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A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 44, or “Amarantha Chiropractic and Holistic Wellness Center”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

Before my big, stress-induced gap in recaps, ed.—Hey, that’s happening again right now! we’d just seen Feyre stab Tamlin in the heart because she got a hunch from like two times she’d heard people say he had a heart of stone or whatever and ZOMG TWIST. At the beginning of this chapter, he’s shouting and bleeding.

But then there was a faint thud—and a stinging reverberation in my hand as the dagger struck something hard and unyielding. Tamlin lurched forward, his face going pale, and I yanked the dagger from his chest. As the blood drained away from the polished wood, I lifted the blade.

Its tip had been nicked, turned inward on itself.

Ma’am. That is wood. The tip should be broken or blunted. Wood is not malleable and bendy like metal.

But the point is, she was right, and she knows she was right because Rhysand is smiling and Amarantha is pissed off.

Kill her now, I wanted to bark at Tamlin, but he didn’t move as he pushed his hand against his wound, blood dribbling out.

I’m going to be so happy to (hopefully) never again read statements like, “he didn’t do this thing, but he did.” If he pressed his hand to his chest, he moved. But like, also, what did you expect to happen? It’s been made pretty clear throughout the book that if a fairy is wounded by ash, they can’t heal the wound with their magic. You still stabbed him in the fucking heart.

Of course, everybody on the bus claps. That is, the fairies in the crowd start shouting about how she won, and Amarantha should free her and Tamlin.

“I’ll free them whenever I see fit. Feyre didn’t specify when I had to free them—just that I had to. At some point. Perhaps when you’re dead,” she finished with a hateful smile. “You assumed that when I said instantaneous freedom regarding the riddle, it applied to the trials, too, didn’t you? Foolish, stupid human.”

That’s exactly what I said! And I don’t even live in Fairyville or wherever the shit this awful book takes place, but I was better at the fairy contract than Feyre. Make me the hero of this book; this shit would be cleaned up in no time. I would have turned over Tamlin and Lucien to Amarantha in a heartbeat and been like, “Hey, here are these prisoners, but I get to live in that luxurious house with all the servants, okay?” Because all of the characters in this book are useless and horrible, I would have no qualms about selling them out.

Anyway, the next time Amarantha speaks, it’s still directly to Feyre, but it’s just… weird.

“And you,” she hissed at me. “You.” Her teeth gleamed—turning sharp. “I’m going to kill you.”

I feel like maybe something got cut between the last bit of dialogue about “foolish, stupid human” and this part because “And you” doesn’t make any sense. Nobody else has spoken, and Amarantha hasn’t spoken to anyone else. “Foolish, stupid human. And you […]” just doesn’t sound right.

Is that a nitpick? Sure. But I feel like there are only so many times I can talk about the shittiness of this book in the macro, and now I’m focused on the micro.

Just like how I’m gonna nitpick the use of italics in so much of Amarantha’s dialogue throughout this chapter. It’s truly baffling. Is she saying this shit sarcastically? What’s up with the italics?

Amarantha strikes Feyre with something “far more violent than lightning” and slams her to the floor.

“I’m going to make you pay for your insolence,” Amarantha snarled, and a scream ravaged my throat as pain like nothing I had known erupted through me.

There’s something weird about Sarah J. Maas regarding how much she tortures her main character. I realize it’s a fantasy novel, and people get hurt, but Feyre is constantly getting slammed around or her bones broken or whatever. And now, since she’s done the broken arm and the beaten to unconsciousness a couple of times, she has to ramp up the physical harm.

Amarantha keeps hurting Feyre and cracking her bones while demanding that Feyre say she doesn’t love Tamlin.

“Feyre!” someone roared. No, not someone—Rhysand.

Yes! This happened once before, didn’t it?! I love it. I absolutely love it. You’re not someone, Rhysand. You’re no one. I’m dying. It’s my favorite.

My back arched, and my ribs cracked, one by one.

If you’re wondering, yes. She survives this chapter. Sorry for the bad news.

I’m skipping over a bunch of stuff because it’s just this repetitive loop of Amarantha saying something she’s pretty much already said a bunch of times, like how Feyre isn’t worthy of fairy love or whatever and how she’s lowly and a pig and stuff, then hurting her. ed.—This section was absolutely written with a movie adaptation in mind. Amarantha monologues and mugs like a Marvel villain. But what happens in the middle of that is Rhysand having the forethought to grab the ash dagger. Amarantha hits him with some light that pushes him back before he can strike her.

But the pain paused for a second, long enough for me to see him hit the ground and rise again and lunge for her—with hands that now ended in talons. He slammed into the invisible wall Amarantha had raised around herself, and my pain flickered as she turned to him.

Feyre. How do you know she raised an invisible wall around herself? It’s invisible.

Amarantha takes a minute to beat the shoes off Rhysand while Feyre begs her to stop. And that redirects Amarantha’s rage to Feyre.

“Stop? Stop? Don’t pretend you care, human,” she crooned, and curled her finger. I arched my back, my spine straining to the point of cracking, and Rhysand bellowed my name as I lost my grip on the room.

I would have gone with “my back arched” instead of “I arched my back” because it makes it sound like it’s something Feyre did on purpose when it’s clear that it was because of Amarantha’s finger crook. That’s something minor I would have noted in this book had I or anyone else edited it.

Then the memories began—a compilation of the worst moments of my life, a storybook of despair and darkness.

Is that the title of a later book in the series? Because this one should have been called A Storybook of Despair and Darkness, as those are the two things I feel most while reading this.

But we only see one of these horrible memories that are cascading over her. The sentence immediately following the excerpted one above reads:

The final page came, and I wept, not entirely feeling the agony of my body as I saw that young rabbit, bleeding out in that forest clearing, my knife in her throat. My first kill—the first life I’d taken.

I’d been starving, desperate. Yet afterward, once my family had devoured it, I had crept back into the woods and wept for hours, knowing a line had been crossed, my soul stained.

She just killed two people. She got a friend killed. She killed Andras.

But we’re going to go on a half-cocked weep about her stained soul because she killed a rabbit to feed her starving family.

That made me google whether or not Maas is a vegetarian.

And there’s no reason to include it. It’s just there. Nothing comes full-circle because she has this memory or anything. It’s just, oh no, remember that time I killed a rabbit? And then it goes immediately back to:

“Say that you don’t love him!”Amarantha shrieked, and the blood on my hands became the blood of that rabbit—became the blood of what I had lost.

But I wouldn’t say it. Because loving Tamlin was the only thing I had left, the only thing I couldn’t sacrifice.

There is a small, quiet voice in my mind that has become unquiet. It is screaming to topple the high towers of Sarah J. Maas’s career. THE GOD DAMN BUNNY DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. There is no logical narrative tie between the bunny and losing Tamlin. What am I even reading here? ed.—It’s like Maas wanted there to be some kind of motif woven throughout the story so that she could be poetic about it, but she didn’t think she needed to actually introduce that motif anywhere in the story at all.

Tamlin starts crawling over to Amarantha, and his wound isn’t healing because, you know, ash.

Amarantha had never intended for me to live, never intended to let him go.

Oh, no shit? Wow, I’m shocked at this sudden twist that wasn’t telegraphed by literally every character you’ve spoken to in Prythian but wow, such insight.

Tamlin is like, Amarantha, stop, I take back what I said about your sister, etc., and this is Feyre’s take away from that moment:

Tamlin’s eyes were so green—green like the meadows of his estate.

And it’s his grass green fucking eyes that give her strength or whatever, and there’s a full page of the same interaction Feyre has been having this whole damn time with Amarantha. She’s like, say you don’t love him, and Feyre thinks no, never, I’ll never say that because that’s how much I love him, and it’s just… Like, get on with it already. Jeez. ed.—I don’t think I can impress upon you enough just how repetitive this chapter was. Amarantha would say the same thing over and over, but differently worded, and these sections happed like three times. I was starting to think Amarantha was going to execute Feyre by talking her to death.

But yeah, remember the riddle and how super hard it was? Turns out the love she feels for Tamlin helps her solve it! For a really long time on the page!

For though each of my strikes lands a powerful blow, When I kill, I do it slow …

That’s what these three months had been—a slow, horrible death. What I felt for Tamlin was the cause of this. There was no cure—not pain, or absence, or happiness.

But scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat.

She could torture me all she liked, but it would never destroy what I felt for him. It would never make Tamlin want her—never ease the sting of his rejection.

Truly good riddles have that “Misery Business” energy, you know?

But I bless all those who are brave enough to dare.

For so long, I had run from it. But opening myself to him, to my sisters—that had been a test of bravery as harrowing as any of my trials.

And I like it when the riddles require the person to think of themselves as really brave, too.

Blood filled my mouth, warm as it dribbled out between my lips. I gazed at Tamlin’s masked face one last time.

“Love,” I breathed, the world crumbling into a blackness with no end. A pause in Amarantha’s magic. “The answer to the riddle …,” I got out, choking on my own blood, “is … love.”

You owe it to yourself to act that part out. You have to do it. Act it out like you’re Nicholas Cage.

So, that would be a good chapter hook, wouldn’t it? Her just answering the riddle? WELL, TOO BAD! Sarah added another line:

Tamlin’s eyes went wide before something forever cracked in my spine.

Because she’s got to go just that one step past what makes you want to keep reading. Even though I’ve read the next chapter and I know how it goes, the first time I read it, I was like, here we go. Here’s where she does a Frodo wake-up and bangs Tam Gamgee. Honestly? I wouldn’t have turned the page if I wasn’t getting paid to.

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 43 or “Feyre Everdeen”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

We’ve read a lot of books over the years. Hang on. Let me count on my fingers. Is it ten? Ten, counting Crave, which is in progress? ed.—And it’s soooooo boring and that’s why I’ve wandered away from it. And also if we count the books that I abandoned because some tiny part of me clings to hope.

Anyway, in all those books that we’ve read, I’m not sure any plot “twist” has ever made me so furious and insulted as the one you’re about to experience. It is possibly the most unfounded “twist” I’ve ever seen in a book, movie, tv show, any medium at all.

It’s time for Feyre’s final challenge.

For my final task, I was given my old tunic and pants—stained and torn and reeking—[…]

Yikes. I mean, it’s not the hardest task but it does sound like a pretty gross one.

[…]but despite my stench, I kept my chin high as I was escorted to the throne room.

Oh. My bad. Continue. ed.—I just realized… I don’t remember her being given extra clothes? Did that happen? If someone has this book and the inclination, I would love to know what’s meant by her “old” pants and tunic. I deleted this book from all my devices and removed it from my Amazon account.

All eyes are on Feyre in the throne room. Nobody is betting against her survival or spitting at her or making fun of her or any of the stuff that’s happened in the past.

Their world rested on my shoulders, Rhys had said. But I didn’t think it was worry alone that was spread across their features. I had to swallow hard as a few of them touched their fingers to their lips, then extended their hands to me—a gesture for the fallen, a farewell to the honored dead.

If you just heard the Mockingjay whistle from The Hunger Games, don’t worry, you’re not having auditory hallucinations. You’re just interpreting the text correctly. Feyre is no longer Feyre the amazing Faerie-Killing Human. She’s their savior.

“Two trials lie behind you,” Amarantha said, picking a fleck of dust on her blood-red gown. Her hair shone, a gleaming crimson river that threatened to swallow her golden crown.

This is the first time Amarantha has been described as having “crimson” hair. It’s been “red-gold” the rest of the time. You might be thinking, “Jenny, that’s a really small nit to pick,” but is it, though? Feyre is a painter. She’s going to remind us of that like a billion times in this chapter (presumably to make up for the reduction in painter talk while she’s been Under the Mountain). Painters know that red-gold and crimson are vastly different colors, with different undertones and warmth values.

In other words: Amarantha’s been into the L’Oreal Feria.

Amarantha points out that if Feyre fails now, it’ll be extra pathetic because she’s gotten so close to the finish line. Feyre notes that none of the fairies in the throne room laugh except Amarantha’s guards.

I blinked to clear my burning eyes. Perhaps, like Rhysand’s, their oaths of allegiance and betting on my life and nastiness had been a show. And perhaps now—now that the end was imminent—they, too, would face my potential death with whatever dignity they had left.

And then the whole bus clapped.

Amarantha asks Feyre if she has any last words, and Feyre turns to Tamlin.

“I love you,” I said. “No matter what she says about it, no matter if it’s only with my insignificant human heart. Even when they burn my body, I’ll love you.” My lips trembled, and my vision clouded before several warm tears slipped down my chilled face. I didn’t wipe them away.

Tamlin has zero reaction to this and Feyre is like, well, that’s because he’s so destroyed by the fact that I’m gonna die. Amarantha is like, lol bitch, we won’t even have to burn you because there won’t be anything left.

I stared at her long and hard. But her words were not met with jeers or smiles or applause from the crowd. Only silence.

It was a gift that gave me courage, that made me bunch my fists, that made me embrace the tattoo on my arm. I had beaten her until now, fairly or not, and I would not feel alone when I died. I would not die alone. It was all I could ask for.

Oh wow, they’re all on Feyre’s side now! She’s their hero!

Hey, wait. Wouldn’t they want to keep up the charade of hating her and wanting her to fail? You know, just in case she fucking fails? Because what happens if Feyre dies and they’ve all just given Amarantha the “you can’t sit with us!” treatment?

I guess in a world where the heroine’s victory is assured, the actions and motivations of the people around her aren’t that important. They can all just behave as though they’re also aware of the outcome and not worried about other possibilities.

Amarantha propped her chin on a hand. “You never figured out my riddle, did you?” I didn’t respond, and she smiled. “Pity. The answer is so lovely.” 

And despite Amarantha giving Feyre a clue that’s two letters off from the actual answer to the riddle, Feyre just plows ahead with the third task.

So, what ends up happening is, three fairies with sacks over their heads kidnapping-style are brought into the hall and made to kneel in front of Feyre.

Amarantha clapped her hands again, and three servants clad in black appeared at the side of each of the kneeling faeries. In their long, pale hands, they each carried a dark velvet pillow. And on each pillow lay a single polished wooden dagger. Not metal for a blade, but ash. Ash, because—

At this point, we all know that ash kills fairies, but once again, Maas decides that we’re all too stupid to understand what’s happening here. All Feyre had to do was say, “Not metal for a blade, but ash,” and we understand that these are fairy-killing weapons. But nope. Sarah cannot resist a “the poison for Kuzco. Kuzco’s poison” explanation, even when it comes at the expense of a nice beat.

The very existence of ash weapons in Under the Mountain tickles me because it reminds me of one of the multiple episodes of American Dad! where they die. At some point, we learn that there is such a thing as heaven guns that can kill angels, and a guy in a crowd yells, “Why do we have those again?”

Feyre’s final task is to kill the three fairies.

“They’re innocent—not that it should matter to you,” she went on, “since it wasn’t a concern the day you killed Tamlin’s poor sentinel. And it wasn’t a concern for dear Jurian when he butchered my sister. But if it’s a problem … well, you can always refuse. Of course, I’ll take your life in exchange, but a bargain’s a bargain, is it not? If you ask me, though, given your history with murdering our kind, I do believe I’m offering you a gift.”

Now, I’m sitting here thinking, no, that’s not a problem because Amarantha has already slaughtered Clare and her family, right? Feyre could just be like, “Sure, let’s do this, we’re even,” frankly, and walk away with her hands clean.

But that would mean Feyre wouldn’t get a chance to struggle with the choice of being a hero and the Abrahamic concept of punishment for one’s wicked deeds, which is now the theme of the next few pages.

Refuse and die. Kill three innocents and live. Three innocents, for my own future. For my own happiness. For Tamlin and his court and the freedom of an entire land.

At what point did this go from Feyre trying to free Tamlin and the Spring Court and Feyre being the sole savior of all Prythian? Rhysand says that Tamlin’s going to kill Amarantha after the curse is broken, but there’s still that king over in Hybern. At no point has Feyre ever been fighting for the liberation of all fairies, until right now, the climax of the book.

You might be thinking, “You’re right, Jenny, that is a very bad, infuriating, totally unfounded twist.” But this isn’t the twist. We’ll get there.

It was cold-blooded murder—the murder of them, of my very soul.

She’s so worried about the salvation of her soul that:

I wished I knew the name of one of our forgotten gods so that I might beg them to intercede, wished I knew any prayers at all to plead for guidance, for absolution.

Their religion has been lost to the ages, but not the part they had about souls and absolution and all that.

But I did not know those prayers, or the names of our forgotten gods—[…]

Just in case you missed the paragraph directly above this sentence, where Feyre says she wished she knew the names of the forgotten gods or any prayers to them. Sarah needs to explain this to us because she and Feyre are the smartest people in the room.

Feyre figures that the number of people she’s supposed to kill is less than the number of people she’s going to save from slavery (no joke, the word “enslaved” is used), so she has to kill them.

These deaths would not be wasted—even if it would damn me forever.

Again, a concept of damnation, but no religion? Doesn’t make sense. Makes zero sense. And I’m not saying, “Oh, if you don’t believe in god you don’t know better than to kill people and it wouldn’t bother you.” I’m just saying that if you’re building a fantasy world, at least go to any length at all to complete the worldbuilding. If there is no religion, there can be no hell, no soul, no damnation. If you want those concepts to exist, you have to make them exist. You can’t just be like, yeah, everyone forgot about the gods and religion has been gone for centuries and then shove a bunch of religious thinking into it.

At least we get an answer as to why they have heaven guns. I mean, ash knives.

There were three daggers, because she wanted me to feel the agony of reaching for that knife again and again. Wanted me to mean it.

Feyre is a super good hunter, right? Amazing aim and all that?

Why not grab a dagger and fling it at Amarantha?

Because then we wouldn’t get to read about Feyre killing each fairy! ed.—Also, because then our female main character destroys the villain, which is unacceptable, as that is rescuing herself and not as sexy and romantic as being rescued by someone else. They pull the bag off the first one’s head and he pleads with Feyre for his life.

His eyes were the color of a sky I’d never see again if I refused to kill him, a color I’d never get out of my mind, never forget no matter how many times I painted it.

Did you know Feyre is a painter? The author recently remembered this. Unfortunately.

Though Feyre hears someone weeping in the crowd and she does take a second to think that hey, she’s killing someone’s loved one, the stakes are too high.

I couldn’t think about it, couldn’t think about who he was, or the color of his eyes, or any of it. Amarantha was grinning with wild, triumphant glee. Kill a faerie, fall in love with a faerie, then be forced to kill a faerie to keep that love. It was brilliant and cruel, and she knew it.

“If I tell the reader that this is brilliant, they must believe it.” No, that’s not how this works. Because it makes no sense and will make less sense later.

Rhysand is there, by the way. This would be a perfect time for Rhysand to like, magically appear beside it and stab Amarantha but he just stands by the throne and watches this all go down. He even makes Feyre’s hand tingle to signal that she should kill the doomed fairy.

“Please!” His voice rose to a shriek.

The sound jarred me so much that I lunged.

Yeah, so she kills the dude. She kills him and then staggers backward and drops the knife and there’s all this stuff about how she feels numb and disconnected from her body and how could she have done this and the blood, the blood, the blood, etc.

The next fairy to go is a woman who sits there and prays while Feyre feels sorry for herself. The entire chapter kind of gives the impression that somehow Feyre has it worse than the people she’s killing.

