A Court of Jealousy and Haters: ACOTAR chapter 22 or “The Joy of Painting”

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.

PLEASE NOTE: For whatever reason, I decided it would be smart and cool to write this recap in Google Docs and then just copy/paste. I don’t know how, but it resulted in some real fuckupery with regards to quotation marks. Some are backward, some are forward, and every time I try to change it in this window and I hit save, they just go right back. So, we’ll all suffer together with the weird quotes this time around and I’ll learn my lesson and never copy/paste from Google Docs again.

As usual, we open the chapter with Feyre waking up. But this time, she’s waking up horny and there’s nobody to wait on her.

Try as I might to forget the feel of Tamlin’s lips on my neck, I had an enormous bruise where he’d bitten me.

The male love interest has wounded the female main character, so they’re on track to bone any day now.

Right? I mean, I’m still wondering where the “porn” part of the “fairy porn” equation comes in.

I opened the drawers of the vanity, searching for a scarf or something to cover the bruise peeking over the collar of my blue tunic, but then paused and glared at myself in the mirror. He’d acted like a brute and a savage, and if he’d come to his sense by morning, then seeing what he’d done would be minimal punishment.

We’re all readers in the year 2021. We know exactly how minimal his punishment is going to be.

Humming to myself and swinging my hands, I strode downstairs and followed my nose to the dining room, where I knew lunch was usually served for Tamlin and Lucien.

Why is Feyre striding everywhere? It’s such a strong way of describing going to lunch. And speaking of, we are halfway into this book. We are far past the stage where Feyre needs to explain to us that they eat in the dining room. Especially since nearly every day she’s lived in Prythian has gone “wake, bath, hair, think about how I don’t know I’m beautiful (that’s what makes me beautiful), go to the dining room.” We know where the food is and we know why you’re going there. It’s one of three places you go, ever.

Lucien and Tamlin are both at the table, looking hungover.

“You look…refreshed,” Lucien observed with a glance at Tamlin. I shrugged. “Sleep well?”

“Like a babe.” I smiled at him and took another bite of food, and felt Lucien’s eyes travel inexorably to my neck.

“What is that bruise?” Lucien demanded.

I pointed with my fork to Tamlin. “Ask him. He did it.”

You’d think from that “demanded” that Lucien is going to be angry at Tamlin or say something about Feyre being more careful but instead Lucien does ask Tamlin, with “no small amount of amusement.”

It’s charming and funny that Feyre has a visible injury from Tamlin.

Tamlin admits to having bitten her the night before, but he’s sorry not sorry about it:

“She seems to have a death wish,” he went on, cutting his meat. The claws stayed retracted but pushed against the skin above his knuckles. My throat closed up. Oh, he was mad—furious at my foolishness for leaving my room—but somehow managed to keep his anger on a tight, tight leash. “So, if Feyre can’t be bothered to listen to orders, then I can’t be held accountable for the consequences.”

You mean if she hadn’t been out alone at night, if she hadn’t been dressed the way she was dressed, if she had just tried to protect herself from being sexually assaulted by you, hence it wasn’t your fault? Is that what we’re going with?

Because look, I’ve said over and over again that Feyre needs to listen to warnings from the people who actually live in Prythian and know better than she does, but that doesn’t mean that when she chooses to ignore those warnings, the people who harm her are blameless. Two things can be true here: Feyre should never have left her room, and Tamlin shouldn’t have bitten her.

Feyre gets angry and points out that Tamlin cornered her, and Lucien still finds the whole thing funny because what is humor if not watching your friend argue with the woman he assaulted?

“While I might not have been myself, Lucien and I both told you to stay in your room,” Tamlin said, so calmly that I wanted to rip out my hair.

I would like to rip out the hair of everyone at this freaking lunch. Everything we heard about Tamlin not being “himself” had to do with the lead-up to the ritual. He would be consumed by this primal, driving force to find the maiden and do the sex with her and then…

What? I assumed, as a reader, that Tamlin would only be possessed by this force until the magic was raised by the Great Rite. I figured he’d nut out all the magic and that would be it because that’s how the entire set-up made it sound. And he was “himself” enough when he encountered Feyre that he knew what he was doing. If he didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong, he wouldn’t have stopped. So, “It’s your fault because you know how I get” is really not doing it for me here.

