I have a lot to unpack here I will be putting the trigger warnings I remember and spoilers below.

TW FOR: alcoholism, suicidal thoughts in clear detail, pregnancy, childbirth trauma, sexual assault (on page and described), rape and “gang” rape (not on page but described in detail), body gore/violence, possible eating disorder triggers, pornographic content, sexism and misogyny (Illyrians...duh), death/dying, grief, abduction/kidnapping, drugging, domestic abuse, child abuse, mentioned vomiting.

SPOILERS BELOW THESE DOTS I WANTED TO KEEP THE TW’S VISIBLE TO PEOPLE SO I DIDN’T MARK THIS REVIEW WITH SPOILERS BUT IF YOU GO BEYOND THIS POINT AND DON’T WANT SPOILERS ITS ON YOU
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Ok here we go...I want to end this review on a positive note because overall I really did enjoy this book. There were a few glaring issues that made my review three stars instead of five so I want to go over those first.

My first and biggest issue with this book was the portrayal of withholding life threatening medical information. In this book, Rhys doesn’t tell Feyre that both her and her child will be killed during childbirth due to her non-Illyrian anatomy. He also threatens all of his friends (notice I say HIS friends because clearly they defer to his judgement not what’s best for Feyre) into not telling her about it either because he “doesn’t want to upset her”. This entire plot line really drives home the fact that Rhys claims to give the people in his life a choice when, really, he keeps life-threatening information away from them “for their own good“. It’s not your place to decide whether someone should know something about their health. It should’ve been her choice what she did or didn’t do before giving birth. If she knew earlier she might’ve been more active in trying to find a way to save the three of them or it might’ve been early enough for her to terminate the pregnancy if she wanted...waiting too long took away that choice from her. 

A “sub issue” (an issue 1.5) with this is the incredibly stupid death pact. I understand that they wouldn’t want to be alive without the other, but they knew they wanted to have kids. So they’re fine with this pact leaving their son an orphan and the Night Court high lordless? I think this incredibly selfish and very short term thinking of them. 

A connected issue to the childbirth situation is the ending. I personally did not enjoy the ending. I understand the reasoning for how the ending works:

1) it was to make sure no one is more powerful than Feysand so Rhys can become High King (a “benevolent dictator”) 
2) bring balance to the forces of nature since no one should have that kind of power
3) to make the fandom, Feyre, and Rhys forgive Nesta with her sacrifice. After sacrificing her power to save Feyre how can Rhys or anyone else be mad? “Feyre sacrificed her life to hunt and Nesta did NOTHING!” doesn’t have the same ring to it anymore cuz now Nesta paid back the favor. 

However, even though I understand these reasons, I really disagree with her losing her power. Being thrown into the Cauldron was a traumatic experience for her and the one thing she took that was empowering to her was her POWER. I was so disappointed that she gave it away to center Feyre and Rhys yet again even though she got no apology from them for any of the shitty things they’ve done to her. There were so many ways to avoid this ending that I just didn’t buy any of it. You’re telling me she couldn’t 1) get Thesan the high lord of healing magic to come help her give birth...nah one “really good nurse is fine” 2) risk shifting anyway cuz the alternative is all three of you dying 3) doing the c-section right away as the first plan of action instead of waiting until it’s too late. Someone pointed out that Cassian was gutted from neck to navel and he lived but for some reason a c-section is “experimental”? They know what LACTIC ACID is and they don’t know what a c-section is? Inconsistent. 4) finding some magical way to widen her hips for a few hours during labor. There were SO many ways to avoid this ending I couldn’t suspend my disbelief over this one. The High Lord of Feminism hasn’t encouraged women’s reproductive health advancements...shocker. If the book had a better villain and plot they could’ve found another way for Nesta to “get even” with Feyre by saving her another way than this terrible baby B plot that required Nesta to give up the power she took for some reason. I’m just over this “powerful woman loses her powers” bullshit...Amren got this same treatment and so did A****. It’s tired. It’s boring. I’m smelling misogyny. 

One of my third biggest issues was the fact that they put in Nesta in involuntary rehab. This decision seemed really out of character for someone like Feyre, who was trapped for two books by Tamlin and not allowed to leave. The formula for both of these decisions follows the same pattern:

1) Stay in my manor and do as I say in a controlled environment where I get to decide what you can and cannot do.
2) Be exiled to a different land where you will be hunted and killed by fae/humans.