Silent tears slid down my face and neck, where they dampened the filthy collar of my tunic. As she spoke, I knew I would be forever barred from that immortal land. I knew that whatever Mother she meant would never embrace me. In saving Tamlin, I was to damn myself.

More with the damnation, now with the added fear of not going to heaven. In a world where Feyre was never, ever religious because there is no religion.

But yeah, don’t you just love the vibe? This chick is sobbing and praying because she’s going to get stabbed in the heart and Feyre is like, yeah but this is really hard for me.

Here is a selection of other religious references in this section:

“Let me pass through the gates; let me smell that immortal land of milk and honey.”

Revelations 21:21, Exodus 3:8

“Let me fear no evil,” […]

Psalm 23:4

“Let me enter eternity.”

So much of the Bible. Just so, so many parts. ed.—I was absolutely stunned when I learned that Maas is Jewish, because the Christianity in this book is overwhelming.

This fairy actually like, nods at Feyre to indicate it’s okay to kill her. Hey… this is a neat trick. Feyre killed the first fairy because Rhysand was making her hand tingle and then the guy’s begging for his life startled her into stabbing him. Now, the second fairy is silently urging Feyre to kill her.

Isn’t it convenient that other people are responsible for these actions? Like, it’s not enough that Amarantha is responsible for putting Feyre in this situation, Feyre also can’t act on her impulses and make these decisions herself. She has to be nudged into them because Feyre cannot have flaws.

As I lifted the ash dagger, something inside me fractured so completely that there would be no hope of ever repairing it. No matter how many years passed, no matter how many times I might try to paint her face.

Did… did George W. Bush write this?

It would be more honorable to refuse—to die, rather than murder innocents. But … but …

We don’t get to the “but” before Feyre knifes this fairy. Can you imagine if she just decided to stop there? Like, sure, she’s already killed one fairy and now his family is still doomed to an eternity under Amarantha’s rule because Feyre gave up. Obviously, that’s not what happens but just the fact she was entertaining the idea is kinda hilarious.

One faerie—and then we were free. Just one more swing of my arm.

And maybe one more after that—maybe one more swing, up and inward and into my own heart.

I mean, if you’re taking feedback, Feyre, I think that would be a swell idea.

It would be a relief—a relief to end it by my own hand, a relief to die rather than face this, what I’d done.

Rather than to die by em dashes, which is definitely how I’m going to die before the end of this book. Crushed to death in a pile of strikingly unnecessary em dashes.

I tried to search for em dashes in my Kindle app and the fan on my laptop sped up like a helicopter lifting off and everything froze and I never learned how many em dashes are in this book but I learned my lesson about trying to find out.

Anyway, they take the hood off the next fairy and oh my gasp, it’s Tamlin.

I whipped my head to the throne beside Amarantha’s, still occupied by my High Lord, and she laughed as she snapped her fingers. The Tamlin beside her transformed into the Attor, smiling wickedly at me.

“Oh, so that’s the twist,” you’re thinking to yourself. “The Attor has never displayed any kind of shape-shifting abilities before, yet here he is, shape shifting. Yeah, that’s sloppy.”

Nope. That’s not the twist. It gets worse than simply adding vague powers onto random characters 92% into the book.

Feyre is like, that’s not fair.

“Fair?” Amarantha mused, playing with Jurian’s bone on her necklace. “I wasn’t aware you humans knew of the concept. You kill Tamlin, and he’s free.” Her smile was the most hideous thing I’d ever seen. “And then you can have him all to yourself.”

What the fuck did I say? What did Alis say? Don’t make deals with fairies without being real, really specific.

“Unless,” Amarantha went on, “you think it would be more appropriate to forfeit your life. After all: What’s the point? To survive only to lose him?” Her words were like poison. “Imagine all those years you were going to spend together … suddenly alone. Tragic, really. Though a few months ago, you hated our kind enough to butcher us—surely you’ll move on easily enough.” She patted her ring. “Jurian’s human lover did.”

Hey, you know what doesn’t make any god damn sense? Amarantha wanted to prove that Feyre, like Jurian, can’t love a fairy. To disprove Amarantha’s assumption, Feyre has to… do exactly what Jurian did and kill the fairy she claims to love.

How does that work? Even from a “ha ha, I tricked you with my wily fae deal” standpoint, it doesn’t. Maybe if Feyre made that connection, maybe if she thought something along the lines of wow, there’s no way for me to win at all, here, because if I kill Tamlin I lose the wager automatically because it will be proof that I’m treacherous and faithless like Jurian.

Or maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand these twists and turns.

Oh, speaking of twists? Tamlin being under the hood and this whole deal with Feyre having to kill him? That’s not the twist. We’re getting close.

Kill him and save his court and my life, or kill myself and let them all live as Amarantha’s slaves, let her and the King of Hybern wage their final war against the human realm. There was no bargain to get out of this—no part of me to sell to avoid this choice.

I cannot believe that I’m meant to sit here and think that if Feyre kills Tamlin, that somehow is gonna prove she loves him and wouldn’t betray him the way Jurian betrayed wasserfuck. The point is to prove her love to break the curse, right? That’s still this book, right? We didn’t start a new one and it just slipped my mind?

Also, as I stated before… the King of Hybern can still wage war on the human realm. Defeating Amarantha only defeats someone who was actively standing in his way.

Good news! We’ve arrived at the Horrible Twist.

Alis—Alis had said something … something to help me. A final part of the curse, a part they couldn’t tell me, a part that would aid me … And all she’d been able to do was tell me to listen. To listen to what I’d heard—as if I’d already learned everything I needed.

Think back over the whole book. Think really hard. What stands out to you from all the conversations Feyre has overheard? Look for the foreshadowing. Really, really hard. Search for it.

Here’s the twist: Feyre realizes that every time she overheard a conversation, it was on purpose. Tamlin wanted her to overhear the stuff he was talking about because he was having conversations specifically where she could overhear. And then she remembers that Alis told her there was a part of the curse nobody could tell her. 

Milady makes no bargains that are not advantageous to her.

She would never kill what she desired most—not when she wanted Tamlin as much as I did. But if I killed him … she either knew I couldn’t do it, or she was playing a very, very dangerous game.

Conversation after conversation echoed in my memory, until I heard Lucien’s words, and everything froze. And that was when I knew.

What do you know, Feyre?!

I couldn’t breathe, not as I replayed the memory, not as I recalled the conversation I’d overheard one day. Lucien and Tamlin in the dining room, the door wide open for all to hear—for me to hear.

“For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days.”

Then she also remembers the Attor saying:

“Though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin,” the Attor said, “you certainly keep a host of fear inside it.”

Amarantha would never risk me killing him—because she knew I couldn’t kill him.

Not if his heart couldn’t be pierced by a blade. Not if his heart had been turned to stone.

That’s the big twist. That’s the big old twist predicated entirely on two lines of dialogue. That was the foreshadowing you got.

Now, we’re all supposed to go, oh my gosh, what amazing, intricate plotting, this author is truly a genius and a master of the storytelling craft.

Perhaps I was wrong—perhaps it was just a faerie turn of phrase. But all those times I’d held Tamlin … I’d never felt his heartbeat. I’d been blind to everything until it came back to smack me in the face, but not this time.

Wait, what? What does that mean, “not this time?”

That was how she controlled him and his magic. How she controlled all the High Lords, dominating and leashing them just as she kept Jurian’s soul tethered to that eye and bone.

Probably the most infuriating part of this section is that Alis straight up mentioned this in her pages and pages of expository monologue. She said that when the High Lords were “prone” Amarantha took their powers “from where they originated inside their bodies.” But that never gets brought up at this point! THE ONE THING THAT MAKES THIS TWIST SLIGHTLY LESS FLIMSY IS NEVER, EVER MENTIONED.

Trust no one, Alis had told me. But I trusted Tamlin—and more than that, I trusted myself. I trusted that I had heard correctly—I trusted that Tamlin had been smarter than Amarantha, I trusted that all I had sacrificed was not in vain.

…like, do you trust ALIS thought? You left her off that list.

Feyre picks up the knife and she sees that Tamlin and her are somehow on the same page because he has a little bit of a smile. She suddenly believes in fate (apparently, Feyre not believing in fate has been a major theme in this book and it’s being wrapped up? I looked back and couldn’t find evidence of that, but whatever) and tells Tamlin she loves him and stabs him in the heart.

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 42 or “The Incredible Vanishing Worldbuilding”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

TW: Just tons of the author justifying why sexual assault is okay, as long as it’s for a good reason.

*Sorry this is posting late! I had it scheduled but I scheduled it for the wrong week and didn’t realize that it hadn’t posted on Saturday! ed.—In 2023, it’s a Wednesday!

We’re in the home stretch. But the home stretch feels longer and longer with every step.

Quick note, I’m typing all the excerpts in by hand, not copy/pasting, so any errors are mine unless I specifically point them out. This is important especially because my laptop’s E key is fucked up and shit happens. ed.—it’s still fucked up. I guess I should get on fixing that.

Chapter forty-two opens with Feyre not being properly feted for the thing she has spent two chapters insisting she’s going to fail at:

It was a party like any other—even if it would likely be my last. Faeries drank and lounged and danced, laughing and singing bawdy and ethereal songs. No glimmer of anticipation for what might occur tomorrow—what I stood to alter for them, for their world. Perhaps they knew I would die, too.

If there is a way to make Feyre more insufferable, Maas will find it. The fairies are cruel to her, she knows her mission is futile, correct me if I’m wrong but I believe she even considered the possible consequences for the fairies if she doesn’t pull off this third task, and yet now she’s whining that they’re not grateful enough to her or something because the party isn’t about her.

I was clothed in my typical attire, tattooed from the neck down with that blue-black paint.

That’s not what it means to be tattooed.

Tonight my gossamer gown was a shade of sunset pink, the color too bright and feminine against the whorls of paint on my skin.

You heard it here: tattoos are in direct contrast with—and let me go ahead and re-read that just to be sure—femininity.

We’ll go with that.

Rhysand was taking longer than usual to summon me—though it was probably because of the supple-bodied faerie perched in his lap, caressing his hair with her long greenish fingers. He’d tire of her soon.

I love the way Feyre is illogically threatened by any non-servant woman she encounters. The Not Like Other Girls that is just radiating from a brief mention of this fae hoe is truly a work of art.

Feyre mentions that she doesn’t even look at Amarantha and that everyone ignores Feyre’s presence but… that seems awfully convenient, doesn’t it? She’s been the nightly court entertainment while roofied for weeks now. She’s about to do this big, spooky task that will definitely kill her. Why would this night be the night everyone ignores her?

Spoiler: it’s so the scene will work.

I was so intent on anticipating Rhysand’s order to serve him that I didn’t notice that someone stood beside me until the heat from his body leaked onto mine.

I went rigid when I smelled that rain and earthen scent, and didn’t dare to turn to Tamlin. We stood side by side, staring out at the crowd, as still and unnoticeable as statues.

Which I don’t buy, frankly. Amarantha has kept Tamlin right by her side this entire time. She’s obsessed with him. She’s imprisoning his entire court to get him to fuck her. And she’s not going to notice when he goes across the room to hang out with her competition?

But that’s exactly what happens. In fact, they’re able to sneak off together without a single fairy noticing them. Not even Amarantha, whom they walk past.

I could scarcely breathe as I moved nearer and nearer to the door, past Amarantha’s dais, past a group of giggling faeries … Tamlin disappeared through the door quick as lightning, and I slowed my steps to a meandering pace. These days no one really paid attention to me until I became Rhys’s drunk plaything.

Oh wow, that’s super convenient, isn’t it? I’m glad that happened and I’m glad that Amarantha has clearly lost all interest in not just Feyre, but also Tamlin, and he and Feyre can both just act casual and escape Amarantha’s notice. This is very much a realistic scenario given the details we’ve already read.

So, they go through this door and start ripping each other’s clothes off up against a wall.

I’m sorry, did you expect that he was trying to rescue her? That he was going to get her out of Under The Mountain so she wouldn’t die trying to save him? Nah, he just wanted to fuck her one last time.

Our tongues danced—not a waltz or a minuet, but a war-dance, a death dance of bone drums and screaming fiddles.

Brush your teeth then, idk what to tell you.

Just as Feyre is about to get Tamlin’s dick out, who should discover them but Rhysand? He points out all the paint smudged on Feyre because somehow she just didn’t think that part through. Probably from the horniness.

Wouldn’t it be hotter if they’d snuck off alone together and were just about to start ripping each other’s clothes off when they realize they can’t because of the paint? The sexual tension would have been… Well, hopefully, it would have been better.

Rhysand does the whole smarmy villain thing about oh, Amarantha would be so displeased to see her pet doing this or whatever. He mentions how the consequences could fall on Lucien and his other eye, which makes Tamlin step away from Feyre. Rhysand tells Tamlin to fix his clothes and take a hike, and Tamlin makes the paint smudges disappear from his skin and clothes, leading me to wonder yet again… what’s the fucking point of the paint? How would Rhysand ever know who touched Feyre if they can just make the paint disappear?

I feel like the point of the paint is simply “Sarah J. Maas watched The Mummy on TBS while writing this.”

Rhysand tells Feyre that if she’s so horny, she should have just mentioned it and he would have gotten her off, and Feyre does her usual thing where she calls him a name in outraged defiance and he reacts exactly the way we expect the male characters in this book to react:

With a few easy steps, he crossed the distance between us and pinned my arms to the wall. My bones groaned. I could have sworn shadow-talons dug into th stones beside my head. “Do you actually intend to put yourself at my mercy, or are you truly that stupid?” His voice was composed of sensuous, bone-breaking ire.

Sensuous. BONE-BREAKING. Ire.

It’s SENSUOUS that he could snap her bones. It’s SENSUOUS that he’s so furious with her.

This. This is the reason I will not be continuing to spork the series. The casual sexing-up of violence against the female main character can only ramp up at this point. I do not trust at all that it will somehow be rectified or discontinued. I learned my lesson from those awful books with the monochrome title.

“You’re a fool, Feyre. Do you have any idea what could have happened had Amarantha found you two in here? Tamlin might refuse to be her lover, but she keeps him at her side out of the hope that she’ll break him—dominate him, as she loves to do with our kind.”

First of all, “our kind?” Is Amarantha not a fae? Is this the clumsy groundwork for an unimpressive twist later in the series? Because I’ve skimmed to the end of this book and I never saw it come up that she’s not one of their “kind.”

Second, isn’t it TERRIBLE the way this FEMALE BITCH is DOMINATING all these DEFENSELESS MEN?! It should be the other way around! With men pushing women against walls and biting them or drugging them and sexually humiliating them in front of crowds. You know. In the sensuous way. The male way.

“You’re both fools,” he murmured, his breathing uneven. “How did you not think that someone would notice you were gone? You should thank the Cauldron Lucien’s delightful brothers weren’t watching you.”

Yeah, super lucky they weren’t. Otherwise, this scene couldn’t have possibly happened.

“What do you care?” I barked, and his grip tightened enough on my wrists that I knew my bones would snap with a little more pressure.

What is it with Rhysand and bone torture? Everything is about bones with this guy.

Anyway, he’s mad that she would even question why he cares whether she lives or dies and like… my bro. This is a valid question. But obviously, he still turns himself into the scary monster version of him because male reaction to any kind of emotion toward Feyre is always intense to the point of violence. That’s just how desirable she is.

But before he could go on, his head snapped to th door, then back to my face. The wings vanished as quickly as they had appeared, and then his lips were crushing into mine. His tongue pried my mouth open, forcing himself into me, into the space where I could still taste Tamlin. I pushed and thrashed, but he held firm, his tongue sweeping over the roof of my mouth, against my teeth, claiming my mouth, claiming me—

Is this a kissing scene or a dental exam scene?

The door was flung wide, and Amarantha’s curved figure filled its space.

LOL did Feyre just call Amarantha fat?

Tamlin—Tamlin was beside her, his eyes slightly wide, shoulders tight as Rhys’s lips still crushed mine.

Now, you can probably guess the reason why this scene is happening, right? Feyre’s got that magic paint all over her and it’s smudged and there’s got to be a way to explain that, right? That was my first thought, and then I was like, “But Jenny, the paint can magically go back to the way it was,” and then I was like, “I’m sure that doesn’t matter.”

But something sparked in the queen’s eyes as she looked at Rhysand. Amarantha’s whore, they’d called him.

That’s right. Amarantha is jealous of Feyre for stealing two of her men. She declares that she knew this would happen and that all humans are the same.

I kept my mouth shut, even as I could have died for shame, even as I ached to explain. Tamlin had to realize the truth.

Raise your hand if you know, deep in your heart, that Tamlin is the one who snitched on her in the first place and he did it without any consideration as to what would happen to Feyre  because he wanted to punish Rhysand.

But I wasn’t given the luxury of learning whether Tamlin understood as Amarantha clicked her tongue and turned away, taking her entourage with her. “Typical human trash with their inconsistent, dull hearts,” she said to herself—nothing more than a satisfied cat.

Here’s what I want to know: if the entire trials thing was to prove that Feyre, a human, is actually capable of love…

WHY DOESN’T THIS END THE WHOLE THING?!

The answer is: because the author didn’t remember that a huge part of this bargain hinges on the original curse. The whole premise is that beating these trials will prove Feyre truly loves Tamlin. This seems like it would invalidate the entire agreement.

But more on that later.

It was only when the light hit me that I saw the smudges and smears on my paint—smudges along my breasts and stomach, and the paint that had mysteriously appeared on Rhysand’s hands.

More on THIS later. In Feyre’s cell, which Rhysand sends her back to. After a section break, Feyre notes that she’s unaware of what time it is, and it struck me how often scenes in Feyre’s cell begin with some statement like, I didn’t know what time it was but it must have been days, or something similar. It’s profoundly repetitive but it didn’t strike me until right now.

Anyway, Rhysand shows up in Feyre’s cell all dishevelled and exhausted because Amarantha has been riding him like a mechanical pony.

“That damned bitched is running me ragged,” he went on, and dropped his hands from his temples to lean his head against the wall. “You hate me. Imagine how you’d feel if I made you serve in my bedroom. I’m the High Lord of the Night Court—not her harlot.”

Wow, that whole thing does a lot, doesn’t it? He owns her for a week every month and can do whatever he wants with her, is like, hey, at least I don’t rape you, and feels he’s simply too high class to be raped or something.

My head is spinning here. Like a five legged hamster on the world’s finest precision hamster wheel. First of all, the obsession with female-on-male sexual assault in this book is like MRA fanfic. Then, the casual shaming of victims of assault or sexual coercion and trafficking throughout the entire story is astounding. We’ve also got the implication that people of a certain quality don’t deserve to be raped, that it’s somehow worse and more of a violation if a person with a title is raped.

Oh, except for Feyre.

So the slurs were true. And I could imagine very easily how much I would hate him—what it would do to me—to be enslaved to someone like that.

Yeah, she can so imagine what you’re actually going through right now, Rhysand. Like, it’s happening to you, but she knows how bad it is because she can think about it happening to her.

She wants to know why Rhysand is coming to her and blurting all this shit out.

“Because I’m tired and lonely, and you’re the only person I can talk to without putting myself at risk.”

Which, frankly, I do not understand. Amarantha is punishing him with death by snu-snu, apparently, because she’s jealous of Feyre. It seems like there’s a lot of risk involved in talking to her at the moment.

“One wrong move tomorrow, Feyre, and we’re doomed.”

No presh.

“And if you fail,” he went on, more to himself than to me, “then Amarantha will rule forever.”

