Bless This Mess: A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
I’ll be real with you: I was not excited to start this book.
And then when I did, it was a bit of a slog to get through. Moreso than the previous books in the series, by a long shot.
Now, I have what I was describing to a friend the other day as a deeply toxic relationship to this book and the series as a whole. I recognize all of the problems but I also just! Can’t! Seem! To stop talking about it and thinking about it. Fuck you, Sarah J Maas.
This book drove me, somehow, to reading fanfic about this series. Specifically, reading fanfic that actually addresses the issues in the book/the series and takes it to task on things, as well as giving justice to certain characters and plotlines. So there’s that, I guess?
Let’s get into it.
Bless This Mess: Warriors Concept Album
Bless This Mess: A Court of Frost and Starlight
This is such a weird little entry.
So, Feyre, human-turned-Fae extraordinaire, won her war and has functionally lived happily ever after with her mate (bleh) Rhysand. Why not publish a little Christmas sorry, Solstice special?
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a published book like this. There is very little plot or story here, things happen without even the barest glimpse of a character arc, and it’s all basically a setup for the next big novel. Still, it’s here, and it’s wild, so we’re going to talk about it.
Bless This Mess: Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)
Like any self-respecting theatre fan, I have a complicated relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Listen, I’m basic, I can enjoy me some Phantom or Cats or Joseph. But my one true ALW-penned love is and probably will always be Jesus Christ Superstar. I think it’s awesome, so much that I wrote a paper on it for a religious studies class I took in my undergrad. It chronicles essentially the last week of Jesus’ life, right up until his death on Good Friday.
And specifically, today, we’re going to dive into the 2000 filmed version of it, because it was the first version I saw when I was about 13 or 14, and therefore it has a special place in my heart. Is it the best version? No. (For my money, see if you can find a bootleg “slime tutorial” of the production that went to Broadway in 2012, it’s the best by a huge margin and I will not be taking feedback). But I do come back to this version again and again, so let’s dive in.