As long as the people who matter most know the truth, I don’t care about the rest.
My rating: ★★★★★
As is the usual case with SJM’s books, this one felt like a whole epic saga in and of itself. Quite a mean feat to pull off everytime she releases a new book. It’s a pretty long read, but that did not matter because I found myself finishing it in less than a day anyway. It’s just that good that I was more than glad to forego precious sleep just to see the story through to the end.
By now, I’ve read enough of SJM’s books to notice a certain parallelism between this series and the Throne of Glass series. Both feature a broken but strong female lead who becomes an infinitely stronger but darker version of herself to save the world/realm, a [misleading] prince of sorts to get her through the initial hurdles, then later another strong alpha male who butts heads with her then turns out to be The One for her. Guess who’s who here? 😉 That said, it’s the minutiae that distinguishes one series from the other and makes the each story shine distinctively. The worlds and characters are of vaguely similar nature, but differ vastly in their intricacies.
Here in ACOMAF, we see Feyre struggling to come to terms with who she became (physically and otherwise) after the dark time she spent Under the Mountain. It is in the course of this struggle that her life takes a completely different turn, one she never expected nor initially cared for. But as the story deepens with each chapter, we see her becoming deepen as well as she tries to reconcile her new self with the new world opened up before her.
Of course, any epic saga worth its salt is bound to have a romantic angle (or two, or a dozen) to keep things, uh, more interesting. And in here, ACOMAF does not disappoint. Far from it actually, as the sensual and sexual undertones sometimes boil over and we get a hell of a steamy encounter in between the drama and fighting. This, I must say is for a far more mature audience than in the earlier book.
We are given an insight into each major character, just enough to make light of some facets of their personalities, but always never enough to keep us wanting more. In this, I fully certify Sarah J. Maas to be a modern witch, ensnaring us completely with the web of her words. And I mean that in the best possible way. 😉
Okay, so it’s pretty obvious that I love this book (and series). And I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone seeking adventure within the pages of a book. Oh, and of course, please do read A Court of Thorns and Roses first. 😉