High Fae by day, motivational speaker by night.

Feyre finally admits that since Amarantha took Tamlin’s power before, there’s nothing stopping her from doing it again.

“He won’t be tricked again so easily,” he said, staring up at the ceiling.

I should certainly fucking hope not! The first time he got tricked was by her inviting him to a party, that he went to despite her attacking all the people who came to the last party. If he falls for that again, I don’t know wtf to think.

“Her biggest weapon is that she keeps our powers contained. But she can’t access them, not wholly—though she can control us through them. It’s why I’ve never been able to shatter her mind—why she’s not dead already. The moment you break Amarantha’s curse, Tamlin’s wrath will be so great that no force in the world will keep him from splattering her on the walls.”

I see a lot of praise for this world’s intricate worldbuilding and I think I finally understand where those rave reviews have come from. People confused vague details with exciting twists. There hasn’t been a single moment throughout this book at which point the control Amarantha has over the High Fae is clear. She took their powers. Nope, she left them some. Also, she can control them with their powers. Also, she still made a bargain to relinquish that control so that they can kill her immediately.

These are not twists. These are convenient instances of slapping bandaids over plot holes that are gushing inconsistency.

But if you really want to see some logic hoops that must be sommersaulted through, while both the hoops and the sommersaulter are on fire, it’s time to learn why Rhysand has been drugging and doing Cauldron knows what to Feyre.

“[…] Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against her. Seeing you enter into a fool’s bargain with Amarantha was one thing, but when Tamlin saw my tattoo on your arm … Oh, you should have been born with my abilities, if only to have felt the rage that seeped from him.”

See? All this possessive, rapey stuff he’s doing is actually necessary to defeat Amarantha.

Of course, he could just help Feyre beat the final task, like she beat the second one, and not have to do all this pervy, violating shit to her. But then this wouldn’t be SPICY.

Feyre points out that all that pervy, violating shit actually puts Rhysand in danger because Tamlin will kill him, too. Rhysand is like:

“Feyre, for Cauldron’s sake. I drug you, but you don’t wonder why I never touch you beyond your waist or arms?”

Yeah. For Cauldron’s sake, Feyre. He drugs you, but he only touches you in a couple places while you’re blacked out.

“It’s the only claim I have to innocence,” he said, “the only thing that will make Tamlin think twice before entering into a battle with me that would cause a catastrophic loss of innocent life. It’s the only way I can convince him that I was on your side. Believe me, I would have liked nothing more than to enjoy you—but there are bigger things at stake than taking a human woman to my bed.”

Thank god he still wants to fuck Feyre. My biggest fear was that a male character in this book wouldn’t be totally entranced by her. That kind of happened with Captain Barnfuck in that earlier chapter and I almost passed out.

I don’t have to point out that this whole “I paint you and drug you because I’m actually just trying to save my people” thing doesn’t make any sense, right? Everyone is on that page with me already? The evidence provided by the smeared paint still means nothing because he can magic it right back. He’s leaving smudges on her practically naked body but only in places that apparently it’s chaste to touch someone’s practically naked body while they’re drugged? Tamlin is going to look at the smudged paint and go, well, this is all on the up because you only touched my drugged, naked girlfriend’s waist and arms and not her boobies, so I won’t fight for her?

And Rhysand doesn’t seem so good at risk analysis. He wants to goad Tamlin into some kind of violent, sexually jealous frenzy so that he’ll murder Amarantha and everyone will be saved. But Rhysand also acknowledges that if it goes wrong and Tamlin doesn’t believe that Rhysand was on Feyre’s side, there will be a catastrophic loss of innocent life. 

The entire Rhysand-sexually-humiliates-Feyre-for-the-good-of-all-mankind thing falls completely apart when you realize that it hinges entirely on Tamlin caring more about Feyre than every single innocent life destroyed by Amarantha before Feyre got there. The implication is that unless Feyre is violated, Tamlin won’t be mad enough about all the other shit Amarantha did and he’ll just be fine letting her live.

On top of that, we also learn that Rhysand’s father killed Tamlin’s father and brothers.

“It’s a long story, and I don’t feel like getting into it, […]”

Oh, thank god. But don’t you love that a crucial piece of characterization and world-building happened and the author was like, eh, don’t feel like expanding on that? Rhysand does sum things up by saying well, Amarantha wanted to punish the son of her friend’s murderer but that line still absolutely killed me.

Hey. Just a little thought here. Probably not important but…

If Rhysand killed Tamlin’s father and brothers, what sense does it make to then drug and sexually exploit Tamlin’s girlfriend in an attempt to escape Tamlin’s wrath?

Feyre realizes that Rhysand kissed her because he knew Amarantha was about to discover them. Then, Feyre also realizes that Rhysand didn’t force her up against the wall and grope her because he’s a bad guy. He did it for her own good!

If he hadn’t been kissing me, if he hadn’t shown up and interrupted us, I would have gone out into that throne room covered in smudged paint. And everyone—especially Amarantha—would have known what I’d been up to. It wouldn’t have taken much to figure out whom I’d been with, especially not once they saw the paint on Tamlin.

1. Tamlin made the paint disappear from his clothes. We’ve known a long time that he can get stains off his clothes with magic.

2. Rhysand can make the paint magically unsmudge.

3. Amarantha did see what you were up to. With Rhysand.

Regardless of his motives or his methods, Rhysand was keeping me alive. And he had done so even before I set foot Under the Mountain.

I read that and went, “What the fuck is she talking about? Before?” and then I realized that she’s giving Rhysand credit for saving her by taking Clare instead.

Rhysand tells Feyre that she should try to find a way to use all this information against him. He starts to fade away, only for Feyre to stop him by telling him that when her arm was hurt, she would have given up every week of the year for him to heal it, and he’s like, “I know,” and the chapter ends.

The infuriatingly, unbelievably awful chapter is finished.

UPDATE

Hey, everybody. Bear with me. I might be scattered.

Yesterday, I had a really unpleasant encounter with someone. I don’t mean like a stranger. This is a person who I have personal conflict with, but whom I occasionally work with in a volunteer organization. I don’t like this person, but I work with them and I don’t antagonize them. I did make a serious complaint about her behavior in 2017, but the leadership in charge at that time didn’t move on it, so I moved on when the new leadership came in and let bygones be bygones.

I still don’t have to like this person.

But yesterday, this person confronted me during a board meeting. She had a prepared statement about the disrespect I constantly show her.

I don’t smile.

I don’t make eye contact.

I don’t say hello every time I see her.

This individual is aware that I’m autistic. She wrote a prepared statement about behaviors I cannot control and presented it as me being intentionally “hostile” and “threatening.” She demanded to know why I don’t like her.

Did you know that if a neurotypical person asks you this question, they’re not actually wanting to know the answer? I learned that yesterday.

Also, I said, “I’m not obligated to like you,” which, judging from the noise that came out of her and the weird expression on her face, nobody has told the neurotypicals this piece of information before. I truly believe yesterday was the day that she learned people don’t have to unfailingly love her.

On top of being autistic, I have C-PTSD. A lot of people on the spectrum have both, due to how we were treated, even by well-meaning people, in our childhoods. This woman lost total control, shrieking at me, shouting over me, leaping to wild accusations. After being asked by the leadership several times, she finally stopped long enough for me to respond to her accusations, which I managed to do calmly. Then, I left the meeting.

I came home feeling fine-ish. I was aware that the incident had triggered my C-PTSD, and that I was in fight, flight, freeze response. I could rationalize every symptom, because they were all physical. I had the mental stuff on lock because, well… it’s easier when you don’t care about the person who’s been screaming at you. I didn’t internalize it as my own failing, and honestly she looked like a full spectacle while she was ranting about childish shit, demanding that I justify why I don’t like her, why I don’t have to like her, how I treat her so disrespectfully. She weirdly insinuated that I was racist towards white people. It was truly the most Jennie Jones, Jerry Springer, Dr. Phil fuckery and I laughed about it while describing it. She looked so ridiculous. She sounded ridiculous. She contradicted herself constantly, claiming not to have ever met me before 2022, then claiming to have objected to things I did in 2021. It was all so transparently bullshit that, frankly, if anyone believed her lies, it was because they preferred that to confronting the person she really is. She was out of control and looked like a fucking caricature. She was so unwound, like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum at a grocery store, that all I could on the way to my car was laugh at her.

I wish I would have laughed in her face, in hindsight. I mean, I was already disrespecting her by living, right? I should have just laughed at her the way I wanted to, because she did look truly comical in her impotent rage.

I’m not laughing now. I’m angry now. I’m angry because even though I can break my symptoms down and go, “This is the reason I’m feeling these things,” I can’t not feel them. I can’t turn them off. As a result of the interaction and the chemicals PTSD releases in the brain, I could not sleep. At least, not deeply. My muscles are cross-fit sore from trembling that I could not control, even though I feel like the entire interaction was absurd. Sitting hurts. Lying down hurts. Standing hurts. Even though it’s been over twelve hours, I’m still shaking and experiencing involuntary movements.

The mental effects are starting to catch up to me, as well. I want to lash out now. I want to inflict my rage on someone. I want to burn bridges and ruin established relationships and make everyone hurt the way my body hurts, and the way it hurts to be triggered by being shouted and pointed at, talked down to, and scolded for behavior caused by a disorder I can’t control. I want to call people up and scream at them, “This person claims to understand kids on the spectrum, claims to have all this expertise in ‘dealing with them,’ but feels like I’m disrespecting her because I’m autistic?”

That was the worst part. The scolding me for not masking well enough. It was a flashback to childhood. To every time I’ve been chastised and humiliated for breaking a social contract I was never informed about. That’s what the trigger was, and she pulled it hard.

And even though the incident was small, it’s affecting me badly. I need to take some time off. I can’t say how long. I haven’t been this seriously triggered since my massive breakdown in 2019. I don’t want another massive breakdown. I don’t want to have to rebuild everything. And I definitely don’t want that infected cunt lesion of an alleged “person” to affect my life. But having someone jabbing their finger at you four feet from your body does trigger you, whether you know you’re safe or not. I’m not well. I’m not sure when I will be. So, this is a long-winded way of saying I’m taking a sudden, unexpected, undefined hiatus. The Ogre’s Fairytale Bride will still be posting, because it’s already written. The ACOTAR recaps will keep posting, since they’re also written. I might make videos, to get out of my head a little bit? If I feel like it? Anything else has to wait. I need to focus on my mental health and my brain can’t do a work schedule and heal itself. This may be a week. It might be a month. I don’t know. But you’ll all be the first to know when I come back!

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 41 or “Prythian Heating and Cooling”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

The prompt in this text window was “This box is your blank canvas. Have fun!” Or something like that. This makes me highly doubt the algorithm has paid attention at all to what’s happening here.

What followed the second trial was a series of days that I don’t care to recall.

Me neither, Feyre.

A permanent darkness settled over me, and I began to look forward to the moment when Rhysand gave me that goblet of faerie wine and I could lose myself for a few hours.

Fact: Some people turn to substances during times of crisis.

Fact: Some people are more vulnerable to abuse and manipulation during times of crisis.

Fact: I highly doubt Maas is going to be able to handle this with sensitivity.

It totally checks out that Feyre is traumatized to the point of wanting to, well, check out. It makes sense that after a harrowing, dark night of the soul mortality scare, she may have picked “freeze” out of her threat response options.

I went “fawn” mode until I remembered that Feyre doesn’t seem to internalize Rhysand’s actions as something to fear, which is a whole ‘nother… thing.

I stopped contemplating Amarantha’s riddle—it was impossible.

Congrats to all of us for ascending to our true forms and evolving into beings of sheer possibility.

Feyre is convinced she’s going to die from Amarantha’s third task because there’s no way the fairy queen is going to be like, well, guess you can just win, then. I’ve been thinking about that, actually; I’m not sure we’ve ever heard that if a fairy makes a deal, they absolutely cannot break it. Back when we were told that fairies could lie, all assurances that anyone would honor a deal kinda hit the wall.

The future I’d dreamed of was just that: a dream. I’d grow old and withered, while he would remain young for centuries, perhaps millennia. At best, I’d have decades with him before I died.

This has totally occurred to Feyre before. We read it. And what did she reasonably expect in this dream future? That she would somehow live forever? Did she just find out about human life spans?

Decades. That was what I was fighting for. A flash in time for them—a drop in the pool of their eons.

This would be the perfect place for Feyre to doubt whether or not Tamlin actually wants her to be there to save him, wouldn’t it? She could wonder if it really matters that much to him, knowing that she’s going through this for what will amount to basically days of his life in the grand scheme of things?

Sarah decided not to do that, though.

No, see, what Sarah decided to do was tell us how Feyre feels about…

You already know what I’m going to say.

She tells us how Feyre feels about…

I stopped thinking about color, about light, about the green of Tamlin’s eyes—about all those things I had still wanted to paint and now would never get to.

I did wonder when we were going to hear about painting again, to be honest. I thought maybe she would just, IDK. Never mention it again because the author forgot about it?

I’m going to do a lot of skimming in this next part because it’s pretty clearly setting up a vague sequel. Also, because there isn’t any new information revealed, and the whole scene turns out to be useless, anyway. It’s going to shorten the recap, but there really isn’t anything you’re missing in terms of content. It’s a scene that’s just listening to someone else’s conversation while Feyre runs the usual “ATTOR SCARY!” script at us. Nothing new is established at all, and Feyre openly tells us she’ll do nothing about the information that’s rehashed here.

After the section break, Feyre is being taken by the shadowy servants to get all painted up, and they run into the Attor talking to someone else. Now, remember, the faeries can make Feyre basically invisible, which is convenient because they all hide and listen to the conversation.

One of them covered my mouth with a hand, holding me tightly to her, shadows slithering down her arm and onto mine. She smelled of jasmine—I’d never noticed that before. After all these nights, I didn’t even know their names.

This book is so aggressively heterosexual that it wraps all the way around and goes out the other side. Only a fully straight person could read that and not get the most sapphic of vibes.

Think about it.

Every night, nameless female shadow beings come and tickle Feyre’s nude body, including intimate places, with paintbrushes. Now, one of them is holding her, putting a hand over Feyre’s mouth and entwining their shadows or whatever.

This is basically lesbian erotica, and the author has no clue.

Anyway, the Attor is talking to someone else about how the High King is pissed off that Amarantha is doing this whole trials-and-riddles routine after she fucked up the entire war over Jurian. The king doesn’t really care that Amarantha took Prythian or that she took a bunch of spells from him, but now she isn’t falling in line and backing him up on taking over the world or whatever it is he wants to do.

As I said, it’s all very vague.

What manner of creature was this thing to be so unmoved by the Attor?

IDK, Amarantha isn’t afraid of him. I guess the manner of the creature would be a sexually predacious representation of deeply-rooted internalized misogyny?

There’s more talk and threats about the High King and how mad he is and how Amarantha is so dangerous, etc. But everything they talk about is general: the king is mad, Amarantha doesn’t care because she’s so dangerous, the king is mad, etc. Nothing specific like, “The king plans to march on Prythian in three weeks,” or anything that would establish a clear and looming threat. Yet, despite there being no specific new information revealed, the text insists that this is a pivotal Big Reveal:

Whatever plans the King of Hybern had been working on for these long years—his campaign to take back the mortal world—it seemed he was no longer content to wait. Perhaps Amarantha would soon received what she wanted: destruction of my entire realm.

Do you see what I mean? There are plans, but we don’t know what they are, but we do, and something might happen, but we don’t know when, and maybe the bad guy will win. That whole passage is a vampire hunter’s worst nightmare: not a stake in sight. Nothing in that passage serves to up the tension in any way. Feyre is just hearing two characters rehash stuff she already knows about things that might hypothetically happen.

Those fucking em-dashes. She interrupts the sentence to contradict it. Molto bene.

There was nothing I could do about the King of Hybern, anyway—not while trapped Under the Mountain, not when I hadn’t even been able to free Tamlin, much less myself. And with Nesta prepared to flee with my family, there was no one else to warn. So day after day passed, bringing my third trial ever closer.

The days would have kept on passing even if all that other stuff isn’t true, Feyre. But, in other words: the scene happened for nothing.

Well, not nothing. I have a theory about this.

I was talking to someone last night who read the first two books and stopped because book two in the series very heavily borrowed from Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewels Trilogy and it annoyed them. One of the interesting things they said was that the jump from this book to its sequel felt like starting an entirely different series. I’m not going to find out, but it did make me wonder if this book wasn’t meant to be a stand-alone, and then maybe the publisher requested that it be spun into a series before publication. The lore is pretty slap-dash and then for the next book to basically feel like it’s starting from scratch is… interesting.

But that’s my theory. My theory is that some of these “big reveal” scenes about Hybern and Amarantha’s plans were added in revisions with an eye to expanding this into a series, but no further plotting had been done at that point.

There’s another section break, and Feyre is in her cell. She’s completely broken:

I suppose I sank so far into myself that it took something extraordinary to pull me out again.

Not because she’s being drugged and probably assaulted every night. No, it’s because she almost lost a task because she can’t read.

The literacy thing, I dunno. It’s starting to feel discomfortingly ableist.

I was watching the light dance along the damp stones of the ceiling of my cell—like moonlight on water—when a noise traveled to me, down through the stones, rippling across the floor.

Where is this light coming from? She’s in an underground cell.

Now that I’m thinking of it, how is she seeing “darkness” appear when Rhysand and the shadow people are there? She’s in a cell deep under the mountain. There aren’t windows down there.

At least we know where the music is coming from:

I looked toward the small vent in the corner of the ceiling through which the music entered my cell.

The dungeon conveniently has an HVAC system!

Hey, if Feyre is so clever and resourceful, why hasn’t she considered escaping through the vent? Even if it’s just to note that it’s there and would be too small to escape from?

I’m thinking about how my favorite BookTok-er, MyNameIsMarines, has talked about how people say they like these books because they didn’t have to think while reading them, but that also means that if you think about them even a tiny bit, they fall apart. This is one of those instances where if you’re just flying through the book, brain off, not paying attention, Tamlin’s music coming through this surprise vent would be poignant and romantic. But if you’ve been paying any attention at all to the details, you’re like, “What vent? Why hasn’t she thought about escaping through it? She talks about how tough she is and how she’s always planning her escape all the time, and now there’s a vent we never heard of?”

When Feyre closes her eyes, she can see the music like a painting. Now that Sarah has remembered that her main character was really, really into painting, she’s going to continually remind us, too.

There was beauty in this music—beauty and goodness. The music folded over itself like batter being poured from a bowl, one note atop another, melting together to form a whole, rising, filling me.

The music was so good, it was like eating cake batter? That’s a description I can get behind.

Basically, she has this weird hallucinatory orgasm from the music:

The pulse of the music was like hands that gently pushed me onward, pulling me higher, guiding me through the clouds.

The music makes her see a sunrise, and she remembers how much she wants to see the daylight again, etc, but it’s pretty clear that this is supposed to be sex via fiddle, as well:

I let the sounds ravage me, let them lay me flat and run over my body with their drums. Up and up, building to a palace in the sky, a hall of alabaster and moonstone, where all that was lovely and kind and fantastic dwelled in peace.

This is better sex than when he actually fucked her. Like, how bad in bed is this guy that his fiddle has more sheet game?

The music was Tamlin’s fingers strumming my body; it was the gold in his eyes and the twist of his smile. It was that breathy chuckle, and the way he said those three words. It was this I was fighting for, this I had sworn to save.

