Come on, you do. Can you really go without knowing what happens to Tamlin? Exactly.
If you are following up with my write-ups, I’m having a blast reading ACOTAR books in order and letting you know what I thought of the plot at the exact moment. The whole book is just spicy gossip, and you’re my best friend in this; I must tell you – you need that tea.
All of the characters grew on me since I read ACOMAF every chapter, and I cannot wait to see how everything ends in A Court of Wings and Ruin book.
Yes, I’m totally treating this whole fictional series as my own personal business. I’m not saying good because that varies from person to person and even from time to time. I’m saying it didn’t take me 10 seconds to jump onto the next one.
I reviewed all of the ACOTAR books in order before. But it was brief. I couldn’t go into much detail, and yo girl knows better than that.
I couldn’t bottle up my heavily opinionated and gossip about fictional characters like my life depended on it, so here we go, another review of ACOWAR or A Court of Wings and Ruin summary, and my thoughts along the lines.
A Court of Wings and Ruin Summary (Explained!)
This is the most I could come up with to not sound like I’m screaming at the top of my lungs to tell you that I’m SO impressed with Feyre. Well, 82 chapters, 699 pages, you do the math.
Is This the Same Tamlin We Used to Know?
Or that I’m way too disappointed with Tamlin’s stupidity. Did Sarah J. Maas purposefully make him look dumb, or was he like this all along? Everything with Tamlin was wrong in this book. That’s why I wrote this whole A Court of Wings and Ruin summary so that you can get the right scenario before grabbing the book.
I still find it hard to believe that Tamlin is easy and Feyre is back with him. That seems out of character for him.
Anyway, the opening was confusing – Rhysand was on the battlefield getting flashbacks of his people dying. I think Sarah J. Maas wanted to make it intense, but it did not affect her readers because it seemed out of place.
Finally, we learn that Feyre is now in the Spring Court pretending to be Tamlin’s lover but secretly a spy of the Night Court. She is basically now the High Lady of the Night Court – stuck with Rhysand for life.
From what I have read, Sarah J. Maas kept it interesting. I almost didn’t want to put down the book for a moment. But I have to tell you, this is already a banger.
The journey is so interesting, and we are introduced to old characters from a new perspective. Feyre did an amazing job – She made Tamlin’s guard go against him before fleeing.
Do y’all remember Jurian? Tamlin used to like him for whatever reason, which was his strongest suit. Feyre deliberately strained their relationship. It turns out she didn’t have to do much. Everyone in the Spring Court already hated each other.
Feyre was brilliant in the Spring Court
I’m still stuck at these two incidents (many, actually) because I have a feeling they will be essential for the plot. The first one is hilarious – Feyre is still not in the same room as Tamlin as she needs time to recover, so she explicitly requests the room next to Lucien.
The night she is about to execute her plan, she keeps being touchy with Tamlin and hints to Tamlin that she might stay in his room. Of course, that was a false alarm, and she went back to her room.
At one point, she pretends that she had a terrible nightmare and immediately goes to Lucien crying and hugs him, weeping. Now, erm – you guys wear your comfy, non-existent sleep clothes before sleeping, right? Satin silk? Hmm, Feyre wore half of that.
Lucien was getting ready to change his clothes, so he wasn’t looking perfect either. She kept weeping in his arms, and guess who barged in?
Yes, Tamlin.
Girlie knew he had to come into her room after all those hints, and when he couldn’t find her there and heard noise from Lucien’s room, he didn’t think twice.
Of course, things are looking bad (worse) for both of them, and Feyre ran from there. I think Tamlin behaved way too aggressively, which his guards saw made him question their Lord’s judgment. Tamlin’s relationship with Lucien is now strained.
Oh, you need to get introduced to the two blood-thirsty, annoying-ass twins – Prince Dagdan and Princess Brannagh. I swear, these two make my blood boil.
Feyre already had this gut feeling that they were not an ally because of this one incident – some part of the human realm considers High Faes or Faes as their Lords or just simply respects them too much.
