ACOTAR - Full Highlights and Notes

 

Idk what anyone says, he's still the hottest high lord and I'd still let him eat me alive.

There's really no point in putting up an ACOMAF highlight notebook without doing the same for ACOTAR, because you cannot look at both independently of each other and hope to understand why 1). Tamlin is deserving of our sympathy and 2). Apparently SJM has selective memory when it comes to her own writing.

In any case, here are my notes on book 1.  Feel free to send them to any Rhys stan who insists Tamlin was always awful or that Rhys was always good.

Review: House of Sky and Breath

House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Where do I even start with this? There are three things you need to know about this book. First, it's fucking long. Second, it didn't need to be as long as it was. Third, it's absolutely batshit crazy. 

 I was hopeful for this new, more adult series when I first read it last year, but it actually wound up being not all that different from ACOTAR, or what I read of TOG (I haven't finished that yet and I'm not sure I will). 

 Now that I mention it, there's probably a fourth thing you should know about this book - Sarah J. Maas writes the same story, over and over. The minor details might change, but the major ideas, themes, and concepts are all the exact. same. thing. Partially human girl? Check. Ridiculous amount of powers and abilities? Check. Status as chosen one/savior? Check. Hot, over-muscled, similarly over-powered SO that everyone else is really afraid of? Check. Quest to save the world that only our aforementioned heroine can complete? Check. Lots of fucking/growling/purring/roaring? Check check check check. 

 Honestly, the list could go on and on. And really, I could have forgiven sticking with a certain theme (horny fae is definitely her shtick). The fact that SJM is now not only copying her own concepts over and over again, but literally smashing all of those previously separate worlds together is where I draw the line.

I Love to Hate It: Romance Novel Tropes

 

I'm a latecomer to the romance genre, having discovered somewhat later in life than most women that I didn't hate reading "mushy" stuff.  My reticence was born mostly from shame, which is dumb, because in the grand pantheon of embarrassment, reading romance books is like the very bottom of the list.

Despite the late start, it didn't take me long to separate the bad from the good.  I'm sure I'll discuss the tropes/genres I love at some point, but I'm better at complaining than I am at opining on why I actually like something (without devolving to my prior pre-teen self), so here's a list of crap I hate:

1. Reverse Harem
• I totally understand the desire for women to want to have a bunch of <zoolander voice> really really really good-looking</zoolander voice> men fawning all over them, but I'll freely admit that I'm selfish, even if it's myself we're talking about sharing.

ACOMAF Re-Read - Complete Notes, Quotes, and Criticisms

Don’t worry, Tam Tam. I’m on your side. 

Below is the full export of all of my highlights and notes, collected during my recent critical re-read of ACOMAF.  I tried my hardest to focus only on passages that showcased either the blatant revisionary approach SJM took to Tamlin, the blatant hypocrisy exhibited by both Feyre and Rhys, or if you're really lucky, both.

As you can see the infodump is massive, which leads whether or not SJM even tried to be careful about how she was even contradicting her own work.  My gut tells me that, much like Feyre, she's often enamored of her own cleverness, and thinks she was probably being like super-smart about dismantling every single thing Rhys did wrong in book one (to make it be right) and every good thing Tamlin ever did (to make it be wrong).  I can literally see the bullet-point list in my imagination, and her ticking off items one by one, cackling in glee. 

What she, and the less mentally independent readers out there, see as cleverness, I just see as laziness, because for all of her very thorough efforts to showcase Rhys as the good guy all along, she appears to have completely ignored the fact that she's created the two most blatantly oblivious characters in the history of YA/NA Fantasy Romance, neither of which have any awareness of the fact that they are actually not the heroes they think they are, but are instead sanctimonious, condescending Mary-Sues.  I’ve found that taking that perspective makes re-reads much more bearable, because I’m sure Feyre and Rhys will never get their comeuppance, and certainly not in the way Tamlin has. 

Excuses, Excuses (ACOMAF Re-read)

A victim of his creator

 

Chapter 55 is probably the most well-known chapter in the entire series.  I'm not going to go in to why, but while I will say that what I found kinda hot 3 years ago, I can barely stomach listening to/reading now.

So while chapter 55 is infamous, I think Chapter 54 might actually be the most important one in the entire series, certainly the first two books.  Tamlin's retcon had been slowly building since page one of ACOMAF, it's Chapter 54 that really buries him.

It's basically a pages long explanation of why Rhys isn't anything like what we knew of him in book one, setting up the smut to come in the next chapter (because how could our heroine ever fuck a guys that isn't perfect).

Long story short, he knew of Feyre before she ever came to Prythian, he loved her from the first, and every last thing Rhys ever did was done with the express purpose of being near her, or being with her, or whatever.  I forget.  My brain got addled from all the eye-rolling.

It's obviously supposed to be some grand, romantic thing (it's destiny! it's fate!), but it also reveals what a lot of the fandom already suspects about him - that he's a manipulative, self-centered....prick.

SJM methodically tries to tie up every loose end imaginable with regard to Rhys's true character, but I am still left with so many unanswered questions.