These two options make this a non-choice. Everyone would choose living in conditions they don’t like over dying. 
A lot of people have been saying that it’s okay because she is addicted to alcohol and sex and it needs to be taken away from her with “tough love”. (Even though her “unhealthy coping mechanisms” are thrown out almost immediately as she gets to the House of Wind as if they were never a problem in the first place...but more on that later). Personally I don’t believe that involuntary rehab is actually successful. You have to want to heal and recognize that you have a problem to make rehab work. I don’t like this book giving the message that sometimes people need to be controlled to heal themselves. 
 When you look at the other inner circle characters, Mor was one of the people that used drinking and sex to deal with her trauma after the autumn court. No one ever thought to put her in involuntary rehab. I also think it sucked that Feyre’s breaking point wasn’t that Nesta was far gone, but that Nesta was now an embarrassment to her as a ruler. “If I can’t control you, then how does that make me look to the other high lords?” was almost verbatim what she said to Nesta. I think that is so shitty to send her away, not out of love, but embarrassment. 
 Another issue I have with this “rehab” is that her addictions are barely addressed. SJM set up an addiction to alcohol and sex and both of them are seen as unhealthy coping mechanisms that she is shamed for on multiple occasions (ex: Cassian notes how she has no shame keeping every male’s scent in her room). Her alcohol addiction is in one scene where she has a trauma nightmare and tries to go down the stairs because she needs a drink but that’s it. I don’t expect her to have physical withdrawal symptoms as a high fae but I did expect more of a mental struggle than just one scene. She also has the addiction to sex that’s never addressed. You would think that if the IC really were trying to remove her addictions with “tough love” they would make it a point to make sure Cassian and Nesta didn’t have sex with each other to avoid her using him to cope in an unhealthy way. They all point out her sleeping with a bunch of males every chance they get and how bad it is that she’s using sex to cope. So we have to ask ourselves why it’s not ok for her to have casual sex with other males to cope but suddenly it’s ok when it’s just one male who has some kind of allowance to sleep with her because he “loves her”. You would think if he loves her and wanted to remove her unhealthy coping mechanisms he would refuse sex with her until she can have sex without using it to cope unhealthily with her trauma...but it’s never addressed as an issue. It’s almost as if her coping mechanisms weren’t ever unhealthy in the first place, and that’s just on Sarah not knowing how to portray addictions with accuracy and care. 

Speaking of Mor… I also really hated how she treated Nesta. I don’t like how the inner circle treat Nesta. Period. They are mad at her on Feyre’s behalf when Feyre has already forgiven her and told them all to back off. It’s not their battle. I understand close friends really feel protective over the ones that they love but it’s not their place. It’s not their family. Amren also said some really mean things to Cassian about how he needs to just shut up and follow orders. This is how Amren treats people she LOVES and should care about?? She tells Nesta she’s a “pathetic waste of life”. We also never get closure on what happened on the boat with Amren, and Mor never has a closure scene with Nesta either. After what she said “you don’t deserve the kindness that good men like Cassian give you” was absolutely vicious and cruel and unnecessary and we never get closure for that. She also tells Nesta that “people like her belong in the Court of Nightmares” which is basically saying Nesta either reminds her of homophobic abusive assholes or she thinks Nesta deserves to be abused in the Hewn City like she was...which is HORRIFIC. We never get and apology from her or anyone else. But Nesta sure apologizes to them A LOT. 

The fourth thing that I had an issue with was the fact that Rhys is most likely going to become the High King of Prythian. I’ve never been a huge fan of “benevolent dictators“ because they never work (eg. Game of Thrones). Usually, this is supposed to be a transition into some kind of democracy, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. I think he wants to institute a sole ruler over all of Prythian and allow some local rule from the High Lords but ultimately he is in control and might sometimes listen to his court advisors. He doesn’t really listen to them in the trilogy, he just kinda does what he wants and they agree with him cuz “Rhys knows best”. Just because Rhys is powerful doesn’t mean that he’s fit to rule everything. Having a king isn’t going to solve infighting between the courts and it’s not going to just solve all of Prythian’s problems since a “nice guy” is in a charge of them. Rhys needs to figure out his own court first with the “slums” in Velaris even though he just bought his fourth home and gives an “OBSCENE” salary to all of his best friends, the Hewn City bullshit, and the misogynistic Illyrian army that has a LOT of infighting (which is what the High King position would be to fix...but for the entire continent...clearly he is ill equipped even on a small scale). Figure that out first Rhys. Sarah honestly should’ve just retired Rhys and Feyre in these new books and left them exactly where they were at. They can be involved but they shouldn’t be gaining absolute power in the background.  

So the 5th issue I have is my mixed feelings about Cassian. I think it was really interesting to explore how soft he is even though most people just see him as a brute. I’m a sucker for a really big but soft man for one person. HOWEVER, he really said some abhorrent things to Nesta like “everyone fucking hates you congratulations you got what you wanted”, he jokes about how she might ask him to kill himself with the bargain they made and makes her feel like a monster, says “thanks for the ride Nes” after they have sex which is absolutely disgusting, and he CONSTANTLY antagonizes her when she’s already hit rock bottom. This isnt like Rhys where he was annoying Feyre to get her to “feel something” cuz Nesta is already raging inside...he’s doing it to be an asshole. He also objectifies her even when she’s stick thin because of losing her appetite cuz...ya know...TRAUMA (and Sarah only knows how to show trauma by losing an obscene amount of weight). It’s always “she’s skin and bones, she’s looks like a hollowed out skeleton...but she still got tiddies tho and that ass is fat 😏” like?? Priorities Cassian! Priorities! But he did turn the knife towards himself while under compulsion rather than kill her, he was gonna get Nesta and the gang from the Blood Rite even though he knew that even Rhys couldn’t save him from being hunted down and killed for it, he finally stood up to Rhys and defended Nesta when Rhys assumes Nesta is being mean to Emerie and Gwyn when she was the one who got them to train in the first place, and I thought it was sweet that he took dance classes in secret. I also liked that he didn’t pry her to talk he just gave her the tools and when he felt like he could get through to her he encourages her to let it out. 