I couldn’t help it. Didn’t even try to fight the red-hot temper that razed my senses. “Faerie pig!” I yelled, and Lucien howled, almost tipping back in his chair. At the sight of Tamlin’s growing smile, I left.

Just to briefly recap what’s happened here: Tamlin assaulted Feyre then joins Lucien in making fun of her for…being assaulted.

Wow, swoon, why can’t she end up with both of them?

And how does Feyre respond to this? By painting, of course:

It took me a couple of hours to stop painting little portraits of Tamlin and Lucien with pigs’ features.

I can’t wait until Tamlin or Lucien or both of them see these paintings Feyre made of her own lazy insult and they roar/scream/detonate/immolate with laughter over the exhausting try-hard “humor” in this novel.

But as I finished the last one—Two faerie pigs wallowing in their own filth, I would call it—I smiled into the clear, bright light of my private painting room. The Tamlin I knew had returned.

And it made me … happy.

The Tamlin you knew was the Tamlin who would push you up against a wall, bite you, then make fun of you for almost getting raped by him the night before? Have we met that Tamlin? Or are we just now supposed to go, “Well, Sarah says this is how it’s always been and she’s the author so she would know,” and adjust our memories of everything we’ve already read? There’s been no indication at all that Tamlin would look back on his behavior with anything other than horror. He’s been polite and up until the last couple of chapters, formal for no apparent reason.

But Maas has no interest whatsoever in dealing with the aftermath of her characters’ bad actions. Rather than being angry at what Tamlin did, Lucien finds it hilarious. Instead of Tamlin being truly horrified that he’s hurt her, he’s all, you made me do it, sorry not sorry. And how does Feyre deal with all of this? By running away and making “funny” paintings.

None of this “humor” tracks with the characters as they’ve been presented so far. Maas has taken so much time trying to set up that Tamlin isn’t the cruel beast he first appeared as in Feyre’s cottage. He’s gentlemanly and kind and only wants to show Feyre the beauty and magic of Prythian.

Then she wipes it away because she wants to copycat a horny scene from a TBS miniseries.

And I’m fine with that. Really, I was interested in what would happen between Feyre and Tamlin after that hallway scene because, despite its flaws, they really did have good chemistry there. I was thinking, wow, that chemistry is just going to get hotter when he has to humble himself and ask for her forgiveness, and she learns to trust him again and eventually she consents to a sexual relationship. The payoff is gonna be so great!

But nope. Not interested. Sarah is done with that dynamic altogether. Feyre paints it off, we get a section break, and this is how the entire assault situation is put to rest:

We apologized at dinner.

Oh, I’m sorry. Were you looking for more?

He even brought me a bouquet of white roses from his parents’ garden, and while I dismissed them as nothing, I made certain that Alis took good care of them when I returned to my room.

You meant more of the apology? Like you thought it might be important to excerpt more of the actual exchange that takes place during the apology? I see where the misunderstanding has happened.

There is no apology.

There is no dialogue, no recap of dialogue, no descriptions, no message attached to the flowers. We know there was an apology for this absolutely huge betrayal of the heroine’s trust, because it says:

We apologized at dinner.

That’s it. That and the flowers? That is how the entire Great Rite debacle is sewn up and tossed aside now that Maas is finished with the sexy part.

I went back and forth for a while about the “we” in that sentence, because I’m not sure Feyre actually needs to apologize for being in the hallway. This might seem like a departure from my “do as you’re told and that wouldn’t happen” stance from earlier recaps, but I see Feyre leaving her room and sneaking out to the party as a separate event from Tamlin assaulting her in the hallway. Feyre doesn’t owe Tamlin an apology for disobeying him and going to Calanmai, because it wasn’t Tamlin who was inconvenienced by her doing so.

I’m all for Feyre apologizing to Lucien for interrupting his cultural thing and dragging him away from it. She should apologize for that. And yes, she should apologize to Tamlin for disregarding his warning and acting like she knows Prythian better than he does. But those apologies need to be totally separate from what should be happening regarding the assault: only Tamlin apologizes.

