Showing posts with label Sarah J. Maas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah J. Maas. Show all posts

Thursday, 26 May 2016

A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah J. Maas

*Disclaimer* If you haven´t read the first book yet please be aware of eventual spoilers. I would not advise reading on if you are interested in starting this series and are hugely repelled by spoilers. The spoilage is not very deep though, so if you don´t mind continue on, just be warned. However if you have read the first book and just haven´t continued on yet, this review will be Spoiler free until after the free space underneath.

Title: A Court of Mist and Fury
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Pages: 626
Published by: Bloomsbury UK
Rating: 5/5
A Court of Mist and Fury, or let´s just call it ACOMAF for short, starts only a couple months after the events of A Court of Thorns and Roses, ACOTAR. Feyre is back in the Spring Court about to get married to Tamlin, when Rhysand appears to call in his end of the bargain. Now Feyre has to spend one week each month at the Night Court, where she learns that not everything is not as black and white as it seems.

After I was not the biggest fan of ACOTAR, due to various problems I had with the story and the characters, I was quite hesitant to continue on with this series, let alone pre-order ACOMAF. But thankfully I did. A Court of Mist and Fury was everything I wanted and needed the first book to be and more. It had a fast moving story, plot twists, great character development, lots of snarky humour and so much more. Sarah J. Maas did an especially brilliant job in not only introducing us to the Night Court, but making me falling in love with it and lots of new characters as well. She transferred me right into this beautiful world, that I didn´t want to leave, which lead to me almost falling asleep, while reading at 2am numerous times, because I just couldn´t stop reading. If you need more proves to convince you to pick up this book I want to let you know that it is a big book. I was really shocked, when this monster of 600 and something pages turned up on my doorstep one day. But I finished it in three days. Not even on a weekend. It took me three normal school days. And I am not that fast of a reader, especially not during school. So needless to say I absolutely ADORED this book and everybody should pick this up, especially if you weren´t too keen about the first book.




Entering Spoilerland




LET´S TALK ABOUT RHYSAND! In the first book I wasn´t a big fan of neither Tamlin nor Rhysand, but I did have a preference for Rhys. I found the relationship between Tamlin and Feyre to be a bit uncomfortable and weird, mainly because some of the things he did in ACOTAR. And oh boy. He looked Feyre into his house! That´s like some serious dominance issue right there, and I just can´t fathom why he would do that? She is like one of the most powerful fae to live right now and she has all these powers, which she could use to defend herself, but that douchebag just treats her like a five year old, who doesn´t know what´s best for him. But not only that, but he also ignores her and her wishes, just to go off to hunt some moose or whatever he does. So of course, I was really happy when Rhys turned up at their wedding. He takes her in, teaches her how to read and build that wall and treats her like an equal, so by what? Page eighty or something I was already on team Rhys and stayed there for all of the remaining story. I found his character to be great as well, because not only does he treat Feyre like a person, no he is witty and snarky. It was amazing how much he gave up to protect his family and Velaris.  Velaris was another highlight in this story. Sarah J. Maas to make me fall just as much in love with it as Rhysand does. I felt like I was there, strolling around, watching the theatre performances and more. The worldbuilding in general was just done phenomenally.
One of my favourite scenes hands down, was when they went into the Court of Nightmares to get the orb. It was so steamy and just ugh! Give me more! Feyre was just so conflicted about her feelings and she didn´t even know why! And OMG they are mated! I´m so excited. Loads of people already guessed that Rhys and Feyre were mates at the end of ACOTAR, but I was pretty oblivious until somebody pointed it out to me on Goodreads. I was afraid that the suspicion would spoil my reading experience, but I completely forgot during all the other amazing stuff that went down. So when Feyre  found out that Rhys was her mate I still freaked out. I understood why she dealt with the situation the way she did, but found it really awkward when they were just having sex all the time. While I love how Maas writes the flirtatious, necking scenes, hence the scene in the Court of Nightmares being a standout, I am not the biggest fan of her sex scenes. I just find them weird and a bit uncomfortable to read.
A thing I didn´t see coming as well, was the twist at the end, when Lucian finds out Elain is his mate. Like, who saw THAT coming?! And Feyre being the High Lady of the Dream Court? You go girl! Show Tamlin what a girl can do. Reason 697 why I just love Rhysand. He treats her like an equal. But now that the deal is broken and Feyre is back at the Spring Court, urgh in between, Lucien needs her or else he won´t see Elain again. At least Rhys and Feyre can still communicate with each other, or else I would have a fear that we won´t have enough Rhysand in the next book.
All in all I completely unexpectedly fell in love with this book and can´t recommend it highly enough. It has, for sure, been one of the best books I´ve read this year and I can´t wait for May 2017 for the next book to come out. By the way, what do you guys think it will be called? My guess is on A Court of Spies and War.  And what will the cover look like? Maybe green with Feyre holding bow and arrow? Let me know your guesses down below, as well as what you thought of ACOMAF!
Read on xx
Lena


Sunday, 22 May 2016

My Top 10 Anticipated Summer Releases of 2016

2016 has almost already reached ist halfway-point. (Ahhhhh who can believe that? It passed by so fast!) And as now summer is finally upon us, school is out. This means that there will also be more than enough time for friends, ice cream, summer adventures and the most important: lying in the grass on a nice summer day READING. So to get us ready, I decided to make my first real blog post about my Top 10 summer releases, just in case you are still hesitant which books you need to pick up to have the best Summer you could possibly have.
 As a disclaimer I want to add, that I personally define summer as the beginning of May until the end September, so not the “official” definition, but who cares? I also want to claim that, of course, dates can change. I am writing this post on May 22nd so maybe the date that a certain book is supposed to come out will change.

