Bless This Mess: A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas
THE SET UP
Unfortunately, I think these books are getting better. Nobody is more upset about this than I.
If you’ve read my previous blog posts (here and here), you know the drill: Feyre is a human turned into a Faerie. She’s trying to prevent war with the King of Hybern, who’s evil, I think because he’s a faerie supremacist and wants to enslave the humans. We don’t spend a ton of time on this, honestly, so all you need to know is that he’s the bad guy.
I read this book in less than 24 hours. It’s about 700 pages long. Make your own deductions from that.
We start this novel with Feyre back in the Spring Court with her ex-lover Tamlin, and…you know what? Let’s just get into it, because Christ Almighty.
THE MESS
So the first 100 or so pages of this book are dedicated to Feyre Fucking With Tamlin. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (we’ll get to that) but by golly, it is pretty fun.
Basically, because of Tamlin’s potential alliance with Hybern (and also because she’s a petty bitch who wants revenge on him), Feyre is determined to Ruin Him And His Whole Life. This mostly involves her turning his people against him, and also maybe starting a cult? We don’t really come back to this, but she puts a great deal of effort into using her magic to make herself look holy and blessed as a way to stick it to Ianthe, her former friend who ultimately was using her.
This is all made somewhat funnier by the fact that Lucien (remember him, he was in Book 1 a lot but ultimately did not affect the plot at all) totally knows what she’s doing and tries to dissuade her from her path. Nobody ever listens to Lucien. Poor Lucien.
Lucien tries to help her out, but functionally just ends up as a pawn in her game, by which I mean that she uses him to make Tamlin jealous. There’s this whole (admittedly kind of funny) scene in which she pretends to have had a nightmare, and runs half-clothed into Lucien’s arms, just in time for Tamlin to find them.
Anyway, some of Hybern’s cronies show up, and Feyre clashes with them. She also fails to realize that they’re actively poisoning her, which feels like it undercuts the “badass bitch” thing SJM is so clearly going for here. The cronies do torture and mutilate some humans, so we know that they’re evil, but by the time shit really gets bad, Feyre is too poisoned to access her powers or communicate with Rhysand back in the Night Court.
Even weakened, Feyre manages to kill the cronies, and save Lucien from being sexually assaulted by Ianthe (it’s a whole thing). He makes the decision to help her, and they escape Spring together. Of course, neither of them can use their magic, so they have to begin a very slow walk to Night.
This takes them through Autumn, which is where Lucien is from (his tragic backstory, in short: his dad is the High Lord of Autumn, who totally sucks, and had his “lesser fae” lover killed, and then had him banished; he only survived because of Tamlin’s help). Thus begins a very strange roadtrip, wherein they trek through Autumn and then into Winter. I wish this was more fun than it was, or they took this opportunity to like, actually talk about any of the shit they’ve gone through, but they do not.
Feyre and Lucien are also discovered and then pursued by some of Lucien’s shitty brothers, only one of whom gets a name (Eris, the eldest). They chase the two of them across the border into Winter, where Feyre, who is slowly recovering from the poison, shows off all her fancy special powers, which nobody is supposed to know about. Luckily, though, backup arrives in the form of Cassian and Azriel, Rhysand’s best bros.
Back in the Night Court, Feyre is reunited with her sisters. Nesta, of course, is prickly as always, while Elain, who had a fiancé back in the humanlands, is traumatized and distraught. They’ve been taken up to one of the palaces, and given it seems very little information or introduction to the faerie world outside.
Here’s probably as good a place as any to mention this particular plot point: when Elain first emerged as a faerie, Lucien realized she was his mate. This is part of why he comes with Feyre, because he wants the opportunity to get to know her. She is flat-out not interested, largely because of said trauma and the hope that she might be able to go back to being a normal human and marry her human fiancé. Lucien takes this pretty well and respectfully, but it means that he’s kind of left with nothing to do. So, naturally, Rhysand sends him on a mission to find allies for the upcoming war with Hybern, and he exits the book. (Specifically, he goes to find this cursed human queen they heard about. WE’LL GET TO THAT.)
A large portion of this book is comprised of Feyre and Rhysand trying to round up allies for this war against Hybern. The first piece of this is a meeting with the Court of Nightmares (which continues to be a silly name) where Rhys surprises them all by inviting Eris, Lucien’s oldest and smarmiest brother. See, Rhys erased the brothers’ memories of Feyre’s cool powers, but Eris was too wily for that (meaning that he possesses, like, a small modicum of competence), so they had to make a deal.
This is the second instance of Rhys withholding information, this time with a much worse reason (the first being the mating bond in the last book). See, his cousin Morrigan’s tragic backstory is that when she was 17 (approximately 480 years ago), she was betrothed to Eris. Mor didn’t want that, so she slept with Cassian, for which her shitty dad had her tortured and dumped at Autumn’s border, where Eris found her and refused to provide help, leaving her to be rescued by Azriel. Anyway, Rhys doesn’t tell Mor or Feyre that he’s invited Eris to this meeting, and they’re both pretty pissed about it. Why did he withhold this from them? Unclear! Annoying!