So, three or four children were playing around the wall and saw Feyre by chance, expressing how much they love them and all that corny stuff. Feyre knew they were in the danger zone, so she scarred them away for their own good. Now, why was it dangerous for them?
Because those twins will eat them.
Literally, devour them. They were whining about how they were hungry and those kids looked like a delicious meal. Feyre quickly decided to scare them away as far as she could, but guess what?
Annoying-ass twins followed them, found them, killed them, and finally devoured them.
They weren’t kidding when they said they would eat them.
Also, they were dumb. They thought Feyre was a dumb queen because she pretended like one, and they used to spill all their plans to them. The OG dumb duo.
Ianthe has a lot to do in this story apart from harassing Lucien every other moment, but it’s nothing relevant. All this ties down to one thing – to turn everyone against each other.
Okay, Feyre has done everything she needed – it’s time to bounce. But when she was about to leave, she had some issues with Lucien, and after a couple of fights – they are now escaping the Spring Court and winnowing to Night Court together.
Feyre’s vision and powers had been fuzzy for quite some time, but I was guessing that was because of the Court’s shield or something. But no.
Annoying-ass twins have been feeding everyone poison to weaken their powers.
I Vouch for Lucien’s Personal Novella
Once they reach the Autumn Court, they need to stay hidden as Lucien has this history with his only true love getting killed by his family.
Later on, in Winter Court or around that part, Eris finds them anyway and fast forward to violence— they were almost beaten to death by his three brothers.
Until they saw the wings of hope – Azriel. And do you know who else is there? Boom, Cassian.
What I am reading now is an ugly fight I’m no longer interested in. Feyre might have thought similarly because she stopped the fight in the middle and showed her high lady tattoo.
Smart move, Feyre. Because yes, it would be an issue if these guys killed her.
They would be killing the love of Tamlin, or Rhysand, or maybe both, and they’re indeed devoted to making their lives a living hell if anything like that happens. But you know what happens if you kill a high lady?
You attack a Court and its protector. In short – it’s a war. A legit reason to start a war.
And they let them go. Yep, that’s easy.
We’re finally at the Night Court, and Lucien is still alive. Hopefully, he will live if Rhysand feels generous. We meet Rhysand, though, and I’m not gonna tell you what happened when Rhysand saw Feyre because, erm, I’m an SJM romance anti-fan.
The War is about to Begin
We are now doing stuff in the Night Court, discussing plans and everything. One thing is for sure, Nesta and Elain are NOT happy in the Wind House.
I mean, they both have been so tortured and traumatized in the Cauldron that they are in their healing zone right now. I’m not so sure about Elain, though. She’s been acting too weird.
Elain’s been devastated since her transformation as she was about to marry next week. Then the worst thing happened, and she was turned into something her fiancé hated the most.
Even when Feyre came to meet them, she was weirdly living in the past and always had a stone-cold death-stare vibe. She’s been skipping meals, too. That time when she met Feyre, she said something like she could hear annoying noises and everything was loud.
Well, duh, faerie ears. You have big ears now.
I didn’t pay much attention to this until it was brought up a few times in the book. Even when she finally started to come out of her room and join everyone, she would talk about it.
Lucien got his sweet moments with his mate after all, but … that did not go well. According to Lucien, something is shielding Elain’s mind from other people to take a peek.
I have a feeling we’ll get a big clue from this. Also, what is Azriel doing taking care of Elain and Elain being comfortable around him? That sounds suspicious to me as soon as I learned that you can reject mate bonding. Hmm, things are about to get out of hand.
Okay, so Elain is a seer, and she wasn’t talking batshit all this time. I mean, if Nesta stole something from the Cauldron, the Cauldron gave something to Elain.
After many attacks and discussions, she finally addresses something about the Cursed Queen. Still, people have yet to learn who the Cursed Queen is. Now that’s a mission.
Everybody volunteers and gets rejected because of their job in court, so finally, who comes to the rescue? Lucien. Also, for the ultimate High Lords’ meeting to defeat the king of Hybern, he has to find a safe and suitable spot. Poor boy just wants to help whenever he gets the chance.