Feyre didn’t run afoul of Tamlin before the Great Rite when he was possessed by the spirit of the hunter or whatever. I might be mixing that up with The Mists of Avalon but come on. We’ve discussed why that would be. But the point is, the ritual was over, the magic nut had been nutted o’er the land, so there’s no excuse for what he did. He did it because he was annoyed that he didn’t get a chance to fuck her when he was possessed.

That’s bad enough that it warrants an apology the readers need to see, in the first place, and without any whataboutism regarding Feyre’s misdeeds.

Maas could have used the apology to deepen the chemistry and connection between Feyre and Tamlin. Instead, she skipped over it in favor of pulling a “both sides” on an assault she’s done with.

But hey, at least he gave her some flowers he went to the trouble of already owning.

This section, by the way, is one paragraph, followed by a single line.

Here’s my prediction: I think Maas turned this manuscript in without any mention of an apology from Tamlin. I think she wrote “And it made me” DOT DOT DOT “happy” and thought it would be fine to leave it there. Then an editor was like, “There needs to be more here. Tamlin can’t do what he did, then tell her it was her fault, and everyone goes on like before. He needs to apologize.” And Maas was like, yeah, fuck it, “We apologized at dinner.”

Rather than take the opportunity to make the story better and the characters more interesting. “We apologized at dinner.”

The next section only cements my firm belief in the above prediction:

“Don’t know if I should be pleased or worried,” Alis said the next night as she slid the golden underdress over my upraised arms, then tugged it down.

I smiled a bit, marveling at the intricate metallic lace that clung to my arms and torso like a second skin before falling loosely to the rug. “It’s just a dress,” I said, lifting my arms again as she brought over the gossamer turquoise overgown. It was sheer enough to see the gleaming gold mesh beneath, and light and airy and full of movement, as if it flowed on an invisible current.

But could you paint it, Feyre? How are we supposed to know it’s gorgeous if you won’t tell us that you can’t paint it, Feyre?!

If we entirely remove the “We apologized at dinner” section, do you know what you’d end up with?

That’s right. Feyre calling Tamlin a pig, Tamlin laughing about it, Feyre going off to paint out her troubles, DOT DOT DOT happy, and then she’s suddenly wearing a dress. The dress was meant to signal that all is forgiven and Feyre is now all about being pretty.

You see, Feyre couldn’t take off her pants while she was being a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER. But now that one of the menfolk thinks she’s sexy, well.

We don’t need the pants anymore.

The pants were on in case there would be some kind of action and she’d be able to escape. She doesn’t need to escape now because the boy wants to put his pee-pee in her noona and therefore all is forgiven.

Let me stress, once again, for the record: this MASTERFUL, AUTO-BUY AUTHOR EVERYONE MUST READ just put more work into describing a dress than she did into reconciling the main characters after an assault.

“Jenny, don’t be so mean! Stop saying popular books aren’t well written just because you’re jealous!”

Truly, this staggering work of literary excellence is proving me the most woeful of wrongs.

In a desperate bid to be able to claim her work passes the Bechdel test, Maas tosses in a little section where Feyre asks Alis where she learned to do hair, and Alis says she learned from her mother and her sister and grandmother. Then Feyre asks where Alis is from and she’s like, I’m from the Summer Court but I chose to come here and that’s pretty much it until the section ends with Feyre checking herself out in the mirror.

FEMINISM!

I had to keep my hands clenched at my sides to avoid wiping my sweaty palms on the skirts of my gown as I reached the dining room, and immediately contemplated bolting upstairs and changing into a tunic and pants. But I knew they’d already heard me, or smelled me, or used whatever heightened senses they had to detect my presence, and since fleeing would only make it worse, I found it in myself to push open the double doors.

Okay, uh. Excuse me here a real quick second.

What is Feyre afraid of? Being pretty in front of the hot boys? With their earlier confrontation completely resolved with a single sentence, what does Feyre have to be nervous about? The only new information we’ve received about her situation is that she’s wearing a dress. There’s been no further interaction between her or the High Fae that are apparently sensing her through the door when they’re somehow unable to sense her when it’s inconvenient to the story.