Number 10:

The Raven King, by Maggie Stiefvater
Yes, this is lower than most people would expect, especially because most of the books I read are YA and this is one HECK of a popular series. I have only read the first two books “The Raven Boys” and “The Dream Thieves” and honestly I just found them to be….Nice. I do want to continue on so I am happy all the books are out now, so I can read the last two books in a row if I desire to do so.
Published April 26th.



Number 9:

Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo
Have I read “Six of Crows”? No. Have I finished the Grisha Trilogy? No. Have I at least started the series? Yes! And I absolutely adored the first two books “Shadow and Bone” and “Siege and Storm”. I just ordered the last book “Ruin and Rising” and already own “Six of Crows” and since I am very excited to read those, I found it appropriate to make “Crooked Kingdom” my number nine.
Published September 27th



Number 8:

This Savage Song, by Victoria Schwab
I haven´t read something by Victoria Schwab (but I own “Vicious” though!) Still this book intrigues me. With Urban Fantasy, conflicted main characters and all the hype that is around Vicoria Schwab´s writing style this book sounds right up my alley.

I also talked about this book in my June Releases so if you would like to read more about it please click here. (coming Sunday)
Published July 5th



Number 7:

Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor
Two confessions: First, as it seems to be a trend, I haven´t read the “Daughter of Smoke and Bones” trilogy yet. Ugh, bad reader I know, but what can you do? Second, I don´t really know what this is about. Just something about a conflict between gods and mankind, alchemy and perhaps love? As I said, I don´t know what this is about, but that doesn´t mellow my excitement on bit.
Published September 27th


Number 6:

The Crown´s Game, by Evelyn Skye
Remember when I just told you about how much I liked the first two books in the Grisha Trilogy? Believe it or not I was quite hesitant to pick it up. The reviews I had heard were mixed and I wasn´t sure whether or not I would like the Russian inspired setting. At the end the Russian aspects turned out to be my favourite part, hence why I am excited about the crown´s game (and the author studied Russian History in collage, so she probably knows her stuff). The story takes place in 19th century Russia, where Nikolaj and Vika have to battle each other’s magic to see who will become the emperor’s enchanter. So not only has this book a Russian setting, it also has a love triangle, which I am a huge fan of, when done right, and magic. MAGIC!
Published May 17th


Number 5:

Summer Day and Summer Nights, edited by Stephanie Perkins
When I think of a perfect summer read, it either is a fun, fast paced fantasy story or a light, cute and fluffy contemporary. And Stephanie Perkins is surely the queen of the latter. The “Anna and the French Kiss” companions introduced me to her fabulous writing and since then I have been hooked and will read whatever the Queen of Contemporary chooses to publish. This is the second anthology she did, the first one set around Christmas, this one now takes place in the summer. There are 12 Love stories in this, including ones from authors like Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Leigh Bardugo (another reason to buy this!) and queen Perkins herself.
Published May 17th



Number 4:

The Unexpected Everything, by Morgan Matson
But behold Stephanie Perkins! There is another Queen of Contemproray: Morgan Matson. Ok, I haven´t particularly read anything by her yet, but believe me “Since You´ve Been Gone” is one of the top contenders on my Summer TBR this year. “The Unexpected Everything” is about this girl Andie, who has her whole life mapped out. But then stuff happens and all these plans fly out the window and it just sounds like a really fun book, with all the themes Matson is supposedly so good at (family, finding oneself, and a little bit of love in-between)
Published May 5th



Number 3:

Three Dark Crowns, by Kendare Blake
I haven´t really heard anything about this book until this week, when everybody came back from BEA.  This is about this island, on which every generation of the royal family there are triplets being born. So to determine, who becomes queen the three siblings have to fight each other. And the best part: They have MAGIC! (as by now it should´ve become clear that I really really like magic :P) It just sounds like a fun action packed YA Book, which is exactly the type of book I enjoy reading in the summertime.
Published September 20th



Number 2:

A Court Of Mist And Fury, by Sarah J. Maas
This one is the only book on this list, which I have already read (watch out for my review to come). This is the second book in the “A Court Of Thorns and Roses” Trilogy and I was not a big fan of the first book. I had a lot of issues with it, found it very slow moving, except for the last 150 pages or so, and found it just ok. So I was hesitant whether to to continue on with this series or not. But boy am I happy I did! I don´t want to take away too many things from my review, but just know that if you didn´t like ACOTAR, this is a much better book, as this was everything I wanted from the first book and more.
Published May 3rd



Number 1:

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, by J.K.Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany
How can this one not be at the top of anyone´s anticipated releases! It´s Harry Potter! I don´t even really know what this book is about, but do I care? Hell no! Harry Potter is my All-Time-Favourite of every category ever, so of course I am going to devour it as soon as I get my hands on it.
Published July 31st




So, that is my list. What about you guys? What summer releases are you excited about? Have you already read any of the books on my list, and if so what did you think of them? Let me know in the comments down below!
Read on

Lena