A Court of Mist and Fury

Rating: 5/5 (or 10/5 if I could give 10)
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: May 3rd, 2016
Author: Sarah J. Maas

Hello everyone! It's Shani here today, I apologise for not posting on here for quite some time, we have all been very busy with volunteering and some of us have been on courses for the last two weeks. That being said I have managed to read quite a fair amount and I really wanted to share with you guys my new favourite book. I know, you're probably thinking: 'What? How can Shani have chosen her favourite book, she has so many!' And yes my dears, I do. However I have found my favourite book of the year (so far!) and this book has also been added to my top ten favourite books of  all time. So if you hadn't guessed from the title, the book I'm reviewing today is A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah. J Maas, the sequel in the A Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy.

Okay, so wow. This novel was incredible! I'm first going to give a brief summary of the plot. Feyre Archeron has just been transformed into a High Fae after defeating Amarantha, the evil fae who claimed herself High Lady of Prythian, and is struggling to control her new found powers given to her by the other courts, and is suffering from PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety disorder and claustrophobia. Tamlin, Feyre's betrothed at the start of the novel, is completely ignoring the fact that Feyre is having nightmares and is increasingly becoming sick due to his overprotective nature towards her and her own mental state. This part of the novel was especially difficult for me to read, Maas portrays a subtly abusive relationship very well, Tamlin doesn't outright attack Feyre at the beginning, it takes about one hundred pages for a physical attack to actually commence - and even then he doesn't end up physically hurting her, because Feyre uses a windshield to protect herself against his attack -  however the subtly that Maas uses is very affective, and shows the reader how subtle abuse can be when you're in a relationship. What I really love about ACOMAF is how Tamlin and Rhysand's roles become reversed. Tamlin becomes the antagonist and Rhysand becomes the protagonist, it's so clever in the way Maas switches their roles and I've never read a book where this has been done before. Normally a protagonist remains a protagonist, and an anatagonist or 'anti-hero' remains one as well. I think this is another reason why I enjoyed this novel so much, it really makes the reader choose a side - Which in this case is Rhysand - and makes the reader understand how Tamlin mistreated Feyre. Rhysand rescuses Feyre after Tamlin locks her up inside their home, refusing to let her out and Feyre has a panic attack because of this. Rhys senses her fear and sadness from their bond, which if you've read A Court of Thorns and Roses know they formed in Feyre's desperation, and he goes to rescue her. Rhysand then invites Feyre to join the Night Court (AKA Mine and Lydia's home, we are obsessed with the Night Court), and she agrees.
The novel basically revolves around Feyre learning how to control her powers, how to put on a mask at the Night Court, and how she is Rhysand's mate. I adored Rhys and Feyre's character development in this novel, they both come so far from the people that they were in A Court of Thorns and Roses. Feyre learns that she only fell in love with Tamlin because he was the first person that was ever truly kind to her, and that his love for her is a poison rather than a balm. Rhys' love for Feyre is very clear during the novel and it made me want to cry the entire time, (I was sobbing uncontrollably at Chapter 54, oh my goodness!). The novel ends with Feyre and Rhysand going to get the Cauldron back, but being ambushed by the King, Tamlin and Lucien. Tamlin requests that Feyre return to him, and after Azriel and Cassian become gravely injured - they are both apart of Rhys' inner circle - she agrees to go with Tamlin. However, oh the however, Feyre and Rhysand snuck out the night before the battle and had Feyre appointed as High Lady of the Night Court, alongside Rhys who is High Lord of the Night Court. I screamed so much at this part, oh my goodness. The last line of the novel is haunting, it ends with Feyre walking back into the Spring Court, her old home: 'And so Tamlin unwittingly led the High Lady of the Night Court into the heart of his territory.' OH MY GOD. Basically, Feyre has gone into Tamlin's home to mess stuff up - Big time.
Honestly, words cannot describe how much I love this novel. I  adored the new characters that Maas introduced us to such as Mor, Cassian, Azriel, Amren and getting to see Nesta and Elain again, Feyre's human sisters, was wonderful! Rhys is by far my favourite character, he has endured a lot of tragedy and heartbreak as a character: 'Everything I love has a tendency to be taken from me.'  I think that's one of the main things I admire about his characterisation, the amount of pain he has been through but despite that he can still smile, he can still laugh and be happy. It's a very human quality.
I thought that this novel had the perfect balance of poetic description and realistic writing. I'm a sucker for poetic writing, I love it and it's one of the main styles I like to use. However, using too much poetic and romanticised language can make the plot of the novel very dry and boring, Maas has a perfect balance, she keeps the action going but she manages to incorporate poetic language which stirs your heart. I hope to succeeded this in my own writing.
I couldn't fault a single thing wrong with this novel, it was just perfect. It was much better then it's prequel A Court of Thorns and Roses, perhaps because it was longer and had more time to develop the plot, or perhaps because Tamlin gets completely disregarded in this novel and we all end up loving Rhysand. Either way, I am so excited for the last novel to come out next year and Maas has also announced that there will be another trilogy set in the ACOTAR's world alongside two novella's written during A Court of Mist and Fury. I'm waiting in anticipation for all of these to be released.