Can you tell that I’ve been feeling personally insulted by the shitty writing in this book more and more often lately?

Whatever discussion Tamlin and Lucien had been having stopped, and I tried not to look at their wide eyes as I strode to my usual place at the end of the table.

Lots of striding going on lately. Her legs must be exhausted.

Because the author needs to get Tamlin and Feyre together alone, Lucien gets up and leaves. I’m sure later we’ll learn that he left because he’s secretly in love with Feyre and can’t stand to see her falling in love with Tamlin or something but right now it just reads like “character I don’t want to deal with goes poof” for the author’s convenience.

There’s what’s supposed to be a charged moment of Tamlin looking at Feyre while Feyre tries to not look at him, then she points out that the table is really too long and he’s far away. In response, Tamlin makes the table shorter with magic.

You know. The magic that is precious and rare and must be conserved?

I ignored the metallic tang of magic as I said, “How … how did you do that? Where did it go?”

She ignores the taste of magic, then asks how he did the thing that was clearly magic. I hope she never loses this sense of amnesiac wonder.

He cocked his head. “Between. Think of it as … a broom closet tucked between pockets of the world.” He flexed his hands and rolled his neck, as if shaking off some pain.

“Does it tax you?” Sweat seemed to gleam on the strong column of his neck.

He stopped flexing his hands and set them flat on the table. “Once, it was as easy as breathing. But now … it requires concentration.”

Editor: If it’s such a harrowing feat of strength, why didn’t he just get up and move closer?

Author:

“You could have just taken a closer seat,” I said.

Tamlin gave me a lazy grin. “And miss a chance to show off to a beautiful woman? Never.”

Yup, that’s exactly the fix that makes sense here. Tamlin uses incredible strength and concentration–that takes all of an eyeblink to summon–and depletes himself to make Feyre feel pretty.

Must be fucking nice.

”You do look beautiful,” he said quietly. “I mean it,” he added when my mouth twisted to the side. “Didn’t you look in the mirror?”

OF COURSE, SHE DID. I feel like she’s never not in front of the god damn mirror. She fell asleep at her vanity in the last chapter for god’s, sorry, CAULDRON’S sake.

Though his bruise still marred my neck, I had looked pretty. Feminine. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a beauty, but … I hadn’t cringed.

There’s a lot to unpack there vis-a-vis who qualifies as beautiful but I don’t feel like biting a steel cable in half in my rage today.

A few months here had done wonders for the awkward sharpness and angles of my face. And I dared say that some kind of light had crept into my eyes–my eyes, not my mother’s eyes or Nesta’s eyes. Mine.

Everyone knows the first place weight gain becomes noticeable is the eyeballs.

Tamlin leaned back in his chair, yet his shoulders were tight, his mouth a thin line. He hadn’t been called to the border in a few days–hadn’t come back weary and covered in blood since before Fire Night. And yet … He’d grieved for that nameless Court faerie with the hacked-off wings.

In case you were planning to write a book and nobody ever mentioned to you, “By the way, ‘and yet’ is like ‘nevertheless’ or ‘despite’,” congrats, I just helped you out. The way this is written makes it sound like it’s somehow unusual for Tamlin to grieve for the dead fairy because Tamlin hasn’t been covered in blood. No reader would come to that conclusion. No reader would think, “Wait…how can he be mourning that fairy if he hasn’t come back to the house covered in blood?!”

What grief and burdens did he bear for whoever else had been lost in this conflict–lost to blight, or to the attacks on the borders? High Lord–a position he hadn’t wanted or expected, yet he’d been forced to bear its weight as best he could.

I am so tired of this going around and around and around. Feyre, you’ve wondered this same shit a million times. Either ask or shut up and make this book a hell of a lot shorter.

Feyre decides it’s time for a field trip. She’s going to give him a present that she has apparently made for him.