The music rose—louder, grander, faster, from wherever it was played—a wave that peaked, shattering the gloom of my cell. A shuddering sob broke from me as the sound faded into silence. I sat there, trembling and weeping, too raw and exposed, left naked by the music and the color in my mind.

Now imagine how hot this would have been and what an impact this intimacy would have made if they hadn’t had that mediocre sex scene way back when.

Wasted. Potential.

Two more days until my final trial. Just two more days and then I would learn what the Eddies of the Cauldron had planned for me.

Now. I don’t want to be a pessimist, okay. I don’t want to ruin your lovely day. But this is chapter forty-one. We’re now a single day away from Feyre’s final trial.

There are forty-seven chapters in this book.

Brace yourself. Thar be bad pacing on the horizon.

With that in mind, starting thinking of the next book we should do here. The summer will fly by and we’ll be done with this one. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR, chapter 40 or “Reading is FUNdamental”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

Is anyone else here old? Does anyone else remember the “Reading is FUNdamental” posters in our classrooms?

I remember the AP English teacher had one of David Bowie. I always felt like I belonged in that class because I loved books and I loved Bowie, but alas. I was a special ed kid.

Anyway,  it’s time for Feyre’s second task.

I’m going to gloss over a lot of repetition in this part. Please don’t hate me. It’s just that it’s what should be a quick, tight, tense scene, but the author stretched it out for nearly an entire chapter.

And if you think that means the pacing of this chapter sucks all the excitement out of it… you’re in exactly the right place. Welcome, friend.

The scene opens in a room that’s not the throne room, it’s smaller than the throne room.

It had no decorations, save for its gilded walls, and no furniture; the queen herself only sat on a carved wooden chair, Tamlin standing behind her.

It had no decorations, except for the fact that the walls are COVERED IN GOLD and there was no furniture EXCEPT FOR THIS FURNITURE.

Didn’t Fifty Shades of Grey have a lot of that going on, too? Something would be “opulent” but then described as being like, super sleek and modern and stark? I feel like that happened, and frankly, I’m starting to understand why people called this Fifty Shades with faeries. The stories aren’t alike at all, but the heroines are obnoxious, everyone thinks they’re smart and amazing when they’re annoying and as bland as unsalted chicken bone broth, plus we get stuff like, “down there” and “this thing was this way, except for that it wasn’t.”

Amarantha announces that Feyre’s second trial is here.

Within the ring, Jurian’s eye turned—turned to face me, its pupil dilating in the dim light.

I feel like I’m being subjected to some A Clockwork Orange-style aversion torture because my stomach roiled—roiled when I saw that em-dash.

Amarantha asks Feyre if she’s solved the riddle yet, and everyone laughs at Feyre because she hasn’t solved the riddle yet and frankly, Feyre, you deserve to be laughed at.

There’s more of the standard Feyre-stares-down-Amarantha-because-Strong-Female-Character, followed by:

But I dared a glance at my High Lord, and found his eyes hard upon me. If I could just hold him, feel his skin for just a moment—smell him, hear him say my name …

WHY THE EM-DASH?!

Amarantha gets jealous that Feyre and Tamlin made eye contact, so she starts the task. The floor sinks into a big pit. Under the Mountain is just riddled with pits. Is it because of the worms?

Some faeries cackled, but I found Tamlin’s stare again and held it until I was lowered so far down that his face disappeared beyond the edge.

And then Rose jumped back on the Titanic.

This pit is all polished and tidy, and there’s a big iron grate bisecting it. On the other side of the grate, Lucien is chained down to the floor for… reasons. I don’t get it, but maybe you will understand as we go on.

The faeries all start betting on whether or not she’ll win, and Amarantha explains that all Feyre has to do is pick the right lever for this puzzle and she wins. And the other two levers will lead to instant doom, via a set of red hot grates in the ceiling that are slowly descending toward her.

I whirled to Lucien. That was the reason for the gate cleaving the chamber in two—so I would have to watch as he splattered beneath, just as I myself was squashed.

I’m not sure that does explain the grate, Feyre. It just seems like an unnecessary step, if you’re both going to get squashed. Why not just, you know. Throw you both in there. Why the chains and metal bars? ed.—In hindsight, it’s because he could help her with the trial. But like…just one of those would do. Both is still overkill.

The spikes, which had been supporting candles and torches, glowed red—and even from a distance, I could see the heat rippling off them.

So, there are people crowded around this hole, and this giant, near-molten set of spikes is slowly descending in front of them? And let’s go back to the gilded walls. Gold melts at like two-thousand degrees and it takes at least a thousand to make iron glow, right? I think? So this is a huge slab of super-heated iron that somehow had candles on it? Is that right? In a room with gold walls? Just a giant, one thousand degrees heating element hanging in there, not melting anything?

Lucien wrenched at his chains. This would not be a clean death.

I don’t know why that line made me laugh, but it did.

A lengthy inscription was carved into its smooth surface, and beneath it were three stone levers with the numbers I, II, and III engraved above them.

The Roman numerals got me, too. I can’t figure out what it is that tickles me so much about them. Like, it’s fantasy, right? It’s not like every fantasy novel has to have entirely different number systems and shit. But somehow, the idea that Feyre is illiterate but still can read Roman numerals as numbers tickles me. As does imagining that maybe this whole fantasy world is here but also there’s Italy. Not fantasy-equivalent Italy. I want to believe that Italy just happened in the ACOTAR cinematic universe. No faeries, no magic powers, just pasta and Catholics as far as the eye can see.

I recognized only basic words—useless ones like the and but and went.

Well, that explains the em-dashes, doesn’t it?

The spiked grate was still descending, now level with Amarantha’s head, and would soon shut off any chance I stood of getting out of this pit.

…what about Lucien? Like, is the plan to get out of the pit and leave him to get smashed?

The heat from the glowing iron already smothered me, sweat starting to bead at my temples.

Keep this sentence in the back of your mind, please.

Feyre is like, who told Amarantha I couldn’t read and I’m thinking…maybe the guy who steals your thoughts?

“Something wrong?” She raised an eyebrow. I snapped my attention to the inscription, keeping my breathing as steady as I could. She hadn’t mentioned reading as an issue—she would have mocked me more if she’d known about my illiteracy. Fate—a cruel, vicious twist of fate.

I mean, I suppose it’s possible that Amarantha doesn’t know about the reading thing. She does, however, know that riddles aren’t Feyre’s strong suit because Feyre didn’t immediately get the answer to that painfully easy riddle earlier. She’s probably assuming Feyre will pull the wrong lever, release the grates, and the whole thing will be over.

Lucien is too far away to read the puzzle on the wall, which I guess explains the grates but not the chains and vice versa. One of them is just overkill. ed.—Oh, I see I did eventually get there. Good for me.

Feyre does point out that Lucien has an “enhanced metal eye,” which answers a question I didn’t really have. I don’t remember Lucien’s eye ever having enhanced capabilities. And if it did, he doesn’t seem to have used them in any part of the plot that was memorable. It makes more sense for him to not have a super-enhanced eye because Amarantha was the one who gave it to him. Why give your enemies more power? That doesn’t make sense.

Feyre alternates thoughts of how she’s going to be smashed with despair over not being able to read the puzzle.

The air became thick and stank of metal—not magic but burning, unforgiving steel creeping toward me, inch by inch.

Is it steel or is it iron? ed.—This is an even more important question because since writing these recaps, I’ve learned that it takes around 1500 degrees to cause steel to glow. Yet, again, candles are on this thing. And the walls aren’t affected.

Lucien decides to be helpful by shouting at the person who can’t read and is panicking.

Through the holes in the grate, I thought I saw Lucien’s eldest brother chuckle. Hot—so unbearably hot.

Weird time to get horny, Feyre.

She tries to sound out the words of the riddle. Words like “grasshopper” and “bouncing,” give her enormous trouble despite the fact that she was reading and writing words like “conflagration” earlier in this book. But as you already know, what happened before doesn’t matter. That was the then times.

Feyre decides to leave it up to a mix of chance and fate. Instead of reading what sounds like a story problem, she decides to assign moral values to the numbers? I guess?

Two. Two was a lucky number, because that was like Tamlin and me—just two people. One had to be bad, because one was like Amarantha, or the Attor—solitary beings. One was a nasty number, and three was too much—it was three sisters crammed into a tiny cottage, hating each other until they choked on it, until it poisoned them.

What in the Doreen Virtue did I just read?

Also, Feyre, I hate to poke holes in your numerology here, but Amarantha lives in a mountain fortress with hundreds of people who are not allowed to leave and who have to party with her every single night for idk, eternity? How long do these people live? Anyway, she’s not a solitary being. Not in the very least.

Feyre decides that this near-incoherent ramble has something to do with being desperate enough to believe in the Cauldron, so she’s going with lever two:

I reached for the second lever, but a blinding pain racked my hand before I could touch the stone. I hissed, withdrawing. I opened my palm to reveal the slitted eye tattooed there. It narrowed. I had to be hallucinating.

By the way, the grate is still descending, it’s still hot, and it’s only six feet away.

I again reached for the middle lever, but the pain paralyzed my fingers.

The eye had returned to its usual state. I extended my hand toward the first lever. Again, pain.

So, it’s not the first lever, then, huh? We’re all on the same page with that?

I reached for the third lever. No pain. My fingers met with stone, and I looked up to find the grate not four feet from my head. Through it, I found a star-flecked violet gaze.

Through your head?

Obviously, the third lever is the right one. Feyre can just pull the lever.

I reached for the first lever. Pain. But when I reached for the third lever …

FEYRE. Pull the fucking lever. It’s so obvious that Rhysand is giving you the answer.

The spikes were so enormous up close. All I had to do was lift my arm above my head and I’d burn the flesh off my hands.

Then perhaps you should PULL THE FUCKING LEVER.

I shook so badly I could scarcely stand. The heat of the spikes bore down on me.

The stone lever was cool in my hand.

Then may I humbly suggest you PULL THE FUCKING LEVER.

I shut my eyes, unable to look at Tamlin, bracing myself for the impact and the agony, and pulled the third lever.

Good job, Feyre, but I’m curious to know how you could see Tamlin, anyway, when you already told us that you locked eyes with him or whatever while you descended until you couldn’t see him anymore.

Silly Jenny, it doesn’t matter if it makes sense. It only matters that it’s dramatic.

But yeah, the grate stops moving because Feyre beat the task. It goes back up to the ceiling and the floor of the pit brings them back up.

Tears burned just before pain seared through my left arm. I would never beat the third task. I would never free Tamlin, or his people. The pain shot through my bones again, and through my increasing hysteria, I heard words inside my head that stopped me short.

Were the words, “Bitch, nothing hurt you?” Because those are the words I’m thinking. There wasn’t any injury or anything, she doesn’t talk about getting burned at any time, and now she’s in such horrible physical shape for apparently no reason?

And what’s this bullshit about how she’s not going to win the next task? She knows now that Rhysand is going to help her.

Oh, and if you’re keeping track, Feyre has yet to beat any of the challenges without help from someone else.

Strong. Capable. Constantly rescued. Feyre is… KICK-ASS HEROINE.

Wouldn’t that be the most boring movie ever?

Feyre is so strong and independent, in fact, that she relies totally on Rhysand communicating with her telepathically to instruct her on what to do next. He has to tell her to stand up and even forces her body to stand “not entirely of my own will,” because she’s just so broken and sad about not being able to read. Rhysand coaches Feyre through an epic staredown and on how to walk away until she’s taken back to her cell.

After a section break, we arrive at Unearned Pity Junction.

I wept for hours. For myself, for Tamlin, for the fact that I should be dead and had somehow survived. I cried for everything I’d lost, every injury I’d ever received, every wound—physical or otherwise. I cried for that trivial part of me, once so full of color and light—now hollow and dark and empty.

…what part are you talking about? I know you said “that trivial part” but like… which part is that? There are so many parts about you that I find useless.

She’d won; it was only by cheating that I’d survived.

Is this the first time you’re realizing that? You didn’t have this crisis when Lucien warned you about the worm, saving your life in the first challenge. You didn’t mind when Rhysand sorted those lentils and Lucien’s mom made the water bucket clean. Now you’re concerned about cheating?

The walls closed in—the ceiling dropped. I wanted to be crushed; I wanted to be snuffed out.

I would love that for you, Feyre.

Rhysand shows up in the middle of Feyre’s panic attack and is like, uh, you’re not dead, why are you crying?

I wept harder, and he laughed. The stones reverberated as he knelt before me, and though I tried to fight him, his grip was firm as he grasped my wrists and pried my hands from my face.

Why did the stones reverberate? How heavy and/or metal is Rhysand?

While Feyre struggles to escape him, Rhysand does this:

I pulled away, but his hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met with my cheek, and he licked away a tear. His tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn’t move as he licked away another path of salt water, and then another. My body went taut and loose all at once and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs. It was only when his tongue danced along the damp edges of my lashes that I jerked back.

This dude is literally just licking her fucking face and she’s like, oh no, no, no, YES YES YES.

Oh, and he’s super pleased with how uncomfortable she is:

He chuckled as I scrambled for the corner of the cell. I wiped my face as I glared at him.

He smirked, sitting down against a wall. “I figured that would get you to stop crying.”

Well, as long as you have a reason, I guess it’s not GROSS AS FUCK TO LICK ON SOMEONE’S FACE.

Feyre tells him that was disgusting. Because licking someone’s face and eyes while they struggle to get away from you is, you know. Disgusting.

“Was it?” He quirked an eyebrow and pointed to his palm—to the place where my tattoo would be. “Beneath all your pride and stubbornness, I could have sworn I detected something that felt differently. Interesting.”

Mystical sexy bonds are 100% my trope. I love it so much. If I’m writing a book with any kind of fantasy in it at all, you’re gonna find telepathic links and soul bonds and destiny and all that shit. I eat it up. And if I’m reading a book and there are fated mates and shit in it? I am THERE.

Except in this book, because Feyre is basically enslaved to him at this point. She’s tattooed to show that she’s his property, he’s free to drug her and force her to sexually humiliate herself in front of an audience every night, he literally owns one week per month of her life. Now, he’s able to tell her that her “no” really means “yes.” There is zero way Feyre is ever going to be able to have a consensual relationship with this, the character she will end up with in book three, I think.

For example:

It was bad enough that my life was forfeited to this Fae lord—but to have a bond where he could now freely read my thoughts and feelings and communicate … 

I’m just saying, this trope gets done a lot better by a lot more authors who never once stop and go, you know what would make this even better? If the heroine experiencing it was enslaved and had no recourse to consent in any situation.

Rhysand makes fun of Feyre for not being able to read and when she calls him a bastard he’s like:

“I’ll have to ask Tamlin if this kind of flattery won his heart.” He groaned as he stood, a soft, deep-throated noise that traveled along my bones. His eyes met with mine, and he smiled slowly. I exposed my teeth, almost hissing.

First of all, he makes a middle-aged person noise when standing and it’s supposed to be sexy? I am a middle-aged person and I don’t find making noise when you stand sexy. It’s just a reminder of my mortality. But I wanna zoom in here on the whole exposed teeth thing. Imagine what that looks like. Imagine what it would look like if someone bared their teeth at you and almost hissed. Go do it in a mirror.

It looks ridiculous, right?

He paused by the door, but didn’t dissolve into darkness. “I’ve been thinking of ways to torment you when you come to my court. I’m wondering: Will assigning you to learn to read be as painful as it looked today?”

This is the endgame love interest mocking the heroine for being illiterate.

Maybe Maas thought that nobody would care about how fucking terrible that is because people who can’t read wouldn’t see this and get offended?

It doesn’t matter, though, because Feyre realizes that all she really needs to get by is to be demeaned by a man:

It took me a while to realize that Rhysand, whether he knew it or not, had effectively kept me from shattering completely.

Yay. It’s a bully “romance”.

We’ve got a bully romance, everyone.

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR, chapter 39 or “Watch your drink”

CW: Sexual assault, drugging

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

Now that Rhysand has intervened, Feyre is getting hot meals regularly.

Stuck in the cell, I had nothing to do but ponder Amarantha’s riddle—usually only to wind up with a pounding headache. I recited it again and again and again but to no avail.

Imagine that riddle giving you a headache.

Now, I’m pretty sure someone said this in a comment because it sounds too smart for me to have come up with it, but looking back through comments, I can’t find it. So, if you were the person who left this comment originally, lemme know. But I’m 98% certain that someone noted in the comments that this could have been good if Maas had done a better job showing the reader that Feyre doesn’t know what love is and hasn’t really experienced it therefore, she shouldn’t have automatically gotten the answer to the riddle. ed.— It was Stormy K: “I guess Feyre’s inability to answer the riddle is thematically appropriate to her character arc, such as it is: she’s grown up without love and doesn’t recognize her love for Tamlin until it’s too late.”

Feyre notes that days have passed and she hasn’t seen anybody.

I was alone—utterly alone, locked in silence—though the screaming in the dungeons still continued day and night.

Okay, Lydia Deetz, but I hate to tell you: constant screaming is THE OPPOSITE OF SILENCE.

What really kills me about some of these painfully bad little tiny parts (like the “alabaster light” radiating from the guy who is pure darkness, for example) is that I just know someone, somewhere, has cited those as examples of how amazing the writing in these books is in their goodreads review.

Feyre has thoughts about her tattoo, as well. Foreshadowy thoughts, like how it reminds her of Jurian and:

Every once in a while, I’d say a few words to the tattoo—then curse myself for a fool. Or curse Rhysand. But I could have sworn that as I dozed off one night, it blinked.

oh wow i wonder if we’re going to find out that he can watch her through the tattoo wow

If I was counting the schedule of my meals correctly, about four days after I’d seen Rhysand in his room, two High Fae females arrived in my cell.

Something about other female characters being described as “females” just… spine crawlies.

These fairies appear in the cell just like Rhysand does, by sort of just coming out of the darkness.

They could have been mutes for all they said to me as they pressed close to my body and we stepped—physically stepped—through the closed door, as if it wasn’t even there.

First of all, I’m pretty sure “mutes” isn’t chill terminology in this century. Second, love the way Feyre/Sarah stops the sentence to make sure all of us understand that stepping is a physical action.

Like I’ve said before, I get the vibe that this is a person with an aching need to be the smartest one in the room. Like, I can imagine if you went to a French restaurant with her, she would explain to you that bread is very common in French cuisine.

The shadow fairies are able to somehow make Feyre invisible or look like a shadow or something. They take her out of the dungeon and to some random room where things get… weirdly sexy with body paint.

Their brushes were unbearably cold and ticklish, and their shadowy grips were firm when I wriggled. Things only worsened when they painted more intimate parts of me, and it was an effort to keep from kicking them in the face. They offered no explanation for why—no hint of whether this was another torment sent by Amarantha.

The thing is, I’m not sure this part is supposed to be sexy? I know that when Rhysand shows up in a minute, it’s supposed to be sexy with him. But Maas writes so much unintentional kink, I can’t help but laugh. Like, this is supposed to be an awful thing that’s happening to humiliate Feyre and it’s like 30% of my favorited stories on Literotica.

From the neck up, I was regal: my face was adorned with cosmetics—rouge on my lips, a smearing of gold dust on my eyelids, kohl lining my eyes—and my hair was coiled around a small gold diadem embedded with lapis lazuli. But from the neck down, I was a heathen god’s plaything. They had continued the pattern of the tattoo on my arm, and once the blue-black paint had dried, they placed on me a gauzy white dress.

