in the Spring Court but it did seem to come out of nowhere.

This was at least built up to some extent which is why I don’t mind it, Tamlin’s betrayal's, however, confused me. Throughout the book, he switches once to Feyre’s side then back to The Kings then back to Feyre’s again. My only explanation for this strange behaviour is that he Is the youngest of the High Lords and was confused about what to do. It seemed to me as if he were switching sides depending on what the plot needed to happen.

Out of the deaths in the novel, it was the Suriels that hit me the hardest, although not a major character it was a creature that has been in all three books and has always helped Feyre. I thought that his death was well executed as it came out of nowhere and the impact it had on Feyre also impacted me with the help of the first person narration. There are three more deaths in the novel, excluding the King’s. The next is the death of Feyre’s dad. This one wasn’t as heartbreaking as I’ve said he has been absent for most of the other two books. I did partially guess he was going to die at the end as well as I knew he wasn’t going to be made in the cauldron-like his daughters. The third death, if we can call it that, was amren’s fae body. In order to win the battle, Amren had to use the cauldron to unleash her true form on Hybern’s army. Her reveal was a let-down for me as although she did a lot of damage it was very short, a lot like the Ouroboros. As well as this her body was brought back to life a the end. Personally, I hate it when characters are needlessly brought back to life, which is what this was. If you can magically bring people back to life than it takes the emotion out of their death which this series seriously suffers from.

The last death was Rhysand which I liked, even though he was brought back as well. He was reincarnated the same way Feyre was at the end of the first book. Similar to the Star Wars films, ACOTAR follows a cyclical pattern with many of the events that happened in the first book coming into play in the last. The style, in my opinion, worked well for the series. Rhys’s death as also effective as it lasted longer than the others, it made me question if he was going to come back as well. It also provided a final piece of redemption of Tamlin, who helps bring Rhys back to life with the other High Lords for Feyre.

Overall, I thought that A Court of Wings and Ruin was a great final instalment to the ACOTAR trilogy, although the ending did feel a little rushed and convenient. The story left us with a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the Old Gods, Beron and Vassa which will hopefully be answered when we get more tales from the land of Prythian.

Thank you for reading this far. Feel free to comment your thoughts down below and any suggestions on things you think I should review. I know this review was a bit more informal. I just wanted to talk about my thought on one of my favourite authors of all time.