When I went to drop his hand, he didn’t let go. It was enough to keep me walking quickly, as if I could outrun my thundering heart or the sheer immortal presence of him at my side. I brought him down hall after hall until we got to my little painting room, and he finally released my hand as I reached for the key.

I just included the above to note that more words were spent on walking to the fucking painting room than were allotted to resolving the assault issue.

Tamlin says he didn’t realize she would actually lock up the room and Feyre says:

”Everyone snoops in this house. I didn’t want you or Lucien coming in here until I was ready.”

The only person we’ve seen “snooping” in the house so far is Feyre.

I stepped into the darkened room and cleared my throat, a silent request for him to light the candles. It took him longer than I’d seen him need before, and I wondered if shortening the table had somehow drained him more than he’d let on.

Ma’am. He was sweating and flexing his hands like he was in the early stages of a heart attack. And rather than coming in and lighting the damn candles yourself, you passive-aggressively hint that you want him to use his magic to do something you probably do by your own damn self every damn day. And then you’re like, oh, gosh, I wonder if it’s hard for him to use his magic.

DO YOU FUCKING THINK, FEYRE?

The Suriel had said the High Lords were power–and yet … yet something had to be truly, thoroughly wrong if this was all he could manage.

YES FEYRE THAT HAS BEEN THE WHOLE DEAL WITH ALL OF PRYTHIAN SO FAR IT’S THE ONLY SCRAP OF PLOT THIS FUCKING BOOK HAS.

The room gradually flared with light, and I pushed my worry aside as I stepped farther into the room.

Well, thank god she could stop worrying. As long as FEYRE is comfortable.

I took a deep breath and gestured to the easel and the painting I’d put there. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the paintings I’d leaned against the walls.

You mean, you hope the supernatural creature with heightened senses and who is constantly in peril won’t notice something about his surroundings?

“I know they’re strange,” I said, my hands sweating again. I tucked them behind my back. “And I know they’re not like–not as good as the ones you have here, but …” I walked to the painting on the easel. It was an impression, not a lifelike rendering. “I wanted you to see this one,” I said, pointing to the smear of green and gold and silver and blue. “It’s for you. A gift. For everything you’ve done.”

Wait, NOW he’s done something for you? He was evil and horrible and very bad, bad, bad, when he let you live after you murdered his friend. He was evil and horrible and very bad, bad, bad, when he screwed with your family’s memory and gave them money, food, and security you couldn’t have given them. But now that you know that he wants to get humpy, all of these things you’ve been pissed off about are somehow magically things you’re grateful for?

Feyre tells him the painting is of the glen/valley/ravine/crevasse he took her to, where they swam in the pool of starlight. He tells her he knows what it is, then he goes to look at those paintings she hoped he wouldn’t notice. I’m gonna just blaze through these because…well, it’s really boring to read about someone looking at paintings and saying out loud exactly what the painting represents. One is of the woods where Feyre hunted, one is of her cottage, and one is…

Well, actually, I do have to excerpt what it is because it sounds like the most ridiculous high school art fair entry ever:

A tanned, sturdy male hand fisted in the hay, the pale pieces of it entwined among strands of brown coated with gold–my hair.

Doesn’t that sound like a life drawing assignment? “Draw a realistic hand. It may be holding an object.”

Tamlin immediately guesses that it’s a painting of Barn Booty’s hand while he and Feyre got down and dirty and it makes him growl.

Was that … jealousy? “It was the only escape I had.” Truth. I wouldn’t apologize for Isaac. Not when Tamlin had just been in the Great Rite. I didn’t hold that against him–

EXTREME RON HOWARD NARRATION VOICE: Yes, she does.

but if he was going to be jealous of Isaac–

Not to split hairs here, Feyre, but Tamlin was Cave Copulating as part of a ritual. You were getting Barn Booty because you were horny. So while neither of you should be jealous of either…let’s just say the situations aren’t comparable so maybe you shouldn’t start with your judgemental little comparison, okay?

Tamlin moves on to the next picture, which is of Feyre’s dad being beaten to pieces by the creditors.

Can I just say how refreshing it is to get a recap of the ENTIRE GOD DAMN BOOK SO FAR in the form of PAINTINGS WE CAN’T SEE AND THEREFORE MUST BE DESCRIBED FOR US?