When the Neural Court Gets attacked, Things are Gonna Go Down
The moment he winnowed, the summer court gets attacked. Summer Court never gets attacked. It’s the most neutral one, so the inner circle rushes to the scene to help them with whatever they can.
They rush to the zone, and Rhysand struggles not to pull up his signature style – sacrificing himself for the cause.
Violence happens, and they meet people from the Night Court, where they sass out from the situation when Feyre finally realizes in the war camp that they are really sassing out people, which might hurt the war. No one wants to aid the sass couple, right?
Rhysand surprisingly agrees, and they finally decide to behave decently in the meeting.
Oh, the meeting. I kid you not, it took 10 long pages for Sarah J. Maas of just Feyre to choose what to wear in the meeting.
We are now in the Dawn Court, and Rhysand meets Helion and the High Lord of Winter Court, and everyone’s having a little ‘Ah, I’ve missed you, didn’t see you guys in a long time’ moment. Until Tamlin arrives. Yes, he was fashionably late.
You’d think Tamlin’s got a big heart, and he would let everything slide, but nope.
Tamlin congratulated Feyre as an insult and immediately started portraying Feyre as some power-hungry evil lady who just wanted the position of Queen.
Tamlin is basically – Yeah, I wanna defeat Hybern like all of you. Still, I don’t want anyone to be buddy-buddy with Rhysand and Feyre because they are pieces of shit.
I cannot stress this enough: this whole meeting thing seemed like a bad idea at the beginning because of the reckless arguments and physical fights that kept happening, but finally, Nesta did what she came to do, and everything seemed normal.
They have a civil chat, which needs another day of chatting the next day. But before that, Nesta experiences a seizure. It was terrible, and nothing could heal her at that moment because it wasn’t her that was under threat.
It was the Cauldron. Hybern has broken the wall.
Elain Needed that Closure: I’m Happy for Her
The wall was the only thing that kept the humans safe. That means we are going to need a place as shelter for the people. And who’s gonna help them with that? Grayson. Yes, Elain’s ex-fiancé. Spoiler Alert: He’s a piece of shit.
They finally agree with the whole shelter thing, but phew, that Grayson guy never fails to get on everyone’s nerves.
The only good thing that came out of it was that Jurian was actually on the human side, and all this time, he had been working as a spy on behalf of the human realm to defeat Hybern. Yay.
Then, it just gets worse and worse with the battles. Honestly, guys, the ACOWAR book is no joke. We are losing friends left and right, and things look bad. Nesta finally finds the Cauldron. But the worst of all – Cauldron or Hybern takes Elain.
Feyre runs to escape Elain but eventually gets distracted to rescue one of the children of the blessed. Azriel takes up Elain and rescues her while our High Lady gets in trouble. But guess who saves her from being dead?
Tamlin. Yep.
That’s it, thanks to him, now they are all safe and back to the camp having a little sister moment.
Hmm, remember how Mor fought Feyre because she went out from the camp to do stunts?
Feyre returns to rescue Elain, and they haven’t talked ever since. Feyre is the one who went up to her, but Mor spoke first. There was clear guilt between them, so they apologized and moved on.
Oh, but I’m still stuck on this one thing: Mor actually likes women, and that’s why she is not into Azriel. Oopsies.
I’m not surprised that Bone Carvers didn’t actually need that mirror and was just messing around. This mission was solely to prove that Feyre was worthy of something, and she did it.
Now the battle is about to begin; everybody’s here, and everybody is here – including Tamlin in his beast mode and Beron, too. The girls made from the Cauldron decide to give their tactics a shot.
But that could only work if it didn’t explode for the love of God and killed almost all the soldiers. Rhysand, Cassian, and Azriel were severely injured. But then, Drakan and Feyre’s dad joined human armies, and there is still hope for them.
The Dad Was actually a Hero
Nesta is supposed to be used as bait for Hybern, but as soon as he winnows, that little asshole has Nesta’s father with him threatening him with a knife in his throat.