So in the background of all this is Nesta and Elain being revealed to have Super Extra Powers, because this is a romantasy and they’re going to have their own books. Elain is a Seer, so she can See the future, and Nesta “took” something when she was made, giving her life and death kind of powers, which she tries to train up with Amren off-screen.
The next thing is that all the High Lords meet up to discuss the shared threat of Hybern, and to see if they can work together. I like to call this the Slut Meeting, because so. many. words. of this scene are dedicated to characters calling each other sluts. It’s very immature and very funny. Eris calls Mor a slut, for which Azriel nearly murders him, and then Tamlin calls Feyre and Rhysand BOTH sluts, so, y’know, at least there’s some equal opportunity slut-shaming, I guess.
I repeat, these characters (mostly) are hundreds of years old. I can’t decide if that makes it more annoying or more humorous that this is apparently the best thing SJM can think of to have them fight over.
Anyway, Feyre gets pissed and ends up revealing her powers, which makes that whole subplot of dealing with Eris totally unnecessary. Cool, I’m glad we spent so much time on that.
Oh, this also marks the first inclusion of canonically queer characters. The High Lord of Dawn has a male lover. No, the lover does not have a name, and the High Lord himself barely has anything to do or say here.
Speaking of canonically queer characters, let’s talk about Helion. Helion is the High Lord of Day, and he is bisexual. This is shown by him propositioning Mor, Cassian, and Azriel at the same time. You know those bisexuals, always angling for threesomes and foursomes, always so promiscuous!
But you see, Helion actually has a good reason for being so promiscuous. See, he’s in love with the Lady of the Autumn Court (who still does not have a name!!!!), but he can’t be with her because to do so would be to start a war with the shitty High Lord of Autumn. So, he douses his sadness with lots of other sexual partners. I guess there’s something to be said for the fact that this doesn’t invalidate his bisexuality, but damn that seems like a low bar to clear.
During the discussion about this, in the aftermath of the meeting, Feyre realizes that Lucien must actually be Helion’s son, a result of the love affair with the unnamed Lady. Helion, it seems, also does not know this. Feyre and Rhysand do not tell either of them about this revelation. (Erin from the future here: this has yet to come up as a plot point in any of the published ACOTAR books.)
So anyway, all the Courts agree to come together against Hybern (except Autumn), and then the Wall separating the faeries and the humans falls, meaning the humans are at risk. Theoretically this is bad, I guess.
There’s this whole diversion where Feyre et al appeal to her sister Elain’s human ex-fiancé to help shelter the humans. He finds out that Elain is a faerie now, and because he hates faeries, he denounces her, which of course she’s pretty bummed about. On the upside, this means she can leave him behind and just go into being a cool faerie now, I guess.
Okay, god, there’s this whole subplot about a character named Jurian, who had been a human general in the first war with Hybern hundreds of years ago. He was kind of killed by the villain of Book 1 (his eye was kept alive to watch what she did), and then resurrected and serves Hybern now, but he’s actually chill and helping the humans. That’s the most concise summary of his storyline I can give. It’s kind of interesting, but like everything that isn’t Feyre and Rhysand, it only appears sporadically and doesn’t really do anything more than pop up as occasional flavour.
So, war with Hybern starts, and functionally Feyre doesn’t actually get to fight in it (#feminism, I guess). One of the things I do legitimately like in this book is that she keeps trying to get help from these creatures that are basically old gods; she bargains with one to come visit it afterwards, and another, she leads Ianthe (the bitch priestess) to it as food. She also has to confront her “true self” (which is a badass dragon, apparently) in order to gain the assistance of the last. I’m here for these eldritch god-fae beings, to be honest, I wish there was more of this in the books.
Nesta uses her connection to the Cauldron (the thing that made her and Elain faeries) to try and find it, since that’s where Hybern’s power is coming from (I think). That allows him to see where she and Elain are, and he kidnaps Elain.
Naturally, there’s a whole sequence where Feyre (and Azriel) sneak into the enemy camp to rescue Elain. This is actually a decent moment of Feyre using her abilities, and she also manages to save a human girl who otherwise would have been tortured and killed. They’re found and pursued, but at the last moment, Tamlin shows up in beast form and saves them.
The next morning, Mor pulls Feyre aside to divulge her deep dark secret as to why she can’t be with Azriel, even though he’s in love with her: she prefers females. No really, that’s it.