You’ll hit that word count, Sarah. Believe in yourself.

Tamlin swore. “You were there when they wrecked your father’s leg.”

“Someone had to beg them to stop.”

Did you paint the part where you shit your pants but were still braver than your sisters?

Tamlin doesn’t want the picture of the valley/clearing/fen/park that Feyre painted for him. He wants the painting of the bleak winter forest, which I think we’re supposed to take as romantic or deep or something. Feyre does.

“Tell me there’s some way to help you,” I breathed. “With the masks, with whatever threat has taken so much of your power. Tell me–just tell me what I can do to help you.”

Yeah, just tell her, Tamlin. So she can decide she knows better and then just does whatever the fuck she wants until she has to be rescued. Again.

Tamlin tells her that there’s nothing she can do because she wouldn’t survive the stuff Tamlin has to do to, idk, fight the blight or something? There are so many em dashes and ellipses and none of them lead to any concrete “this is what I have to do to accomplish this thing” so I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. I guess I’m supposed to be so dazzled by the romance happening that I’m not curious about the plot.

At this point, I’m not, but I should be.

“So I’m to live here forever, in ignorance of the true scope of what’s happening? If you don’t want me to understand what’s going on … would you rather …” I swallowed hard. “Rather I found someplace else to live? Where I’m not a distraction?”

No, Feyre, please don’t take your toys and go home. I’m so enjoying watching you just putter around the god damn house all day until it’s time for something to happen to you.

“Didn’t Calanmai teach you anything?”

No, not a damn thing. Is this your first day? Have you been to orientation?

“Only that magic makes you into a brute.”

He laughed, though not entirely with amusement. When I remained silent, he sighed. “No, I don’t want you to live somewhere else. I want you here, where I can look after you–where I can come home and know you’re here, painting and safe.”

Oh, good. For a second there, I thought Feyre was going to break this FASCINATING cycle of get up, get food, ignore every warning anyone ever gives her, get rescued, get mad about getting rescued, go to sleep, repeat. I definitely want to read more and more of that, rather than anything different at all.

Tamlin goes on to say that he has thought about getting rid of her, but he just couldn’t let her go.

”I’ve had many lovers,” he admitted. “Females of noble birth, warriors, princesses …” Rage hit me, low and deep in the gut at the thought of them–rage at their titles, their undoubtedly good looks, at their closeness to him. “But they never understood. What it was like, what it is like, for me to care for my people, my lands. What scars are still there, what the bad days feel like.” That wrathful jealousy faded away like morning dew as he smiled at my painting. “This reminds me of it.”

Can we take a moment to acknowledge how messy, fucked up, and just outright bizarre everything in that paragraph is? Let’s talk about structure, first. All of Tamlin’s dialogue is tagged with Feyre’s thoughts/actions. And the outright abuse of em dashes and ellipses in this chapter should have resulted in the firing, without severance, of the editor who worked on this book.

Now, let’s move on to Feyre BEING JEALOUS OF ALL HIS PAST LOVERS DESPITE JUST THINKING ABOUT HOW HE HAS NO RIGHT TO BE JEALOUS OF HER PAST LOVERS. And she’s so pathetic about it, too. Like, the insecurity is off the charts. Poor me, I bet he had sex with a pretty girl once!

Feyre, the dude just spent a bunch of time telling you that you’re beautiful, praising your artwork, and then he capped it all off by saying he couldn’t get rid of you. Your insecurity is disingenuous. We live inside your head. We know you think of yourself as the hottest of all shits, even though you repeatedly insist that you do not feel this way.

“Of what?” I breathed.

He lowered the painting, looking right at me, right into me. “That I’m not alone.”

Yes, Tamlin, because having to hunt to feed one’s family is exactly the same as having to save your entire species and you should be sure to give Feyre credit for that.

On the other hand, it appears that Feyre thinks the two are equal enough to end the chapter with a reminder that she wants to bang Tamlin:

I didn’t lock my bedroom door that night.

Good. I hope someone bursts in and murders you and chapter twenty-three starts with your funeral.