What a fucking weird way to end that sentence. “They placed on me a gauzy white dress.” Okay.

If you could call it a dress. It was little more than two long shafts of gossamer, just wide enough to cover my breasts, pinned at each shoulder with gold brooches. The sections flowed down to a jeweled belt slung low across my hips, where they joined into a single piece of fabric that hung between my legs and to the floor. It barely covered me, and from the cold air on my skin, I knew most of my backside was left exposed.

Congrats to Feyre’s outfit for taking up more page real estate than Lucien’s whole entire mom.

Feyre tries to rip the dress off (because that’s somehow going to make her less naked?), and Rhysand appears.

I should have known it was his doing, should have known from the matching designs all over my body.

Yeah, you probably should have. The fact that shadow fairies came to break you out of jail should have probably been a clue. Especially when you noted they specifically appeared the exact way Rhysand had. Oh, and then there was the part where you were like, saying that the faeries absolutely must have been sent from Rhysand. Any of those moments, I guess, could have clued you in, but I’m glad the matching tattoo design cements it.

Feyre points out that their bargain hasn’t started yet, and Rhysand is like, yeah, but I need a date for this party I’m going to. And then:

He waved a hand, and the faerie servants vanished through the door behind him. I flinched as they walked through the wood—no doubt an ability everyone in the Night Court possessed—and Rhysand chuckled. “You look just as I hoped you would.”

This reminds Feyre of the thing Tamlin said to her after they banged but I’m kinda hung up on this “no doubt an ability everyone in the Night Court possessed.” How could she possibly know that? Why would she make that random guess like, well, seen a few of them do it, so obviously they all do. And if they do all have that power…

Why hasn’t Amarantha taken it away?

I find the whole “Amarantha took our powers” thing very fluid, to tell you the truth. Everyone is just working magic all willy-nilly. Rhysand is able to take a prisoner out of the dungeon because he feels like it. Lucien can heal people. It’s… interesting.

And by interesting, I mean not interesting at all.

So, what’s the point of all the paint?

“How else would I know if anyone touches you?”

He approached, and I braced myself as he ran a finger along my shoulder, smearing the paint. As soon as his finger left my skin, the paint fixed itself, returning the design to its original form. “The dress itself won’t mar it, and neither will your movements,” he said, his face close to mine. His teeth were far too near my throat. “And I’ll remember precisely where my hands have been. But if anyone else touches you—let’s say a certain High Lord who enjoys springtime—I’ll know.” He flicked my nose. “And, Feyre,” he added, his voice a caressing murmur, “I don’t like my belongings tampered with.”

Feyre realizes that Rhysand basically thinks he owns all of her time, not just that one week.

Keep that paint thing in mind, though. The part where if Rhysand touches it, it magically goes back to the way it was. We’re gonna talk about that. Whoo buoy, we’re gonna talk.

While Rhysand walks Feyre through the halls of Under the Mountain, she thinks again about how skimpy her dress is and specifically which parts everyone is able to see. It would be disconcerting to walk around feeling so exposed, but I’m already predisposed to hate this book and I think that’s what makes it feel so unnecessary and repetitive. It’s a whole second description of the damn outfit.

Queer, off-kilter music brayed through two stone doors that immediately recognized.

Queer and off-kilter? They’re listening to Tegan and Sara?

They’re at the throne room, and Feyre is like, oh no, anywhere but here. And I gotta say… like, anywhere? Even the worm pit?

When they walk in, Lucien’s brothers give Feyre “vulpine” smiles. That’s a ten-dollar word that means “like a fox.” Get it? Because Lucien wears a fox mask? But it is his brothers who are the true… foxes, I guess.

Rhysand didn’t touch me, but he walked close enough for it to be obvious that I was with him—that I belonged to him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d attached a collar and leash around my neck. Maybe he would at some point, now that I was bound to him, the bargain marked on my flesh.

Honestly? I doubt it. Rhysand appears to be a manifestation of repressed kinkiness, not an actually kinky person who wants to do kinky things, you know? He’s just stumbling around as this chaotic, unaware Dom.

Whispers snaked under the shouts of celebrating, and even the music quieted as the crowd parted and made a path for us to Amarantha’s dais. I lifted my chin, the weight of the crown digging into my skull.

What crown? She was wearing a diadem before. It’s like a headband.

Tamlin was seated beside her on that same throne, in his usual clothing, no weapons sheathed anywhere on him.

Why does she always note that he doesn’t have weapons? He’s a prisoner, jackass. We know he wouldn’t have weapons. Prisoners don’t get weapons. But it’s not even that it’s only being noted Under the Mountain; she’s mentioned a lack of weapons several times throughout the story, and I’ve never quite understood why.

“Merry Midsummer,” Rhysand said, bowing to Amarantha.

Um. Sarah? Ms. Maas? MIDSUMMER AND THE SUMMER SOLSTICE ARE THE SAME THINGS AND YOU JUST HAD MIDSUMMER HAPPEN. In some traditions, Midsummer doesn’t happen right on the solstice, but certainly not weeks or a month after it.

I don’t believe this is a matter of choosing different mythology or following some obscure lore. I think she just didn’t know the difference.

Tamlin’s face was like stone—like stone, save for the white knuckled grip on the arms of his throne.

His face was like stone, except for his knuckles, which were not part of his fucking face, Sarah.

I’d done such a foolish thing in binding myself to Rhysand. Rhysand, with the wings and talons lurking beneath that beautiful, flawless surface; Rhysand, who could shatter minds. I did it for you, I wanted to shout.

You did it for Rhysand, Feyre? Because he’s the only person you mentioned in this paragraph. And you mentioned him a lot.

Rhysand explains to Amarantha that he made that one-week-per-month bargain with Feyre.

“For the rest of her life,” he added casually, but his eyes were now upon Amarantha.

The Faerie Queen straightened a little bit—even Jurian’s eye seemed fixed on me, on Rhysand. For the rest of my life—he said it as if it were going to be a long, long while.

He thought I was going to beat her tasks.

Or, he’s teasing her, making her think he doesn’t believe she’ll win, without any real concern for Feyre. I wish this would occur to her somewhere in all this so that she could appear like, you know. Observant. The riddle certainly isn’t proving her cleverness to me.

Amarantha is just like, okay, enjoy the party, and dismisses them, and Lucien takes Feyre to get some wine.

Alis’s first rule. I shook my head.

What did I fucking say?

He smiled, and extended the goblet again. “Drink. You’ll need it.”

Don’t worry. She’s gonna drink it.

Drink, my mind echoed, and my fingers stirred, moving toward the goblet. No. No, Alis said not to drink the wine here—wine that was different from that joyous, freeing solstice wine. “No,” I said, and some faeries who were watching us from a safe distance chuckled.

“Drink,” he said, and my traitorous fingers latched onto the goblet.

It’s technically not her fault that she drinks it, but… come on. We knew it would happen.

There’s another section break, and Feyre is waking up. She’s super hungover, and we’re treated to descriptions of her throwing up and not being able to sleep because, for some reason, Feyre being sick or injured is super interesting to the author. Then Lucien shows up.

“Shit,” said Lucien. “It’s freezing in here.”

It was, but I was too nauseated to notice.

But… you did notice. You just acknowledged that it’s cold.

I fucking hate this. It’s another one of those moments that feels like Feyre must be right somehow, even if there’s no argument. Lucien could have said it was freezing, then put his cloak over her, which he does in the next paragraph, and we would have gotten the point. There wasn’t any need for Feyre to like, explain to the reader why she hadn’t already noticed it was cold. ed.—This is even more infuriating on my second time around, because I’m noticing it even more. Feyre cannot let anyone be the first to observe something, and if they do, she has to assure the reader that the other character is correct. Like none of the other characters are smart except for her, and we need her to let us know that in her expert opinion it’s okay for us to trust the other character’s observation.

Feyre notes that the body paint is “all intact, save for a few places on my waist,” and remember what I said before about how we were going to talk about the body paint? This is the part where we talk about the body paint. And warning, this is where we’re going to talk about potential sexual assault. Whoo hoo. ed.—We’re also going to talk about the continued “save for” trend, in which Feyre uses some words, then announces that actually those aren’t the words she means. Rooms are empty, “save for” all of the fucking furniture in them. Her body paint is “all intact save for a few places.” Well, that’s not “all,” is it, dipshit?

Feyre doesn’t have any memory of what happened after she drank the wine, and when she asks Lucien he tells her:

Lucien drew back. “I don’t think you want to know.” I studied the few smudges on my waist, marks that looked like hands had held me.

“Who did that to me?” I asked quietly, my eyes tracing the arc of the spoiled paint.

Lucien said that first line of dialogue. I know it could have gone either way, with how it’s buried between two different characters’ actions.

Lucien tells Feyre, “Who do you think?” and she asks if Tamlin saw. Of course, Tamlin saw; Rhysand did it on purpose to get a reaction out of Tamlin and, spoiler, it didn’t work. ed.—”Who do you think?” Well, not Rhysand, since we’ve just been shown that HIS TOUCH DOESN’T CHANGE THE WAY THE PAINT LOOKS. But somehow, Feyre immediately deduced that it was Rhysand because…the paint is messed up. WHAT IN THE UNEDITED FIRST DRAFT.

I knew, at least, that I hadn’t been violated beyond touching my sides. The paint told me that much.

The paint, my darling, tells you nothing of the sort because we saw that Rhysand’s touch doesn’t necessarily alter the paint.

Further proof?

“He had you dance for him for most of the night. And when you weren’t dancing, you were sitting in his lap.”

And that didn’t mess up the paint? No smudges on her thighs? Just the handprints on her waist?

Did I happen to mention that Rhysand is the love interest in this series? Rhysand parades her around naked, drugs her, and forces her to dance provocatively in front of the entire court while she’s blacked out and has no control over herself; he also forces her to sit on his lap, which is taking intimate liberties with someone who can’t consent.

Fantastic. Perfect hero, exactly what the straight women seem to desperately want (judging by BookTok and sales numbers and the upcoming streaming series on Hulu), no notes! ed.—The straights are NOT okay, but frankly, they don’t seem to want help.

Lucien is pissed off that Feyre didn’t wait for him to show up and rescue her, and Feyre points out that she could have fucking died. Plus, he didn’t help her when she was screaming and running from the Naga.

“I swore an oath to Tamlin—”

“I had no other choice! You think I’m going to trust you after everything you said to me at the manor?”

“I risked my neck for you during your task. Was that not enough?” His metal eye whirred softly. “You offered up your name for me—after all that I said to you, all I did, you still offered up your name. Didn’t you realize I would help you after that? Oath or no oath?”

I may have just forgotten whatever the fucking oath was, but was there ever any talk of an oath that required Lucien to let Feyre get killed?

Either way, Feyre was actively dying and couldn’t count on him.

They argue a little more about how Rhysand is a bad guy and how Lucien got whipped by Tamlin for interfering in the task.

He walked to the door, and for the first time I noticed how stiffly he moved. “It’s why I couldn’t come sooner,” he said, his throat bobbing. “She used her—used our powers to keep me back from healing. I haven’t been able to move until today.”

Okay, so what you’re telling me here, Lucien, is that FEYRE WOULD HAVE FUCKING DIED IF SHE DIDN’T MAKE THE DEAL WITH RHYSAND. Lucien is standing in this cell, arguing with Feyre that she’s done something stupid and she doesn’t understand what Rhysand is, and she should have known Lucien would come to help her, but LUCIEN HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO MOVE UNTIL THIS VERY DAY?! She would have been DEAD, YOU NUMBSKULL.

Lucien has to leave because the guards are changing shifts.

“Wait,” I said. “Is—is Tamlin all right? I mean … I mean that spell Amarantha has him under to make him so silent …”

“There’s no spell. Hasn’t it occurred to you that Tamlin is keeping quiet to avoid telling Amarantha which form of your torment affects him most?”

No, it hasn’t.

No, it hadn’t.

See.

I mean, we already discussed this a couple times, and I love that Feyre never hit on “maybe he’s just good at controlling his face”  because she’s been so thoroughly convinced that he must be under a spell because otherwise, he would be showing some huge expression of love or concern.

Lucien says they’re “playing a dangerous game” and leaves the cell before another section break.

The next night, I was again washed, painted, and brought to that miserable throne room. Not a ball this time—just some evening entertainment. Which, it turned out, was me. After I drank the wine, though, I was mercifully unaware of what was happening.

IS THAT MERCIFUL, THOUGH?!

I mean, as much as I want to imagine they’re getting her drunk and watching her dance because she’s so bad at it and it’s hilarious, we all know that she’s so sexy and beautiful but unaware of her beauty that they’re watching her do sexy, sexy things. And I take massive offense at the idea that it’s a mercy to be drugged while you’re being violated.

I take that offense because I’ve been drugged and violated and you know what the worst part was? Not the waking up still in the guy’s house and going to the bathroom and being like, holy shit, someone came in me and then having to exit said bathroom and act like everything was totally normal and I didn’t suspect a thing. It was and continues to be the two decades that have followed, in which I have no memory of what happened to me during those hours, whether it was just that guy or that guy and his roommates, whether someone filmed it or took photos of me, you know. All that stuff.

Maybe I’m overreacting to one tiny little statement in this book due to oversensitivity or just outright bias because I fucking hate the book, but that “mercifully unaware” sent me into rage mode because it seemed to imply that if you’re assaulted and exploited, but it happens when you’re drugged, it’s not as traumatic or serious. ed.—Before the Breonna Taylor instagram post, this was what made me hate Sarah J. Maas as a person. I don’t just hate her books. I hate her as a human being. She is a bad person.

Night after night, I was dressed in the same way and made to accompany Rhysand to the throne room. Thus I became Rhysand’s plaything, the harlot of Amarantha’s whore. I woke with vague shards of memories—of dancing between Rhysand’s legs as he sat in a chair and laughed; of his hands, stained blue from the places they’d touched on my waist, my arms, but somehow, never more than that.

As I’ve already mentioned: we know that Rhysand can make the paint not smudge. So, she has no idea where he’s touching her. Just that he’s touched her.

When I could, I contemplated Amarantha’s riddle, turning over every word—to no avail.

Honestly, an editor should have told Maas to cut the riddle loose. I’ve read all the way to the end of the book at this point (okay, I skimmed, I’m not deep-reading twice) and the way the riddle is “solved” is as painfully cringe as the BIG TWIST right before it. There is way too much plot in this fucking book. ed.—It’s just that none of it is interesting.

And when I again entered that throne room, I was allowed only a glimpse of Tamlin before the drug of the wine took hold. But every time, every night, just for that one glance, I didn’t hide the love and pain that welled in my eyes when they met his.

Because everything in the world happens in this chapter, from the moment the space rocks collided until the inevitable heat death of the barren rock we will leave behind, there’s another god damn section break.

The pacing in this fucking thing is so uneven. We spent chapters upon chapters painting and riding and going to dinner, and now that the book is almost over, it’s like Maas just realized she needs to finish the story.

Hey, somebody recently said they thought chapter forty was the longest and most boring thing they’d ever read. Did you mean chapter thirty-nine, maybe? BECAUSE IT’S SO LONG AND SO BORING.

Anyway, Feyre is once again painted up and dressed in something skimpy, and Rhysand arrives and notes that her second trial is the next night.

“Aren’t you going to beg me to give you a night with your beloved?”

I mean, based on the fairytale this came from? She should. Instead, she’s like, no, when I finish this task, we’ll have every night. Which is a pretty good response.

Rhysand asks Feyre if she was this sassy to Tamlin when she was his “captive” and she’s like, he didn’t treat me like a “captive” and I’m all, okay, but he did kidnap you and keep you at his manor and warned you to never leave the grounds and stuff, that sounds pretty hostagey to me.

Rhysand thinks Tamlin wasn’t cruel to Feyre because Tamlin’s father was such a cruel person, and Tamlin is laughably noble to try to rise above it or something.

“[…]But perhaps if he’d bothered to learn a thing or two about cruelty, about what it means to be a true High Lord, it would have kept the Spring Court from falling.”

So, the endgame love interest is basically saying that Tamlin should have kept slaves. ed.—Sarah J. Maas is a bad person.

What’s even weirder is that Tamlin is plenty cruel. He was ordering members of his court to sacrifice themselves so they could find the girl who would eventually love him. How is that not cruel?

Feyre snaps back that the Night Court also fell.

Sadness flickered in those violet eyes. I wouldn’t have noticed it had I not … felt it—deep inside me. My gaze drifted to the eye etched in my palm. What manner of tattoo, exactly, had he given me?

She doesn’t ask him, though, because that’s going to be the big twist in the next chapter. Instead, she asks him if he was free on Fire Night because he “sold allegiance” to Amarantha so he doesn’t have to live Under the Mountain.

Why would that be? Like, Amarantha doesn’t really need allegiance from anyone, does she? She’s more powerful than everything in Prythian. She doesn’t need to make deals; she can just force them to do what she wants, right?

Oh no! Did someone accidentally make their villain too powerful?! And it’s making the rest of the story make zero sense at all?!

Rhysand and Feyre argue a little bit about Amarantha until Rhysand is like, nah, we’re going to the throne room now. Feyre wants to know why Rhysand is doing all this stuff to her and is it all just to fuck with Tamlin.

“Taunting him is my greatest pleasure,” he said with a mock bow. “And as for your question, why does any male need a reason to enjoy the presence of a female?”

“You saved my life.”

“And through your life, I saved Tamlin’s.”

“Why?”

He winked, smoothing his blue-black hair. “That, Feyre, is the real question, isn’t it?”

Translation: the author hasn’t thought that far ahead.

They get to the throne room, and suddenly Feyre realizes everyone is looking at Rhysand. Amarantha calls him over.

He paused, glancing at Lucien’s brothers stalking toward us, their attention pinned on me. Eager, hungry—wicked.

Everybody wants to fuck Feyre. I will never tire of it.

Whoops, I’m tired of it.

Rhysand tells Feyre to stay close to him and shut up.

But guess what happens?

A BLACK PERSON! IN THIS BOOK!

A brown-skinned High Fae male was sobbing on the floor before the dais. Amarantha was smiling at him like a snake—so intently that she didn’t even spare me a glance. Beside her, Tamlin remained utterly impassive. A beast without claws.

I just want to note here that while she didn’t mention a lack of weapons, every time Feyre sees Tamlin, she references his claws. Since he does fuck all on the page the entire time he’s there, I’m mentally replacing him with a cardboard cut-out of Wolverine.

Rhysand flicked his eyes to me—a silent command to stay at the edge of the crowd. I obeyed, and when I lifted my attention to Tamlin, waiting for him to look—just look at me—he did not, his focus wholly on the queen, on the male before her. Point taken.

What point?! Are you really going to feel slighted because Tamlin won’t look at you when you’ve already been told why he won’t react to your presence?

Plus, there’s a dude on the floor sobbing. Maybe that situation requires the most immediate attention, Feyre.

The guy on the floor is from the Summer Court, and he tried to escape Under the Mountain.

There was a tall, handsome High Fae male standing at the crowd’s edge—his hair near-white, eyes of crushing, crystal blue, his skin of richest mahogany.

Okay, Effie Trinket.

Now, for the return of “words mean things and I don’t think these particular words mean what Sarah thinks they mean”:

The summer faerie cringed, his face shining with tears. My own bowels turned water with fear and shame as he wet himself at the sight of Rhysand. “P-p-please,” he gasped out.

Feyre has diarrhea again. Feyre has diarrhea so much, I’ve actually learned to spell it correctly. Thanks, Feyre!

