Hey Everyone,

It is no secret that ACOTAR is the most popular series in the world of Booktube and especially my TikTok algorithm. For years, I have steered away from the car crash knowing that it wasn’t my type of book to read. And yet, here I am wrirting up a blog post about this series.

I will mostly be talking about the trilogy and the Xmas book that should not have been written.

If you know the plot of the story, then great, if you don’t that’s still great.

The Retelling

When the first book came out, there was this big hype about retellings and specifically Beauty and the Beast retellings. There were alot. The book fell into the similar trope as many others but it had changed the beast’s curse into all the Fae in the land being controlled by one women, the bitc-lith. Feyre, the female protaginist, hunted down a large wolf only to find a larger wolf wanting to kill her for killing his friend, whoops. She struggles her new life and surroundings to the point where her life before is forgotten, then a threat of her life was in danger and Tamlin sends her back to her family, after spending time with them again it isn’t until she realises that she loves this man and wants to save him. Then there are some trials and a riddle to solve but it was all for nothing when the evil bitch kills Feyre just out of pure entertainment for herself, she gets killed and Feyre is saved by all the other High Lords. And she lives happily ever after.

Let’s talk about the retelling, while this may be a great retelling in the first book but I personally think that ACOTAR and ACOMAF would have been great if they were together to have a bigger use of the retelling. Now we know, that Tamlin is a massive dick and that Rhys is the man that everyone loves “because he is a feminist” but while we were lead to believe that Tamlin was the beast when in fact it was Rhys who was the beast and that Tamiln was Gaston. Did anyone else think of it? If you look at it clearly the resulting end of Tamlin is so similar to Gaston, except for falling to his death in Beauty and the Beast, but it is there as proof and not only that Rhys pretending to be evil to hide his home, his people from Amarantha and everyone, it wasn’t until the curse was lifted he was able to return back to Velaris. It is shown even further in ACOWAR, when all the High Lords from all the courts join together to talk about the war but Tamlin, being a massive prick, could not stop taunting Rhys over his lovemaking with Feyre, really trying to rile Rhys and Feyre.

Changing the love interest for the second time or third

It is no secret with SJM’s work that she has done this before. In the Throne of Glass series, she has made Celeana/Aelin be interested in Dorian(TOG), Chaol(COM) and Rowan(HOF). So it wasn’t surprising that SJM would go back to her bag of tricks and tease a new love interest and someone who has more interest and devotion to the female lead. I found Tamlin was meh but Rhysand was five times better.

This should have been third person perspective

Ok, here me out on this, I feel that as SJM has developed into New Adult. It would be more fitting for the trilogy to be in third person perspective. I feel that we would have more chapters following all the characters in the trilogy, especially that scene in the battle when Feyre watches the death of her father and King Hybern when it would have been soo much better to have it in third perspective.

The Smut was not there

If you like smut, know that this series doesn’t have alot. In ACOMAF, you have to plow through 54 chapters to get to the spicy scene, while yes it is a great spicy scene. Majority of the series is teasing, taunting and then there is the plot of the series which was a turbulance of emotions that I didn’t know I had within me.

Before I started the series, I had this wild idea that there would be a lot of sex scenes and specifically sex in each others head. I have no clue where I heard it from but it gave this idea that there would be a lot of sex scenes but clearly I was proven wrong. I just have to say it’s not smuttier than the stuff I am currently reading😉

If you want me to rate the scale of spice, I’d give it the line between mild and medium from the Nando’s spice level.

The Novella was meh

While it is set around Feyre’s birthday and also their verison of Xmas, I couldn’t understand the meaning of this novella at all. At times I felt, why was this needed to be written? Why even write this? I can understand the storyline between Nesta and Cassian since reading ACOSF (I will write a review seperately) but I didn’t really need a scene where Feyre and Rhys bang in the sky.

Something I did like from the Novella was the conversation at the dinner table when Amren complains about her bladder problems, I had to re-read that page a few times because I actually did laugh out loud. It reminded me of a scene in Supernatural when Castiel and his complaints about urinating.

Overall Thoughts

Even though I did avoid this series like the plague, I felt it was necessary to give the series another shot. I grew very attached to many of the characters and many of them were the supporting. ACOTAR was a re-read and it has been a long time since I last picked it up, at the time I liked the magical side and was very curious about the world of Prythian and also wanted to explore the other Courts in the Fae world. But when ACOMAF came out, I had somehow drifted away from the book and left it on my TBR for years, I ended up selling the copy of the book and it was even signed, it’s a little dissapointing but it doesn’t matter. While reading ACOMAF, I found myself focusing on the other characters like Mor, Cassian and Azrial I felt like I wanted to know more about them, while we got many explanations over what happened to them it felt very onesided.

ACOWAR, was something. While it being the final book in the trilogy, I felt there was a lot of plot driven stuff, which I enjoy but there was never many sweet moments. There were many moments of Cassian and Nesta, whether they were arguing or even possibly flirting, I was in for them being together because everytime they were in the room together ‘Feyre’ would always notice. I do have some tidbits, firstly, did the conversation between Mor and Feyre have to happen in the middle of a war, was that necessary. While I am happy that a conversation was written, it didn’t have to be in that type of setting. Secondly, while Feyre is touching the cauldren and witnesses the death of her father, Nesta protecting Cassian and Hybern’s death, it would have been so much better to see it in the perspective of someone else, or third person.

If you have read House of Sky and Breath, then you know my reasioning for reading this series, if you don’t I suggest you read it. Given the information towards the end of HOSAB, I have noticed some mentions in ACOWAR that could explain a bit more of what is set to happen and I am excited. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait for a long time but I feel like we will.

This was a different style for me, I hope you liked it. Should I do more of these, I have found myself falling back into the rabbit hole of authors I walked away from years ago, I’ve even bought Jennifer L Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash series on my kindle.

Happy Reading