So, time for the final battle, where there is a hilarious one-upping of reinforcements every few pages. Like okay, we’ve got the classic battered army, ready for defeat, and then, what’s that, oh it’s Gandalf with a steel chair with the riders of Rohan, here to save the day! No joke, that happens like four or five times in succession here:
First, Tamlin shows up, but he kind of had his moment earlier. Then, Autumn, with the implication that Eris brought his father around. Then, Elain’s ex-fiancé shows up with some humans (I’m not sure what this is meant to add, since faeries are repeatedly shown as SO MUCH BETTER). Then some other faeries that fought in the last war but have been out of contact since then show up (do not ask oh my god are there so many things happening in this book). Then!! Feyre’s DAD (sir missing from the narrative himself) shows up with a bunch of ships AND a firebird!!!
God, how to explain the firebird stuff. Remember I mentioned that Lucien left the narrative to search for a human queen who had been cursed? She’s been turned into a firebird. And apparently Feyre’s dad (who also doesn’t get a name, hilariously) was also searching for her. Anyway, she gets to come help too.
Feyre and Amren make a run for the Cauldron, but Amren betrays her and incapacitates her long enough to explain that she’s going to use the Cauldron to return to her “former self”, which was some kind of god-thing. She says she won’t remember any of her humanity, and she’ll just be essentially a mindless killing machine, which represents some sacrifice on her part. Anyway, she does that, and it turns the tide of the battle.
In the meantime, Feyre’s consciousness is conveniently sent out to Nesta, who is facing down Hybern. Hybern has captured their father, and in front of Nesta, executes him. Elain strikes Hybern from behind, and then Nesta beheads him. Yay sisterly bonding….?
Meanwhile, the Cauldron has broken under the force of unleashing Amren’s true form, and it’s essentially holding the world together, so that’s bad. Rhysand offers himself to be used as the conduit to fix it, and is killed in the process. No worries though! The High Lords can just bring him back to life like they did Feyre in the first book. Tamlin seems for a second like he might be a dick about it, but ultimately goes along, which is character growth and closure, I guess.
Anyway, the battle is won, Rhysand is able to pull a now regular-fae Amren from the repaired Cauldron, he and Feyre make a pact to not live without each other (I’m sure that’s fine), and everyone lives happily ever after I guess.
THE ACTUAL BAD STUFF
Honestly, most of the ridiculous stuff in this book (Feyre’s attack on the Spring Court, the Slut Meeting, the five last-minute reinforcements) I was here for and having a good time with. That being said, they are not well-written.
In fairness we do touch upon this in the book, but Feyre’s efforts to destabilize the Spring Court totally blow up in her face. When they meet up with Tamlin again at the all-lords meeting, he mentions that his lands are basically in shambles due to her turning his people against him, and he is unable to really mount a defence against Hybern — leaving the mortal lands open to his invasion. However, she never really grapples with this or faces any real consequences; the book just kind of shrugs at the amount of faeries and humans who died as a result of her actions.
God, the fucking Mor stuff. Specifically, the part where she prefers women/females, but still wants to have sex with men sometimes. “‘…it never went as deep. The bond, I mean. Even if I did still crave—you know, every now and then.’” Obviously, bisexual people with preferences/homoromantic bisexuals exist, and that’s fine, what I have an ISSUE with here is SJM’s inability to imagine a woman who has no interest in men. Because obviously Mor still has to crave THAT DICK, AM I RIGHT.
Neither Mor nor Helion, in my opinion, are good queer representation. If you’re a queer person and you enjoy them that’s cool for you, but if you’re a cishet person trying to tell me this is good rep? Fuck all the way off. This is the kind of thing you could have gotten away with when I was a teenager (remember those House of Night books? They were bad, yeah?), this book was published in 2017.
I also don’t love that Amren loses her special powers and her weird immortal vampire shit. Like, it makes sense on some level to me, but it doesn’t feel fully earned, and I also just don’t really love the trope of powerful women, specifically, losing their power in order to save people. Rhysand didn’t lose his powers!
Also, you know what, #justiceforLucien. This poor dude left his abusive dad, became reliant on his friend who turned out to ALSO be kind of abusive, and then when he finally got freedom from both, the Night Court shits on him. He goes off to find the human queen/firebird, but he can’t even do that by himself! He has to get there only to find out that Feyre’s dad had it well in hand!
IN CONCLUSION
Honestly, truly, I did find myself enjoying this book. Maybe it was just that I read it while the world felt like it was falling down around us all. Is it anything particularly profound? No. Is it the literary equivalent of popcorn (little nutritional value, but delicious for some)? Yes. I read it in 24 hours, not because I was forced to, but because I genuinely was curious about what happened next and where the story would go.
Again, it’s still trash! I would not really recommend this book to anyone looking for…well, anything, really. There’s better faerie stuff out there (Holly Black’s series comes to mind). There’s better romance out there (my partner, who reads more romance than I do, has recommended The Five Crowns of Okrith series by A.K. Mulford). Hell, there’s better trashy romantasy (I can’t believe I’m saying this but I do actually think Fourth Wing, at least the first book, is much better written).
There’s also two more books (as of this writing) which I suppose we’ll cover here as well.
In the meantime, I give A Court of Wings and Ruin a (reluctant) 4/5 slutty, slutty faeries.