Note, please, that in a story with characters of all different colors except for human skin tones other than boiled chicken white, the two characters who are described as having human-like dark skin tones are here to piss themselves and be tortured.

Rhysand does his mind trick to the faerie while the High Lord of the Summer Court watches.

The High Lord of Summer had gone still, too—and it was pain, real pain, and fear that shown in those stunning blue eyes.

Watch out, dude. She’s talking about your eyes. You might accidentally end up being a love interest.

Summer was one of the courts that had rebelled, I remembered. So this was a new, untested High Lord, who had not yet had to make choices that cost him lives.

Sorry, I meant the people who aren’t white are there to piss themselves, be tortured, AND be naive in the company of the much more experienced white faeries.

Rhysand reports that the faery from the Summer Court was trying to escape to the human world, nobody helped him, and he ran because he was scared. 

So, then this horrifying shit happens:

“Shatter him, Rhysand.” She flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. “You may do what you want with the body afterward.”

Wow.

So now, one of the only dark-skinned characters in the book is in the book to cry on the floor, piss himself, get tortured, and then apparently violated or something?

And the pissing thing? She mentions it two more times, going so far as to describe the guy falling into “the puddle of his own waste.”

“But Jenny, why would you think Rhysand would violate the dude, and that’s what Amarantha meant? Maybe she meant he could dispose of it any way he wanted, not that he was going to do something gross with it? I mean, she told Rhysand to kill the guy.”

Excellent question, but no. She did not intend for Rhysand to kill the fairy. Amarantha actually gets mad about it.

“I said shatter his mind, not his brain,” Amarantha snapped.

I guess she intended for the guy to be locked-in or trapped in some kind of fugue state or something? But instead, Rhysand killed him.

Feyre looks at Tamlin to see what’s up with him during all of this.

What horrors had he witnessed in his long life if this hadn’t broken that distant expression, that control?

He saw that girl you knew get skinned alive.

I know there’s a lot about Tamlin not expressing emotion in here, but trust me, it matters deeply in the most infuriating, insipid, last-minute plot twist way. You’re gonna hate it.

Rhysand takes Feyre with him and leaves the general dead body (and piss!) area. Clare’s body is still hanging on the wall, by the way. After months.

People call Rhysand a whore and some of them are like, good job killing that guy.

Rhysand didn’t deign to acknowledge any of them, his shoulders still loose, his footsteps unhurried. I wondered whether anyone but he and the High Lord of the Summer Court knew that the killing had been a mercy.

Oh, you mean like you do? Since you’re reporting the fucking information to us? If only Rhysand and the High Lord of the Summer Court know that, how the fuck are you telling it to us?

MY JOB SATISFACTION DWINDLES.

I was willing to bet that there had been others involved in that escape plan, perhaps even the High Lord of the Summer Court himself.

Oh, this you can figure out but not that fucking riddle?

Maybe sparing that faerie male by killing him swiftly, rather than shattering his mind and leaving him a drooling husk, had been another calculated move, too.

It wasn’t about body disposal. It was about Rhysand taking the body and like, torturing a vulnerable person.

But he’s so merciful, right? Because he didn’t do that this time.

Oh, and then he drugs Feyre again. The end. Of the chapter, at least.

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 38 or “Padding”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

Welcome to chapter thirty-eight.

Why are we doing this to ourselves?

Feyre is in a hallway, scrubbing the floors and trying to keep her mind off her new tattoo:

The ink—which, in the light, was actually a blue so dark it appeared black—was a cloud upon my thoughts, and those were bleak enough even without knowing I’d sold myself to Rhysand. I couldn’t look at the eye on my palm. I had an absurd, creeping feeling that it watched me.

Perhaps you’re wondering why she’s scrubbing the floor or how she got there. Don’t worry. That part of the story (you know, the part that contains all the stakes and stuff) gets told kinda in past-perfect?

I dunked the large brush into the bucket the red-skinned guards had thrown into my arms. I could barely comprehend them through their mouths full of long yellow teeth, but when they gave me the brush and bucket and shoved me into a long hallway of white marble, I understood.

“If it’s not washed and shining by supper,’ one of them had said, its teeth clicking as it grinned, “we’re to tie you to the spit and give you a few good turns over the fire.”

Then a few lines down:

My back already ached like fire, and I hadn’t been scrubbing the marble hall for more than thirty minutes.

Being grabbed by demons and threatened with roasting seems like an exciting enough part of the story to put on the page as it happens, but I’m not commercially popular on an astronomic level, so how do I know what makes an enjoyable read?

Here’s the thing, though:

But the water they’d given me was filthy, and the more I scrubbed the floor, the dirtier it became.

Why not just… stop scrubbing the floor?

Feyre recognizes that she’s been given this impossible task specifically so she’ll fail, and all she can think about are the screams in the dungeon and how the fairies are going to cook her alive, but like:

I cursed as I scrubbed harder, the coarse bristles of the brush crinkling and whispering against the tiles. A rainbow of brown was left in their wake, and I growled as I dunked the brush again. Filthy water came out with it, dripping all over the floor.

A trail of brown much grew with each sweep.

MAYBE STOP SCRUBBING THE FLOOR?!

And Feyre keeps mentioning how she will be roasted on a spit, etc, but frankly? It doesn’t sound scary to me. I mean, obviously, the concept of being roasted alive is scary, but we know that Feyre isn’t in any danger, and we only heard about this terrifying threat second hand, so like… I don’t feel any urgency from the narrative at all.

It almost feels like Maas begrudgingly wrote this chapter. Like, it’s a part of the story she knew she had to write, but she just wasn’t interested? Because up until now, every important (and unimportant) event in the book has gotten at least a full chapter on its own, and in this short chapter, Feyre is going to solve—sorry, be rescued from—two impossible tasks.

The dirt was actually turning into mud the harder I scrubbed it.

I would recommend stopping actually scrubbing the floors.

The thing is, this is the fairy court, right? Did they say she had to use the water? They basically just wanted it clean, and the hallway is described as white marble, but not as being dirty. If the water makes the hall dirtier… maybe the point was not to use it at all? I feel like you have to approach some of this shit like an episode of Taskmaster, Feyre.

I mean, she even considers that it’s probably some kind of trick, but she doesn’t try anything new. She just keeps scrubbing the floor and heaping more and more dirt onto it, despite thinking there must be a catch.

But then someone comes in.

She looked perhaps a bit older than Amarantha, but her porcelain skin was exquisitely colored, graced with the faintest blush of rose along her cheeks. Had the red hair not been indication enough, when her russet eyes met mine, I knew who she was.

Feyre realizes it’s Lucien’s mother, the Lady of the Autumn Court. ed.—When Maas went back and retconned Lucien and the entire Autumn Court as being Black, that leaves us with this sentence about a Black woman being, and I cannot stress this enough, “colored.”

How convenient.

“For giving her your name in place of my son’s life,” she said, her voice as sweet as sun-warmed apples. She must have been in the crowd that day. She pointed at the bucket with a long, slender hand. “My debt is paid.”

If you’re wondering what that means, it means the bucket of water is clean, but we’ll get to that in the minute. Right now, let’s talk about the fact that, yet again, Feyre is rescued.

We just need to come to terms with the fact that no matter how much work Feyre puts into saving herself (the worm pit) or how little she tries to fix things (spreading mud all over the floor like it’s somehow gonna stop being mud), someone rescues her.

Let’s refresh our memories:

Feyre could have been tricked by the Bogge and doesn’t notice it’s a trick until Tamlin appears out of nowhere and warns her.Feyre battles the Naga but ultimately needs Tamlin to finish the job.Feyre is attacked at Calanmai and rescued by Rhysand.Feyre is attacked by Rhysand in the dining room and is saved when Tamlin and Lucien grovel for her life.Feyre returns to the manor and receives all the information she needs directly from one person, who leads her exactly where she needs to go.Despite all the work Feyre put into tricking and killing the worm, Lucien’s shouted warning saved her life.Both times that Feyre nearly died in her cell from injuries, someone showed up to magically heal her.Now this clean water bullshit. 

Now here’s the thing. There is something I genuinely enjoy in this next bit, but we’ve reached the portion of our program where finding otherwise good writing in this mess is like receiving extra bathroom privileges from your hostage-taker. So I can’t even properly enjoy it.

She disappeared through the door she’d opened, and I could have sworn I smelled roasting chestnuts and crackling fires in her wake.

That, coupled with the “sun-warmed apples” voice described above? So good! Why not write like that the whole time?

I knelt beside the bucket and dipped my fingers into the water. They came out clean. 

I shuddered, allowing myself a moment to slump over my knees before I dumped some of the water onto the floor and watched it wash away the muck.

Am I the only one who thinks that, idk, magically cleaning the floors would have been a better way of repaying someone who saved your son’s life?

There’s a section break, and we arrive at impossible task number two:

“Servant spilled lentils in the ash,” one of the guards grunted, tossing me a wooden bucket. “Clean it up before the occupant returns, or he’ll peel off your skin in strips.”

Fairy tale aficionados will recognize that classic. Actually, the muddy hallway, too. I would say that Maas really did her homework with classic fairy tales, but, to be honest? I think she just has the DVDs of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. 

Sorting lentils from ash and embers—ridiculous, wasteful, and—

AAAAAAAAAND?

I approached the darkened fireplace and cringed.

Impossible.

Also, weird that anybody had lentils in there in the first place. I mean, clearly, the guards put them there, right? Because this is a bedroom. I know people like to involve food in sex sometimes, but I doubt the erotic possibilities of lentils.

The bed was enormous and neatly made, its black sheets of—of silk.

I’m sorry, is Feyre’s personal narrative developing a stutter? WTF is “of—of silk.” Does Maas somehow own stock in em-dashes?

There was nothing else in the room beyond basic furniture; not even discarded clothes or books or weapons  As if its occupant never slept here.

WOW I WONDER WHO THE EMPTY BEDROOM WITH THE BIG BED WITH BLACK SILK SHEETS BELONGS TO WOW, SUCH SUSPENSE.

Feyre gets to work, and there’s a section break, after which Feyre has been sorting through ashes for two hours, and she still keeps finding more lentils she missed. She notes that she once again doesn’t have a firm time limit, so she arms herself with a poker every time she hears someone approaching the door.

Amarantha had never said anything about not fighting back—never specified that I wasn’t allowed to defend myself. At least I’d go down swinging.

I’m so tired of hearing about how Feyre is going to “go down” fighting, especially now that Tamlin damned his entire court to save her life.

Finally, the mysterious occupant, who we totally could not predict would be Rhysand, comes back.

Darkness entered the room, guttering the andles with a snow-kissed breeze. I gripped the poker harder, pressing against the stone of the fireplace, even as that darkness settled on the bed and took a familiar form.

WHAT FORM?! THE SUSPENSE!

Rhysand asks Feyre what she’s doing in the fireplace and Feyre is like, trying not to get skinned.

“Do I have you to thank for this idea?” I hissed. He wasn’t allowed to kill me, not with my bargain with Amarantha, but … there were other ways to hurt me.

You know how much I love it when characters “hiss” words or phrases that don’t hiss when you say them. Now, all I’m hearing is, “Do I have you to tttttthhhhank for ttthhhhhissssssss idea?” like the snake in Disney’s Robin Hood.

Also, looking back over her bargain with Amarantha, there wasn’t a stipulation that Feyre couldn’t be harmed. The very first thing that happened after Feyre made a deal with Amarantha was that Feyre got her ass-kicked in front of and at the request of Amarantha.

But at this point, I think we’re all pretty used to the rules of the world changing like… just whenever.

Rhysand is like, nope, not my thing, and P.S., nobody noticed your arm yet. Feyre asks if the fireplace is clean enough, and he’s like, wtf were there lentils in the fireplace?

I gave him a flat look. “One of your mistress’s household chores, I suppose.”

“Hm,” he said, examining his nails. “Apparently she or her cronies think I’ll find some sport with you.”

My mouth dried up. “Or it’s a test for you,” I managed to get out. “You said you bet on me on my first task. She didn’t seem pleased about it.”

Rhysand is like, yeah, uh, what would the point of testing me be?

I didn’t balk from that violet stare. Amarantha’s whore, Lucien had once called him. “You lied about her. About Clare. You knew very well what I looked like.”

Ope, there were go. She’s found someone else she can definitively blame for Clare’s death. She’s never gonna accept responsibility for it again after this.

Rhysand sat up in a fluid movement and braced his forearms on his thighs. Such grace contained in such a powerful form. I was slaughtering on the battlefield before you were even born, he’d once said to Lucien. I didn’t doubt it.

Feyre has this weird, fetishistic thing where she’s constantly talking about how fairies will murder anything, and they’re so dangerous, then immediately apply that horrible danger and violence to someone as an example of their attractiveness. I’m just saying, for someone who is always so disgusted and appalled by fairy violence, she seems to find it incredibly hot.

“Amarantha plays her games,” he said simply, “and I play mine. It gets rather boring down here, day after day.”

Remember: the plot twist is that he’s the actual love interest in this story. Not Tamlin. Rhysand is endgame, and he just described the torture and murder of one of Feyre’s “friends” as a game.

Feyre points out that he doesn’t always stay Under the Mountain. Rhysand has some vague reason for why he can’t come and go as he pleases:

“She asked me to put that head in the garden. As for Fire Night … ” He looked me up and down. “I had my reasons to be out then. Do not think, Feyre, that it did not cost me.”

Lemme guess, he was out at Fire Night because he had heard about the human Tamlin was keeping, and Rhysand just had to see her for himself, and she turned out to be the most exquisite creature he’d ever seen or something. I won’t ever find out because I will not be continuing with this series.

But I’m digging Rhysand’s “I was just following orders” excuse here.

Rhysand mentions the poker Feyre is still holding and notes that fighting him would be useless. Feyre already knows that, of course, and asks him why Amarantha didn’t take his powers away.

He lifted a groomed, dark brow. “Oh, she took my powers. This … ” A caress of talons against my mind. I jerked back a step, slamming into the fireplace. The pressure on my mind vanished. “This is just the remnant. The scraps I get to play with. Your Tamlin has brute strength and shape-shifting; my arsenal is a far deadlier assortment.”

All right. Here we have a pretty good case for how this book romanticizes intimate partner violence. Like I spoilered this before, Rhysand is Feyre’s true love or whatever. But right now, he’s a guy who seems to relish hurting her just to prove that he can.

She asks if all the High Lords can shape-shift.

“Oh, all the High Lords can. Each of us has a beast roaming beneath our skin, roaring to get out. While your Tamlin prefers fur, I find wings and talons to be more entertaining.”

Inside of you are two wolves. One of them is a wolf and the other is a bat or something.

But the darkness that hovered around him began to writhe and twist and flare as he rose to his feet. I blinked, and it was done.

I lifted the iron poker, just a little bit.

“Not a full shift, you see,” Rhysand said, clicking the black razor-sharp talons that had replaced his fingers.

Interesting choice of adjective order with “black razor-sharp talons.” There’s a general order we accept as “right.” I don’t know if it’s an actual grammatical rule or just a convention of the language that we’ve internalized as sounding the correct way. Anyway, if we’re using the common structure, it should have been “razor-sharp, black talons” because color always comes after physical quality.

Like, you wouldn’t tell a friend that you went to the beach and took your blue, ugly swimsuit. You took your ugly, blue swimsuit. Which isn’t really ugly, you just need to have more confidence in yourself. Every body is a beach body.

Indeed, it was still Rhysand’s face, his powerful male body, but flaring out behind him were massive black membranous wings—like a bat’s, like the Attor’s.

OH MY FUCKING

WHOOOO DEEP BREATHS.

There was finally an appropriate place to use an em-dash. And she fuuuuuuucked it uuuuuuuup whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

“black membranous wings, like a bat’s—like the Attor’s.”

I would have accepted that. I mean, no, I would have still made fun of it. But still. It could have been one of the least egregious uses of the em dash in this book, and she squandered it.

He tucked them in neatly behind him, but the single claw at the apex of each peeked over his broad shoulders. Horrific, stunning—the face of a thousand nightmares and dreams. That again-useless part of me stirred at the sight, the way the candlelight shone through the wings, illuminating the veins, the way it bounced off his talons.

Okay, I  re-read this interaction a few times, and I still can’t tell what her “again-useless” part refers to. I guess the only real meaning it could have is her instinct to fight? But if that’s the case, why is this being described so hornily?

Rhysand shifts back, and there’s some banter about how he has a high opinion of himself, and of course, he laughs at the bravery she displays teasing a High Lord. But my favorite part is that he says:

“I can’t decide whether I should consider you admirable or very stupid for being so bold with a High Lord.”

And then she immediately asks:

“Do you know the answer to the riddle?”

Doesn’t that give Rhysand his answer right there?

Rhysand admonishes Feyre for trying to cheat and offers another “just following orders” explanation.

“Don’t waste your breath,” he said. “I can’t tell you—no one here can. If she ordered us all to stop breathing, we would have to obey that, too.” He frowned at me and snapped his fingers. The soot, the dirt, the ash vanished off my skin, leaving me as clean as if I’d bathed. “There. A gift—for having the balls to even ask.”

I dislike modern phrases in fantasy novels set in alternate past Europe. Have I ever mentioned that?

He also makes the lentils disappear from the fireplace and reappear in the bucket. Then he magically summons the guards and tells them to take Feyre back to her cell.

They grabbed for me, but he bared his teeth in a smile that was anything but friendly—and they halted. “No more household chores, no more tasks,” he said, his voice an erotic caress. Their yellow eyes went glazed and dull, their sharp teeth gleaming as their mouths slackened. “The the others, too. Stay out of her cell, and don’t touch her. If you do, you’re to take your own daggers and gut yourselves. Understood?”

LOL he’s a Bene Gesserit. 

Rhysand smiled at me. “You’re welcome,” he purred as I walked out.

And that’s the end of the chapter.

So, I have some feelings about how this is going, but I want to share them with the book club book club, too, so head over there to get those pearls of wisdom, I guess. I feel guilty when that becomes too much of a cut-and-paste of my thoughts I shared here. Because if there’s a way to make myself feel guilty about something, hoo boy, I’ll find it. ed.—Which is why I’m now going to post that particular installment of Jealous Patrons Book Club Book Club here in its entirety.

Sometimes, I wonder if popular books actually are really good and I just suck at reading.

I’m beginning to feel like A Court of Thorns and Roses should have ended with Feyre realizing that she had to go back, finding the manor shit-wrecked, and ending on that cliffhanger of now she has to go rescue him. It feels like the author is beginning to rush through events that need to be fleshed out more to be impactful, but she knows she’s nearing her deadline or something.

The reason I say this is because there are two big things that happen in this chapter. Like, really, really big things. One, Feyre meets Lucien’s mother. We’ve gotten so much of Lucien’s backstory and how his mother was destroyed when he was banished or left or whatever. We heard all about his brothers.

And when Lucien’s mother is finally on the page… it’s for three paragraphs. Not even long ones.

The other big thing is Feyre’s interaction with Rhysand. Now, when you first look at it, it seems like it’s not going to matter and is fully superfluous to the chapter, but spoiler, we needed it so we can get to know Rhysand because he’s the actual love interest/soul mate or whatever of Feyre. He rescues her from an impossible task set by Amarantha’s guards (picking lentils out of a fireplace) and shows her that he can shape shift and is really super dangerous. And then…that’s it. He’s there for a few pages of random power establishment.

