Trouble in paradise for Feyre and Tamlin. Amarantha is dead and Feyre is back in the Spring Court. Things should be perfect, but the masks are off in more than one way. Tamlin’s true colors are starting to shine through. Tamlin may have been overprotective before, but he had a reason to be. Feyre was a human in a land full of Fae, who are basically super-humans. They live longer, their bodies are hardier, and they could do anything from controlling her mind to flat out murdering her without even thinking about it. Now, Feyre is High Fae. She has powers that she hasn’t even had the chance to explore, and she wants to be able to feel like she can protect herself. Nevertheless, Tamlin treats her like that same helpless human. If anything, he treats her like she is even MORE fragile now than she was before. He is rightly concerned that there could be those who are still out to hurt Feyre, but always gives excuses when she begs him to let her learn how to protect herself. Instead, he would rather keep her almost as a trophy to show that peace between the kingdoms can be achieved. Feyre is wracked by nightmares that only seem to get worse as her wedding with Tamlin approaches, and she mentally begs for someone to save her on her wedding day. That is when Rhysand swoops in, calling in their bargain. Yes, the same Rhysand that treated her like his own personal plaything Under The Mountain is the only one to come to her rescue and take her away from Tamlin. Feyre has her own thoughts about the Night Court, but Rhysand shows her the true kingdom that has been shining behind the darkness. Now, Feyre must decide where her true loyalties lie. Will she continue to try to fight for her old life with Tamlin, or will she try something new in the Night Court?
SPOILERS BELOW
I hate to say it…..I HATE to say it….but in spite of the extremely problematic aspects of Feyre and Rhys’ relationship I still love them. They’re still one of my favorite fantasy book couples for ACOMAF and ACOWAR. My favorite scene in this book was when Rhysand basically told ACOTAR from his point of view to Feyre. I feel like rather than a few pages of a scene, it could have been its own entire book. I know that I would have much preferred to read ACOTAR from Rhysand’s perspective than to read A Court of Silver Flames. Feyre and Rhsyand truly complement one another in this story.
On the other hand, the beginning of the absolute annihilation of Tamlin’s character hurt to read in this book. Feyre focuses more on the fact that he wouldn’t let her out of the house than the fact that he literally ignored her during her nightly panic attacks. Tamlin had good reason to not want Feyre going around the kingdom on her own, but he still needed to learn to trust her. She is immortal, he can’t protect her forever. He definitely went the wrong way about trying to protect her, especially when he locked her in the house. They really needed better communication and they did need to break up, but is Tamlin this character who never deserves love again? I don’t think so. I think he can be saved, but I don’t know if Maas will ever try to save his character.
Feyre didn’t communicate with Tamlin either. She knew that she had lost her feelings for him weeks before the wedding, but she never had the guts to say that she had lost her feelings for him. In fact, she never really tells him that she loses her feelings for him. That’s the main reason that he went to Hybern, he thought she still loved him and was trapped with Rhysand. He always thought she still loved him. And that is really hard to think about at the end of the day. She never once had the guts to be honest with him, and I think that she should have been. Just because she found her mate doesn’t mean that she had to string him along for so long. As we see later in the series, the mating bond is extremely fickle. There’s no right or wrong way of going about it, it was valid for Tamlin to think that they could still be mates. The more I reread this series, the more I realize that Tamlin got screwed over. I still love Rhysand and Feyre together, but the way they got together was still steeped in toxicity towards the Spring Court.
Nevertheless, I can see why Rhysand felt the need to save her if she was becoming a husk of her former self. Tamlin was ignoring her emotional breakdown, but Rhysand couldn’t do so as easily. One thing I wondered was why there wasn’t any sort of therapy/mental magic that could help the Fae. These beings were hundreds of years old, but they still seemed worse at handling their emotions than humans were. They still had to do that typical “soulmate savior” storyline when it came to Feyre’s mental health since there was no other real alternative. That doesn’t mean it was unpleasant to read, but it was definitely rather basic in the grand scheme of things. Tamlin had already done a lesser version of the soulmate savior storyline in the previous book, but Rhysand definitely did it better.
This book showed the true vastness of the Prythian kingdoms. You spend most of ACOTAR in the half-destroyed Spring Kingdom under the rule of Amarantha. Then, you spend time in the horrors Under The Mountain. Rhysand takes Feyre from that world and starts to show her the rest of the kingdoms. The Night Court is gorgeous and Velaris is one of very few fictional cities that I would actually want to live in myself. The idea of a city that comes alive at night. And not in a sleazy Times Square billboard-lit avenue but in a starry night of a fantasy fictional near-perfect city.
My second favorite part of the book was the side characters. Mor, Cassian, Azriel, Amren, they were all such unique figures and fun to read about! Their little side quarrels, history, romances, I loved it all. It was also so refreshing to see how they were still healing from the years without Rhysand, someone who was like a brother to them. Rhysand was being tortured and they could do nothing about it without completely blowing his cover. It was heartbreaking and yet was still fascinating to read. The relationships of the characters that I cherished throughout the rest of the series truly started to build with this installment.
Overall, I rate this story 4 out of 5 books. It’s not perfect, but it is still one of my favorite fantasy books of all time and I think that it always will be.