Cassian was there, too, but things escalated quickly. Hybern kills her father, and Nesta just bursts without controlling her powers. Hybern also has his powers and destroys Cassian, so much so that everyone thinks these are his last moments.
Nesta throws herself onto him and cries while Feyre watches them touching the Cauldron. Amren, obviously, betrays her. She thought everything was going to end, but then came Elain, with full force, killing Hybern with Azriel’s knife.
You know what happens then? The Cauldron breaks into three pieces.
Long story short – Rhysand and Feyre combine their strengths or whatever to repair it because, remember, the end of the Cauldron means the end of the world. Rhysand loses all his power in the process and is suddenly dead.
Rhysand is Dead… Dead
Bold of you, SJM. Never knew you could pull that one.
Rhysand cannot be dead, c’mon. All the other High Lords come forward and do the drop they did to make Feyre a fae or something, and finally, Rhysand is back. And who’s back with him? Amren. This girl, I swear.
They’re all now a happy-happy circle. Everything is fine in the Court. Rhysand finally got to have moments with Feyre that he had been waiting for.
Overall, peace. Guys.
A Court of Wings and Ruin Characters Analyzed to A Tee
Feyre and Rhysand can wait. I need to talk about what they did to Tamlin.
Our boy has been saving their asses here and there, and he’s been portrayed as the bad boy with no actual sinister motives or actions.
What’s really going on, A Court of Wings and Ruin? He was the star in the former books, and somehow, he’s just an ugly beast now. That’s not fair. My heart dropped when he made the drop for Rhysand and said something like, ‘Be happy Feyre.’
I mean, how forgiving could a person be? SJM really did him bad in this book.
Or, I think this was a bit pushed, as we needed to portray Tamlin as the bad guy to make Rhysand look good. Same with Lucien. I felt so bad for that guy because Rhysand can just never stop being an asshole sometimes.
Lucien helped Feyre escape that Court or she would have been dead there. He even went to find Vassa and assisted the girl’s dad to help in the battle. The guy was such a sweetheart, but maybe it was for Elain?
Speaking of that, is it just me, or do you guys also feel like there could be something going on between Elain and Azriel? I mean, that guy gave her his knife that he doesn’t let anyone touch.
I was guilty of rooting for them because, you know, Mor. But as soon as Mor cleared up that she was bisexual and didn’t even like Azriel that way. Whoop, my ship never sailed faster.
But again, I will feed bad for Lucien if that ever comes true. That guy deserves some peace for the love of God.
Feyre was decent in this one; it was nothing too over the top. She’s a high lady now, so her way of talking and walking should be different, which seems untrue.
I love how she handled her strained relationship with her sisters, and they finally warmed up to each other. Although I highly doubt if it’s ever gonna stay still now that their father was killed and the blame game is yet to start again. I’m definitely digging the next one for it.
Okay, Rhysand needs to chill for a bit. The bad boy image won’t help him in the long run, and I’m glad Feyre made him realize that not too long ago. I love him, okay?
I think he should be the Lord of Lords of High Courts because he’s so charismatic, intelligent, and compassionate, but calm down.
I think I’m still holding a grudge about what he did to Tamlin or how Tamlin was treated throughout the whole book because of him. Still, Rhysand deserved some of the tortures for his own good.
Nesta’s getting her own book, that’s for sure, and I think it’s already out there. A Court of Frost and Starlight Novella comes after A Court of Wings and Ruin.
I’m waiting for Elain and Eris because I think they are bottling too much so as not to spill at this point. Also, I liked the library monster. Wonder how that cutie’s been doing.
Did I Like A Court of Wings and Ruin?
Absolutely, as much as I was infuriated, this one hits right in the feels.
This was passionate and emotional; we lost a lot of friends, yet it was thrilling, and I barely put down the book for a moment.
But it seemed too much violence at one point, so that’s a drawback – I don’t like to read about people getting killed all the time. And I wish they did some of the A Court of Wings and Ruin characters justice in the latter books. This was fun to read while it lasted.
On my way to the fourth one.