I just can’t help but feel like this book truly ended, gosh, even when Feyre went back home. When Tamlin sent her away, that could have easily been the end. But then the closer we get to the actual end, the more stuff Sarah throws onto the pile. Oh, you thought this was over? Nope, now I’m going to rescue Tamlin and it’s going to take THREE MONTHS. And there’s a RIDDLE. And ANOTHER HOT GUY. And IMPOSSIBLE HOUSEWORK.

And we still have two trials to go, and it all wraps up in less than a hundred pages?

This book is a mess.

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 37 or “WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY?!”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

I missed last week’s post! It was just a weird week. I won’t get into it all. Just a busy week on top of disabled stuff and a release day, perfect storm of bad stress/good stress and I dropped so many balls.

Previously on ACOTAR, Feyre got her arm fucked up because her plan sucked. Now, she’s in a dungeon with a compound fracture.

No one, not even Lucien, came to fix my arm in the days following my victory.

Man, poor Lucien. Doesn’t count as someone.

I wish you could see the tears of laughter I’m wiping away as I write this because every time I see it, it gets funnier.

But yeah, Feyre is laying there with a broken bone jutting out of her arm.

But worse than that was the growing panic—panic that the wound hadn’t stopped bleeding. I knew what it meant when the blood continued to flow.

Blood has been “flowing” from her arm for days? And she’s still alive? Dang, she has to be the most everything. The most intelligent. The most resourceful. The most full of blood.

She’s afraid of getting an infection, and the food they’re serving her is rotten and she can’t keep it down.

Okay, let’s do a check-in here. Feyre has been in the dungeons for, eh, we don’t know how long but definitely more than couple days. No food, idk if they’re giving her potable water, she’s already been beaten nearly to death once before, and now she has a compound fracture that’s been bleeding for days and which is smeared in worm shit.

I’d awoken from a fitful sleep and found myself burning hot.

Look, be glad you woke at all, okay. ed.—Although I am not.

A kind of fire that made everything a bit muddled. My injured arm dangled at my side as I gazed dully at the cell door. It seemed to sway, its lines rippling.

Uh-oh, is it the door or is it someone phasing into the cell?

The heat in my face was some kind of small cold—not a fever from infection. I put a hand on my chest, and dried mud crumbled into my lap. Each of my breaths was like swallowing broken glass. Not a fever. Not a fever. Not a fever.

I feel like we need a little more in that passage to tell us that this is Feyre in denial, not Feyre relaying the narrative. Even putting those “Not a fever”s in italics might have made that clearer.

The door actually did move then—no, not the door, but rather the darkness around it, which seemed to ripple. Real fear coiled in my stomach as a male figure formed out of that darkness, as if he’d slipped in from the cracks between the door and the wall, hardly more than a shadow.

Whoooo is it? Is it someone, or is it just Lucien?

Rhysand was fully corporeal now, and his violet eyes glowed in the dim light. He slowly smiled from where he stood by the door. “What a sorry state for Tamlin’s champion.”

Oh weird it’s Rhysand what an unexpected turn I’m shocked.

“Go to Hell,” I snapped, but the words were little more than a wheeze.

There’s that pesky mention of Hell again. I almost expected Rhysand to break the fourth wall and mention it, because up until this point he’s really struck me as one of those characters who is fully aware that he’s in a story.

His pale skin seemed to radiate alabaster light.

In every scene up until this one, he has radiated darkness. Now, he radiates a light so white, it’s comparable to a stone whose name has become synonymous with the color white. ed.—Remember, though, Rhysand is BIPOC and these books are super diverse. He just stayed under the mountain so long that he looked this way in this book. That’s how melanin works. You just don’t go in the sun for a few days and you turn caucasian. The fans will tell you so. They won’t have an answer when you bring up his presence at the Spring Court several times, indicating that he was not always kept away from the sunlight that makes their preposterous vanishing melanin theory possible. Don’t worry, I’ve been assured by a furious SJM fan that I’m racist for even questioning this.

Why not.

Even though Feyre is nearly dead, she’s still sassy to Rhysand throughout the entire exchange, which I get because he’s a walking pastiche of every elegant bad boy type from every 00’s supernatural drama.

“What would Tamlin say,” he murmured, “if he knew his beloved was rotting away down here, burning up with fever? Not that he can even come here, not when his every move is watched.”

I wonder if Rhysand is saying this to purposely inform Feyre of why Tamlin isn’t coming to see her.

There’s more about Feyre being too weak but also very sassy, and Rhysand tells her that he’s there to help her.

“You made me a lot of money, you know. I figured I would repay the favor.”

What did I say? He was the one who bet on her to win. So, even Tamlin and Lucien, they didn’t bet on her surviving? I would be so pissed if I were Feyre.

Rhysand asks to see Feyre’s arm, and when she doesn’t comply he just grabs it.

I bit my lip to keep from crying out—bit it hard enough to draw blood as rivers of fire exploded inside me, as my head swam, and all mys senses narrowed down to the piece of bone sticking through my arm. They couldn’t know—couldn’t know how bad it was, because then they would use it against me.

I’m not buying it—not buying that a person with a compound fracture wouldn’t involuntarily scream or make some sort of sound when the limb was suddenly and roughly grabbed. And the idea that the fairies will somehow not realize how bad it is for a human to have a bone on the outside of their body that’s usually on the inside of their body is absurd. It sounds like Under the Mountain is vivisection central. These fairies know exactly how a human body works because they’ve taken apart so many.

Rhysand examined the wound, a smile appearing on his sensuous lips.

When you are dying from a raging infection, the last thing you’re worrying about is sensuality. As someone who has nearly died from a raging infection, I feel I can speak quite strongly on this.

“Oh, that’s wonderfully gruesome.” I swore at him, and he chuckled. “Such words from a lady.”

We have to be sure that we get some Not Like Other Girls in here somewhere, huh? Swearing and being admonished by the hot guy for not being ladylike is required in terrible books.

Feyre tells Rhysand to get out, and he’s like okay, but don’t you want to like… not die from your fucked up arm?

“At what cost?” I shot back, but kept my head against the stone, needing its damp strength.

That is a hell of a word choice.

Meanwhile, look for my super explicit sea creature monster erotica, His Damp Strength, coming out never.

“Ah, that. Living among faeries has taught you some of our ways.”

Don’t worry, she literally hasn’t learned anything from that teaching. For example, she was warned not to make any deals, but she made a deal, and now because she made that deal she’s gonna have to make another deal at a time when she has zero leverage and no brain power.

IDK if you’ve seen Our Flag Means Death on HBOMax, but there’s a scene where a pirate who’s betrayed another pirate dismisses the idea of friends because “we’re all just in various stages of fucking each other over.” That’s kind of how I imagine the world of Prythian. Just constant curses and deals and nobody ever being trustworthy.

Which I assume will lead to Feyre fucking every single male fairy who shows up in this book series before they’re revealed to be the real villains and the non-villains originally perceived to be villains turn out to be fuckable. ed.—I don’t think I had even read spoilers for this series at this point.

“I’ll make a trade with you,” he said casually, and gently set my arm down. As it met with the floor, I had to close my eyes to brace against the flow of that poisoned lightning. “I’ll heal your arm in exchange for you. For two weeks every month, two weeks of my choosing, you’ll live with me at the Night Court. Starting after this messy three-trials business.”

Okay, so that’s more fairy tale stuff (also, very Hades/Persephone). Various fairy tales have the heroine spending nights, weeks, years, etc. with someone who usually looks like a bear or something, and then more trickery happens like someone is drugged or someone else is tricked into stealing the bear’s skin or something.

Feyre has clearly read those stories because she turns down Rhysand’s offer immediately.

“You must be holding out for one of your friends—for Lucien, correct? After all, he healed you before, didn’t he? Oh, don’t look so innocent. The Attor and his cronies broke your nose. So unless you have some kind of magic you’re not telling us about, I don’t think human bones heal that quickly.” His eyes sparkled, and he stood, pacing a bit. “The way I see things, Feyre, you have two options. The first, and the smartest, would be to accept my offer.”

Interesting. The fairies do know that humans can’t heal quickly, but Feyre is still lying there injured. Which means that yeah, no, Amarantha is fine with Feyre dying in the dungeon. After all, she never said she’d keep Feyre healthy while this was going on.

Which is why Feyre shouldn’t be making deals.

“The second option—and the one only a fool would take—would be for you to refuse my offer and place your life, and thus Tamlin’s, in the hands of chance.

I mean, and the lives of everybody else in the Spring Court. She’s fighting for them, too.

“Let’s say I walk out of here. Perhaps Lucien will come to your aid within five minutes of my leaving. Perhaps he’ll come in five days. Perhaps he won’t come at all. Between you and me, he’s been keeping a low profile after his rather embarrassing outburst at your trial. […]

(This would be a really effective spot to point out that Lucien didn’t bet she’d survive the worm maze. And that Tamlin didn’t, either.)

“[…]Tamlin even broke his delightful brooding to beg for him to be spared—such a noble warrior, your High Lord. She listened, of course—but only after she made Tamlin bestow Lucien’s punishment. Twenty lashes.”

Rhysand is always involved in the gayest shit, I swear. He made Tamlin and Lucien get on the ground and kiss his boots; now he’s like, let me tell you about your boyfriend whipping his bro. I don’t think Under the Mountain is a royal court at all. I think it’s a fairy kink club.

I started shaking, sick all over again to think about what it had to have been like for my High Lord to be the one to punish his friend.

If it helps, Feyre, I’m imagining that scene where James Bond is tied naked to the chair and Mads Mikkelsen is hitting him in the balls with a knotted rope.

But in fairness, I often imagine that scene.

I’m not sure, though, that it would be such a big deal for Tamlin to hit Lucien, considering Tamlin sent hundreds of his own people into the mortal world specifically to be slaughtered. Doesn’t seem like he’s above causing injury and death if it suits him. 

Rhysand is like, you know, you’re right, you might not have a gruesome infection. That fever could be totally unconnected. Oh, and the worm could have had very good toilet hygiene, and obviously, Amarantha could always send someone to heal you. And then he’s like, yeah, you know what’s gonna happen if I leave here.

I stared at him, sending as much hate as I could into my gaze. He’d been the one who’d caused all this. He’d told Amarantha about Clare; he’d made Tamlin beg.

And Lucien, too. But in Feyre’s own words, “No one, not even Lucien […]”. Still, it’s not Rhysand’s fault that Clare was killed. It was your fault, Feyre. If you hadn’t blurted out Clare’s name, Rhysand would have never known she existed at all.

We’re not going to let Feyre pass the buck on this one. She was fine with Clare getting killed instead of her, or she wouldn’t have given Rhysand Clare’s name.

I bared my teeth. “Go. To. Hell.”

Stop. Using. Hell. As. A. “Tough”. Or. “Sassy”. Response. If. You. Don’t. Have. A. Concept. Of. Hell. In. Your. Book.

Swift as lightning, he lashed out, grabbing the shard of bone in my arm and twisting. A scream shattered out of me, ravaging my aching throat. The world flashed black and white and red. I thrashed and writhed, but he kept his grip, twisting the bone a final time before releasing my arm.

HOW ON EARTH DOES SHE MAINTAIN CONSCIOUSNESS. HOW IS SHE NOT GOING INTO SHOCK?

I’m sorry, but this whole thing with her arm is UNBELIEVABLE. That she is still alive after days and days of non-stop blood flow, that she’s got this raging infection and delirium that conveniently disappears when she needs to talk tough to the “bady guy” she’s definitely going to end up with, that someone is grabbing and twisting exposed bone from a compound fracture and she’s able to bounce back a moment later to spit in his face… none of this is believable. In a story about fairies and monsters, THIS is the thing that I cannot believe.

“This is the last time I’ll extend my assistance,” he said, pausing by the cell door. “Once I leave this cell, my offer is dead.” I spat again, and he shook his head. “I bet you’ll be spitting on Death’s face when she comes to claim you, too.”

Oooh, Death is a woman. Girl power.

Rhysand starts to fade away and Feyre has some second thoughts:

He could be bluffing, trying to trick me into accepting his offer. Or he might be right—I might be dying.

No, you’re actually dying. You might have to begrudgingly concede that someone else in this book is right about something. I know that will hard for you, but I’m 100% sure you’ll find a way to explain how you actually knew that before Rhysand pointed it out to you because YOU CAN NEVER BE WRONG OR DO ANYTHING WRONG BECAUSE YOU ARE ONE OF THE MOST INFURIATING MARY SUES IN THE HISTORY OF FANTASY.

INCLUDING BATMAN.

I was dying. I’d known it for some time now.

Good ole’ reliable Feyre.

And Lucien had underestimated my abilities in the past—had never quite grasped my limitations as a human. He’d sent me to hunt the Suriel with a few knives and a bow.

Hey, remember how I got ALL CAPS about how Feyre can never do anything wrong or foolish and if she does, it’s always explained away as being someone else’s fault in hindsight but AKSHULLY she was right and good and perfect all along?

LUCIEN DIDN’T “SEND” YOU AFTER THE SURIEL. YOU CHOSE TO GO AFTER THE SURIEL DESPITE BEING TOLD NOT TO.

But of course, it’s all his fault that she almost died because he underestimated her abilities, and now, gosh dang it, he just doesn’t understand that she’s got this infection.

It couldn’t possibly be that he’s decided not to put himself into even more danger to help her out of a situation that she has caused and which has already created a ton of problems for him. That couldn’t possibly be the reason. That would be a consequence of her actions, and those are unacceptable.

Feyre tells Rhysand to wait.

For Tamlin … for Tamlin, I would sell my soul; I would give up everything I had for him to be free.

There’s another one of those pesky allusions to something that doesn’t exist in this world. The concept of selling one’s soul is very much rooted in Christianity, which again does not exist in this particular fictional world.

She double-checks Rhysand that it’s just two weeks, and he’s like, yeah, just two weeks a month, that’s all.

“Why? And what are to … to be the terms?” I said, fighting past dizziness.

“Ah,” he said, adjusting the lapel of his obsidian tunic. “If I told you those things, there’d be no fun in it, would there?”

With everything Feyre already knows, she’s obviously not going to just go, yeah, fine, sounds good.

Right?

Let’s see what happens.

Nesta would have done the same for me, for Elain.

This would be a nice sentiment if I didn’t think it would later be used to justify why it’s really Nesta’s fault that Feyre ends up fucking Rhysand.

And Tamlin had done so much for me, for my family; even if he had lied about the Treaty, about sparing me from its terms, he’d still saved my life that day against the naga, and saved it again by sending me away from the manor.

Yeah, he kidnapped me and that was wrong, but he at least saved my life when I was attacked by monsters at the second location. Plus, he eventually let me go after my life was endangered again.

Rather than asking things like, you know, what are you going to do to me during those two weeks, Feyre barters the time down to a week, which Rhysand accepts. He heals her, which knocks her unconscious, and when she wakes up there’s something new that’s wrong with her arm.

Rhysand stood, running a hand through his short, dark hair. “It’s custom in my court for bargains to be permanently marked upon flesh.”

I rubbed my left forearm and hand, the entirety of which was now covered in swirls and whorls of black ink. Even my fingers weren’t spared, and a large eye was tattooed in the center of my palm. It was feline, and its slitted pupil stared right back at me.

Now she’s got a rad tattoo.

From a distance, the tattoo looked like an elbow-length lace glove, but when I held it close to my face, I could detect the intricate depictions of flowers and curves that flowed throughout to make up a larger pattern.

Lace is never like that. Hardly any flowers or curves in larger patterns when you’re talking about FUCKING LACE.

Plus, “from a distance?” It’s your fucking arm. How far away could you possibly get from it to see how it looks from afar?

God damnit I hate this book.

Feyre is pissed, she’s like, you didn’t tell me this was part of it and Rhysand is like, well, guess you should have asked. And I’m like, this is exactly why you needed to not be making deals with fairies because you don’t know enough.

Rhysand is like, you’re only upset about it because of how Tamlin will react.

Tamlin. I could already see his face going pale, his lips becoming thin as the claws came out. I could almost hear the growl he’d emit when he asked me what I had been thinking.

Ma’am. So far, he hasn’t had any reaction at all to you about anything. You’ve perceived like micro-expressions that you’re sure you’ve seen, and that’s it.

“I think I’ll wait to tell him until the moment’s right, though,” Rhysand said. The gleam in his eyes told me enough. Rhysand hadn’t done any of this to save me, but rather to hurt Tamlin.

NO SHIT?!

After that, Rhysand tells Feyre to “rest up” and vanishes, leaving me with my utter despair at knowing we’re going to have to read a second bland as unsalted oatmeal sex scene in this book that is scorchingly erotic and dripping “spice” from every page.

A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 36 or “Lair of the Pinkish-Brown Worm”

I’m shamelessly plugging my new Fantasy Romance serial in the intro to an unrelated post. Join the new Patreon tier or my Ream page , or read it on Kindle Vella.

As promised, I’m importing the A Court of Thorns and Roses recaps here from Patreon. These were originally written beginning in August of 2020, so there will be references to upcoming or seasonal events that won’t fit with our current timeline. I am not a time traveler and you’ll never be able to prove that I am. I will also include editors notes like this every now and then as we go, mostly to amuse myself but to give re-read value to those who’ve already been on this awful, awful journey with me.

Thanks everybody, for your patience with me while I took a week off to finish up the Radish Original I was working on. I hope your saint-like demeanor will extend to the material we’re recapping, so you don’t give up. ed.—That Radish Original I refer to is Taken By The Alpha King, a werewolf Urban Fantasy which last time I checked had seven million views on the platform. And good news! The first three seasons are available as a paperback or e-book wherever paperbacks and ebooks are sold, so you might wanna go and check that out if you like werewolves and books that harken back to the ’00s Urban Fantasy boom.

Don’t leave me here in the dark. Alone. With this book.

As per the end of the last chapter, Feyre is being dragged off to the first task.

My armed escort didn’t bother with drawn weapons as they tugged me forward. I wasn’t even shackled. Someone or something would catch me before I moved three feet and gut me where I stood.

In the last chapter, Feyre was memorizing all the cracks in the walls so she could make a clever escape somehow. This chapter, she’s unbound and the guards dragging her haven’t bothered with weapons. Seems like a good time to make a break for it, right? To just run off and save your life, since that’s what Tamlin wanted you to do in the first place?

But no, it’s hopeless, she would be killed the moment she tried!

It’s this back and forth that has consistently ruined any sense of drama or suspense throughout the story. In her first days at the manor, we were told that she had no chance of surviving a matter of minutes in the woods. But then she needed to go to the woods, where the creatures that we were told she had absolutely no chance of surviving an encounter with lived, and she ran into those creatures, and she survived. Then, she would be in grave danger at the festival. She went, survived, and was invited to the next festival (which makes zero sense in hindsight; why wouldn’t Tamlin have kept her presence totally secret so Amarantha wouldn’t have known Feyre was there in the first place?). She was for sure going to die making her way Under the Mountain. She didn’t. Everything in this book that is potentially deadly isn’t deadly. Feyre will always be conveniently rescued from danger or the danger will simply decide not to be dangerous.

So, I don’t buy for a moment that she can’t try an escape here without getting killed. I just don’t believe it. At this point, there are zero stakes and no reason whatsoever for me to believe that she’s in any danger at all.

Which is the space you really want your reader to be in when they’re coming into what should be one of the most exciting scenes in the book.