My 6th issue with this book were the Valkyries. I don’t feel like either of them had distinct personalities. I really wanted to like them and I really wanted to feel like they were interesting characters but there was just nothing that caught my attention other than their trauma. Which is obviously not a good thing. I was absolutely sobbing when they were in the blood rite and telling their stories but other than that I just never felt any strong feelings for them. The only difference between the two of them is Gwyn is more outgoing and Emerie is more reserved. But that’s pretty much all we get outside of their trauma as far as personality and I just want more!

Reasons 7 & 8 I wasn’t crazy about this book was the pacing and the cardboard cutout villain. The pacing was slow and I would say that only like 200/800 pages were actual action and the rest is the healing journey. And Briallyn is basically the “evil woman” we see again like with Amarantha and Koschei is the “evil guy who is evil for...reasons” like Hybern. I could not tell him apart from Hybern even if you held a gun to my head. Im putting these together cuz it wasn’t egregious and I was able to look past them to enjoy myself.


OK… I feel like I got out a lot of my issues with this book. Now onto the more positive things! 

First, I wanted to talk about the depiction of overcoming trauma and mental illness. This is something that I’ve struggled with myself and I caught myself crying multiple times through the story because I just related to it so much! Utilizing things like meditation and mindfulness and music to push away the bad thoughts but still acknowledge them was really useful. I might actually end up using some of these things a lot better now because I was able to read it her thought process along this journey. She began this story so vulnerable and hurt. Her response was that she didn’t deserve anyone’s love to the point where she wanted everyone else to hate her as much as she hated herself. I think a lot of us can relate to this feeling where we don’t believe we deserve love or happiness for one reason or another. And it was so touching to see the realization that no matter what, you are deserving of love. One of the most powerful scenes for me where I was sobbing like a little baby was when she was in the mountains with Cassian after she had told Feyre about the baby. Her absolute hopelessness and her desire to just not exist anymore was so powerful, I felt it through the page as if I were the one feeling it. Granted, this is a very able-bodied look at healing since it’s basically just working out and meditating, but for me this was overall a win. 

One of my other favorite moments that I would say is pretty even with the first is the scene at the bog. Picturing her coming out of the black ooze on a pedestal, holding the severed head of the kelpie, surrounded by an army of the dead is just *chef kiss*. She was absolutely the death-god QUEEN that I wanted so badly for her to become. I would’ve absolutely gone crazy if she became the Queen of the Middle with an army of primordial monsters and an army of the dead. She would’ve been the baddest bitch in Prythian I swear!

Another thing I personally really enjoyed was the smut. Usually I really don’t like sex scenes in books, I just skip right past them. I think in the trilogy there was too much purple prose and euphemisms to describe what’s going on like “stars were bursting in the distance, sunlight was beaming through their skin” and I’m like...ok? What’s actually happening here?? Plus nobody really has sex like that. Stars aren’t bursting in the distance and the sunlight isn’t beaming through your skin… I think that’s what I struggled with the most in her other book but this one was great! There was also consistent, informed, enthusiastic, ongoing, affirmative consent that is verbally spoken and encouraged through every single sex scene. I had issues with her dropped sex addiction I mentioned previously but the actual writing of the scenes in isolation and just from a writing standpoint I enjoyed it. 

I also wanted to make this it’s own separate thing just because I loved it so much… I am obsessed with the house! I love the fact that it has its own personality and Nesta kind of imbued her own desire for a friend to create this sentient home/best friend. I really like that it enjoys romance books and they can both share that together and that they both kind of have this darker side to it but they learn to accept one another. The House never speaks but for some reason I like it better as a friend for Nesta than Gwyn and Emerie 😬.


One thing I just want to tag on here… I really appreciated how Nesta would call out the inner circle for their bullshit. I had a lot of similar thoughts reading the trilogy after doing some more analysis on their characters and it was actually really cathartic for me to read. It really made me feel validated. I think it was also a test of Sarah’s writing ability to look at her wonderful perfect beautiful babies in a not so positive light. They truly are not perfect people and should be called out.

Overall, I thought this was a really powerful story of overcoming trauma and coming out of a really dark place much stronger with the tools that you need to push through. Sarah really shines when writing about mental health and faerie smut so honestly I think this is her best book where she was able to let loose and really develop what she’s good at. The weaker elements were ones she’s always struggled with like plot and villains and pacing and endings so I wasn’t super shocked when all of those things were poorly executed. There’s also always some weird toxicity that is so egregious that idc how it made it past editing in her books as well so again, this also wasn’t a shock. Even though the pacing was really slow, the end was shit, and there were a lot of really weak elements, I enjoyed the journey and I plan on doing a reread soon.