They take Feyre to a big cave that’s coated with mud like this is Woodstock ’99, and it’s full of about the same kind of crowd. They’re spooky, shouting, and “feral.”

I was hauled toward a wooden platform erected above the crowd. Atop it sat Amarantha and Tamlin, and before it …

I want an audiobook version of this where every ellipse are read out loud as “dun dun duuuuhn!”

I did my best to keep my chin high as I beheld the exposed labyrinth of tunnels and trenches running along the floor. The crowd stood along the banks, blocking my view of what lay within as I was thrown to my knees before Amarantha’s platform.

Love the neat trick of Feyre being able to see something that’s blocked from her view.

Around the platform stood a group of six males, secluded from the main crowd. From their cold, beautiful faces, from that echo of power still about them, I knew they were the other High Lords of Prythian. I ignored Rhysand as soon as I noticed his feline smile, the corona of darkness around him.

Since coronas, astronomically speaking, are fields of gaseous plasma, I’m going to imagine Rhysand walking around in a fart cloud at all times.

I can’t possibly be the only person who keeps forgetting the difference between High Lord and High Fae, can I? I know we’ve been reading this book for a long time but I just feel like I should be able to keep them straight.

“Well, Feyre,” the Faerie Queen said. I tried not to look at the hand she rested on Tamlin’s knee, that ring as vulgar as the gesture itself. “Your first task is here. Let us see how deep that human affection of yours runs.”

Putting your hand on Feyre’s boyfriend’s knee is just as bad as killing someone and trapping their soul in their eyeball and putting it in a ring you wear around so you can enjoy their eternal suffering.

You know what’s funny? If Feyre doesn’t guess the answer to the riddle (it’s love, the answer is love), then it won’t matter if she does all these tasks. Amarantha can just say sorry, you’re not worthy because you did these three heroic things and you still couldn’t figure out what love is, or something like that.

Amarantha tells Feyre that she’d learned some stuff about her (she can do the research on Feyre but not figure out her name?) and says Feyre will like the first task and tells her to look into the labyrinth.

The trenches, probably twenty feet deep, were slick with mud—in fact, they seemed to have been dug from mud.

Why, Sarah? Why must you continue with the em-dashes?

The trenches ran in a maze along the entire floor of the chamber, and their path made little sense.

You just explained what a maze is. You sat there at your computer, writing a book allegedly meant for adults and explained what a maze is. That’s a choice that you made, Sarah. That’s a choice that you made after describing it once already and using the word “labyrinth” to do so.

I don’t know Sarah J. Maas. I will very likely never, ever meet her. ed.—I will do everything humanly possible to avoid ever being within three miles of her. But I guarantee that this is the work of someone who is always the smartest person in the room, no matter where she goes.

In the maze, there are pitfalls and such, and Feyre thinks there might be underground tunnels. But as Sarah is describing all of this to us, the Attor scoops Feyre up and flies her down into the maze and drops her there. From her floating platform, Amarantha says:

“Rhysand tells me you’re a huntress,” she said, and my heartbeat faltered.

He must have read my thoughts again, or … or maybe he’d found my family, and—

Amarantha flicked her fingers in my direction. “Hunt this.”

Something is going to attack Feyre, but let’s stop a minute. Feyre. You know how they got that information. They have Tamlin and Lucien and a mind reader. That is how they got the information. Why is this even a question? Not a single damn reader questioned how she knew this stuff. ed.—Then again, this morning my FB memories reminded me of a reader who complained to me that I “used a bigger font” to make one of my books seem longer, and she was reading the ebook version and was in total control of the font size, so I assume that’s who we’re talking about when discussing an audience for Maas’s work.

There are some faeries placing bets around the edge of the pit and Feyre takes a last look at Tamlin with painting terms, and Amarantha orders some kind of creature to be released. Feyre hears something scraping open, then a slithering noise, then she feels the vibrations of something rushing at her, but she’s smart enough to know that this won’t look as good on Hulu if she’s proactive. She stays stock still until:

Amarantha clicked her tongue, and I whipped my head to her. Her brows rose. “Run,” she whispered.

Then it appeared.

I ran.

You know SJM was writing that part and thinking, “This will be in the trailer.”

It was a giant worm, or what might have once been a worm had its front end not become an enormous mouth filled with ring after ring of razor-sharp teeth. It barreled toward me, its pinkish brown body surging and twisting with horrific ease. These trenches were its lair.

This chapter was clearly directed by Joss Whedon. Holy penis monster. ed.—Be sure to check out my ongoing rewatch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer over on YouTube.

It’s weird that having teeth somehow makes it an ex-worm, though.

There’s a lot of description of sliding in the mud and how bad the mud stinks that I’ll be skipping as we go through. The thing is, this is a chapter in which the heroine is being chased by a giant worm and somehow, SJM has managed to make it painfully slow. Just be aware that Feyre is running and there’s mud and it stinks.

I had to get as much distance between us as possible; I had to find a spot where I could make a plan, a spot where I could find an advantage.

Oh, you and your plans. You always need to make plans, and then the plans you make aren’t revealed to us even as you’re enacting those plans. I love your stupid, useless plans.

The worm is like, right on her ass no matter how many turns she takes or how fast she runs, and the fairies are cheering on the worm while they all watch her from above. She makes the mistake of looking over her shoulder as she runs:

I almost missed a slender opening in the side of the trench thanks to that look, and I gave up valuable steps as I skidded to a halt to squeeze myself through the gap. It was too small for the worm, but the creature could probably shatter through the mud If not, its teeth could do the trick. But it was worth the risk.

Of course, it can get through the mud. This is its lair. How did it get a lair if it couldn’t get through the mud to make the lair?

The crack was too small, and I’d so frantically thrown myself through it that I’d become wedged between it. My back to the worm, and too far between the walls to be able to turn, I couldn’t see it as it approached. The smell though—the smell was growing worse.

Here’s the part of the chapter I had the most difficult time visualizing and understanding. When I read the excerpt before this last one, I assumed she had been upright when she went into the crack, and her shoulders are pinned. But then:

The trenches reverberated with the thunderous movements of the worm. I could almost feel its reeking breath upon my half-exposed body, could hear those teeth slashing through the air, closer and closer.

Is she on her stomach? Is that why she’s half-exposed? Otherwise, I can’t picture what’s being described here. Is she upright, facing straight forward, somehow deep enough that she’s pinned but shallow enough that her back is exposed? Or is she on her stomach and doing a half-Shawshank here?

That doesn’t matter. They’ll figure it out when this is adapted for the screen.

But put your vote in the comments.

Not like this. It couldn’t end like this.

Okay, but wouldn’t it be awesome if it did, though? If we all just went home right now and the book was over and Feyre was dead and we could all sleep peacefully knowing that the rest of the series just doesn’t exist?

Now, in case you’ve forgotten, there is mud around and it is smelly and the worm is smelly. I’m just letting you know because that’s what’s happening in the book. It’s the motif, if you will.

Feyre manages to dig her way through the crack and falls into a different corridor of the labyrinth.

I didn’t have time for tears of relief as I found myself in another passageway and I launched farther into the labyrinth. From the continuing quieted roars, I knew the worm had overshot me.

I have been able to make zero sense of this entire action sequence. It’s written like it was the last bit of the book that was worked on, like the author hurried back and quickly added it to make the deadline. It’s written like someone describing what happened in a movie they saw but only once and they were a very small child at the time. Scratch that. It reads like a very small child describing something they didn’t see in a movie, but they had a dream about it after they saw a little bit of a scary movie on TV.

Is the worm behind her, or did it go over her head? How did the worm “overshoot” her?

But that made no sense—the passage offered no place to hide. It would have seen me stuck there. Unless it couldn’t break through and was now taking some alternate route, and would spring upon me.

That’s what I’m saying! It makes no sense! But in fairness, that’s only because the author hasn’t accurately described shit like, idk, body position or generally where the worm was while Feyre was trying to dig her way through the crack. Because it sounded like it was right on her ass and now apparently it went right by her? But she’s somehow unaware that it went past her?

This is possibly the worst action sequence I have ever read in a book.

And I read Apolonia by Jamie McGuire.

Feyre’s still running, still taking turns fast and bouncing off the wall like she’s playing 200cc Mario Kart and she just got the starman power-up. The fairies who are watching are pretty disappointed that she hasn’t been eaten yet, and they’re also watching a totally different part of the maze, so Feyre knows that’s where the worm has gone. And then she’s like:

It was blind.

No shit?! NO SHIT?!

A WORM?!

BLIND?!

Feyre is so stunned by her awesome powers of deduction that she falls into a pit.

Gasping for breath, I fumbled a few steps into the blackness of the tunnel. I bit down my shriek as something beneath my foot crunched hard. I staggered back, and my tailbone wailed in pain. I kept scrambling away, but my hand connected with something smooth and hard, and I lifted it to see a gleam of white.

Guess what it is!

That’s right, she’s in a cave full of bones.

“Feyre,” I heard Amarantha’s distant call. “You’re ruining everyone’s fun!” She said it as if I were a lousy shuttlecock partner.

There is shuttlecock in this fantasy world.

Imagine having no limit on your imagination and still creating a world in which there is shuttlecock.

The worm didn’t know where I was; it couldn’t smell me.

How can she possibly know this?

As my sight adjusted to the darkness of the worm’s den, mounds and mounds of bones gleamed, piles rolling away into the gloom.

This is obviously where Feyre grabs some bones to fashion weapons for hunting the worm.

No, she just tries and fails several times to climb up the muddy wall. Then one of the fairies makes a joke about her needing a stepping stool.

A stepping stool.

I whirled toward the piles of bones, then pushed my hand hard against the wall. It felt firm. The entire place was made of packed mud, […]

Oh was it? You hadn’t mentioned that before, Sarah.

[…] and if this creature was anything like its smaller, harmless brethren, I could assume the stench—and therefore the mud itself—was the remnant of whatever had passed through its system after it sucked the bones clean.

There’s no reason we’re getting this lecture on how worms shit. It doesn’t come into play at all. But aren’t you glad that you know?

Disregarding that wretched fact, I seized the spark of hope and grabbed the two biggest, strongest bones I could quickly find.

Okay, Worm Biology 101 is over. Time to make weapons.

Both were longer than my leg and heavy—so heavy as I jammed them into the wall.

Oh, you’re making a ladder, then? All right, that’s fair—fair, as long as you also make something to defend yourself.

She keeps putting bones in the pit wall to climb up, but then she gets an even better idea!

It’s to make bones into weapons, right?

I drew the bone from my belt, and with a sharp intake of breath, I snapped it across my knee.

My own bones burned with pain, but the shaft broke, leaving me with two sharp-ended spikes. It was going to work.

If Amarantha wanted me to hunt, I would hunt.

Heck yeah! Armed with her sharp-ass bone knives, she climbs up from the pit and—

I walked to the middle of the pit opening, calculated the distance, and plunged the two bones into the ground. I returned back to the mound of bones and made quick work of whatever I could find that was sturdy and sharp.

Nevermind then. She cleverly makes the pit into a trap instead. Still acceptable, right?

One by one, I stuck them into the muddy floor beneath the pit opening until the whole area, save for one small spot, was filled with white lances.

Okay… if you’re getting a bad feeling about the one small spot, don’t worry. I had those feelings, as well.

And just like that, I heaved myself out of the pit mouth, and almost wept to be exposed to the open air once more.

But she’s not in the open air. She’s still in the labyrinth.

This book was NOT edited. I do not care what the author, publisher, fans might say. Not a damn person put their eyes on this book in a critical way before they shipped it off to the printer and bought up a place for it on the NYT list.

Then, for some reason, Feyre covers her entire body with mud.

If the creature was blind, then it relied on smell—and my smell would be my greatest weakness.

*wavy sitcom flashback transition*

The worm didn’t know where I was; it couldn’t smell me.

*wavy sitcom flash-forward transition*

Maybe it’s not smell, Feyre. Maybe it’s vibrations, and you need to walk without rhythm. Or maybe it senses body heat, like in Predator, the movie that was on in the background when Maas wrote this scene. But one thing we know for sure: this is a first draft, no one ever edited it, and anyone who genuinely enjoys this book needs to get their home tested for low-level carbon monoxide leaks.

BTW, this whole time? Where’s the fucking worm? She’s had time to build a bone ladder and a bone tiger pit, then do a full Schwarzenegger in the worm shit, and the worm is just off, idk, doing worm stuff?

“What’s it doing?” the green-faced faerie whined again.

A deep, elegant voice replied this time. “She’s building a trap.” Rhysand.

“But the Middengard—”

“Relies on its scent to see,” Rhysand answered, and I gave a special glower for him as I glanced at the rim of the trench and found him smiling at me. “And Feyre just became invisible.

*wavy sitcom flashback transition*

The worm didn’t know where I was; it couldn’t smell me.

*wavy sitcom flash-forward transition*

Also, the Middengard? Surely you don’t mean the Midgard, or Jörmungandr, the serpent who girdles the world, Sarah? I’m going to give the author the benefit of the doubt here and assume she’s literally named the worm “shitgardener” because I choose to believe that one thing, just one damn thing, in this book could bring me joy.

For reasons I cannot fathom, there is a full-on section break between this part and a direct continuation of the scene. It goes:

I made an obscene gesture before I broke into a run, heading straight for the worm. 

Then a section break followed by:

I placed the remaining bones at especially tight corners, knowing well enough that I couldn’t turn at the speed I hoped I would be running.

Like, at what point do I stop saying “this book is bad” because I’m starting to feel like I’m repeating myself more than Feyre does.

And by the way, why did she run “straight for the worm” if she wasn’t done setting up this elaborate trap? And if she put the last of the bones she’d broken into the walls… does she not have any kind of rudimentary weapon or something?

The faeries watching the worm—ten of them, with frosty blue skin and almond-shaped black eyes—giggled. I could only assume they’d grown bored of me and decided to watch something else die.

Cool, more non-Aryan beings (with almond-shaped eyes, no less!) being savages. That’s rad.

Look, I’m not suggesting that it’s racist against blue people. It just suggests fucking racism to put every skin color except literally any tone of brown human skin, into your book and then make a rainbow of mindless brutality out of the beings who don’t look like elegant and beautiful white people.

So, the worm is eating something else while these fairies watch and… feed it.

Too covered in its scent to smell me, the worm continued feasting, stretching its bulbous form upward as one of the faeries dangled what looked like a hairy arm. The worm gnashed its teeth, and the blue faeries cackled as they dropped the arm into its waiting mouth.

Quick quesh: why is Amarantha letting her court feed and distract the worm that’s supposed to be killing Feyre? Isn’t the whole point of this that Feyre will almost certainly be eaten by the worm?

I recoiled around the bend and raised the bone-sword I’d made.

She just said she put “the remaining bones” in the walls. There has been no mention of a bone sword whatsoever.

The lack of continuity in this fucker is astounding.

Still, my heart lodged in my throat as I drew the jagged edge of the bone across my palm, splitting open my flesh. Blood welled, bright and shining as rubies. I let it build before clenching my hand into a fist. The worm would smell that soon enough.

Here’s another spot where the author was more concerned about how cool this will look in the inevitable film adaptation than whether or not it makes sense to the story. Feyre is a hunter and a painter, and she knows she has more tasks coming up.

Why would she cut a part of her body that she will need to complete her next task. A part that is difficult to heal and easy to get infected (like, idk, when it’s slathered in worm shit, for example). Note the lack of question marks there; I want you to read it in the flat affect with which I thought it.

But while Feyre is doing this whole super tough and clever thing that for sure demonstrates she’s a practical, intelligent person who has a lot of experience thinking of ways to survive, she loses track of the fucking worm.

Then, shattering the silence like a shooting star, a voice—Lucien’s—bellowed across the chamber, “TO YOUR LEFT!”

Is that… is that ALL CAPS? Is that something we’re allowed to do?!

The worm bursts through the wall right next to her, then we have a page of her running and describing herself running, the word “turn” is used approximately forty-eight thousand times, and then she gets back to the hole.

Now, remember when she made the tiger pit? And she left a tiny area clear?

I swung my arms as I careened down, aiming for the spot I’d planned.

That’s right. The plan was to run and leap into the pit of jagged bone spikes and somehow land perfectly in the tiny spot she left open.

That’s the brilliant plan.

Let’s see how it goes:

Pain barked through my bones, my head, as I collided with the muddle ground and rolled. I flipped over myself and screamed as something hit my arm, biting through flesh.

I did not see this coming.

The worm falls into the pit and dies, Feyre climbs up out of the hole, and she’s still got her bone sword of badassness that just appeared out of fucking nowhere.

I tightened my grip on the long bone in my hand. I was shaking—shaking all over. But not with fear. Oh, no. It wasn’t fear at all. I’d proved my love—and then some.

When Amarantha makes a remark about how anyone could have done what Feyre did, Feyre fucking snaps.

I took a few running steps and hurled the bone at her with all my remaining strength.

It embedded itself in the mud at her feet, splattering filth onto her white gown, and remained there, quivering.

And everybody on the bus clapped.

She smiled slowly. “Naughty,” she asked.

Did she ask? Doesn’t sound like an ask. Doesn’t even sound like the full stop you put at the end of a sentence when you want someone to read it in the pissed-off voice with which they wrote it.

Ahem.

Had there not been an insurmountable trench between us, I would have ripped her throat out. Someday—if I lived through this—I would skin her alive.

LOL isn’t that like, the EXACT SAME THING AMARANTHA DID THAT’S UNFORGIVABLE? I could have sworn she skinned somebody. Who cares, honestly. Who really the fuck cares.

Read those full stops. Feel them in your bones.

Amarantha tells Feyre that a lot of people in the court lost money betting that she would be killed, and Feyre looks at Tamlin.

His green eyes were bright, and though his face was deathly pale, I could have sworn there was a ghost of triumph on his face.

Could have said “it” instead of using “face” twice in the same sentence, but nothing matters anymore.

Still, I’m so happy that we’ve arrived at, “but when he said it, his face looked this way. What do you think that meeeeeaaans?” as the core of the romance here.

“Let’s see,” Amarantha went on, reading the paper as she toyed with Jurian’s finger bone at the end of her necklace. “Yes, I’d say almost my entire court bet on you dying within the first minute; some said you’d last five, and”—she turned over the paper—”and just one person said you would win.”

Oh wow, gosh, I bet it was Tamlin or Lucien wow gosh, I’m sure it’s one of them I’m going to be totally surprised when we find out it was Rhysand.

Especially after Amarantha says:

“Rhysand, come here.”

Feyre is dragged back to her cell and checks out the arm she fucking ruined like a god damn McArthur Genius Grant recipient.

I looked at my left forearm then, and my stomach rose at the trickling blood and ripped tendons, at the lips of my skin pulled back to accommodate the shaft of a bone shard protruding clean through it.

Well, that’s fucking disgusting, isn’t it? The only time I want to hear about lips pulling back to accommodate shafts is…

Look, the point is, with the medical care available to her and the hygiene situation… this should be a fatal injury. You’re looking at infection, you’re looking at shock, possibly an embolism, the movement of the bone could sever a blood vessel, this is not the injury you want to give your main character in the very first physical challenge you’re giving her. How is she going to do the rest of the stuff?

Okay, we all know someone is probably going to come to heal her.

But still, it’s an injury that could have been avoided… if Feyre hadn’t made the frankly bananas decision to jump straight down into a pit of giant bone spikes.

This book sucks, yous all. It just.

It just sucks. There’s no other way to put it. It massively sucks.