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My critical rating of this book would be 3 stars, but my SJM Trash rating of this book is definitely 5 stars for overall enjoyment!
Initial thoughts are spoiler free, but everything after my *spoiler* warning is obviously full of spoilers. Synopsis: At this point, you must be a part of the ACOTAR fandom and you know what this story is about. The whole circle is back and readying for the Winter Solstice celebrations. Everyone is still reeling and healing from the conclusion that was ACOWAR and at the same time preparing for what's to come. This "novel" (really it's a long novella) is the bridge for the gap between the primary trilogy and spin-off series to come. Initial thoughts: My brain was likely incoherent the entire time I was reading this. I was just so happy to finally be immersed in this world again. It's everything I expected with hints of a little more. It's what you can expect from Sarah J. Maas at this point. Is it problematic and flawed and occasionally ridiculous? of course. I had my fair share of problems with this book as you’ll see in my SPOILERY walkthrough below. Did I still love it? Absolutely! I AM MAAS TRASH you guys, what did you expect!!
*MY SPOILERY WALK THROUGH BEGINS AFTER THIS*
*Spoilery thoughts begin here!*
As this story is quite short, I truly can go piece by piece and say all the aforementioned incoherent thoughts I had. I'll try to include page numbers where I can. WALK THROUGH: Page 7: The start to this was a little rocky. I don't know why exactly, but I felt like the humor was mediocre at best and reintroducing all the characters took longer than necessary. However, I did notice right from the beginning that Maas was laying down some foundation for what the spin-off while build on. Page 9: Rhy's power glitters. I really cannot explain why this made me giggle when I was reading it, but believe me I was having flashbacks to Twilight for a second. Page 15: The first re-introduction we have to the famous Maas smut again. Rhys takes Feyre, wait for it... IN THE SKY. What even?! Now that must have taken some skill even if they both almost smeared themselves on the stairs to the House of Wind. This made for some interesting creative thinking of HOW they even accomplished this. Page 21: I was tearing up already! Hardly any pages in and Maas is already trying to break my heart. Just kidding, my heart has already broken for all these characters multiple times. Also, bless it, we have a Cassian chapter! More background information! Gimme gimme gimme! I love to know everything I can about my babies. Page 47: A little bit more world-ish building. We find out the female Fae only have 2 periods a year (or maybe I just don't remember this information from previous books). And LORD, does Rhys become the cutest fussing mother hen!! He's the fussiest. And I live for it. I love that they fuss over each other so much. It's very... realistic to me. And hella cute. Page 56: ANGST ANGST ANGST. Such a glorious build up, only for Mor to knock and cock-block. I was laughing out loud for this scene. I feel like their tension could be cut with a butter knife. Then the circle FINALLY starts to come together for the Solstice and my heart kept swelling with every member that walked into the townhouse. We had been waiting a YEAR for this reunion right?! Page 100: I think slowly, but surely, Azriel is starting to move up to favorite character. He's just such an enigma. There's so much we don't know about him. We don't understand anything that's going on in his head. I WANT AN AZRIEL POV PLZ. Then we have these moments like this where we glimpse the almost carefree and playful side of him, and my heart just swells! Somewhere in between these pages: “It’s cold as hell!” Mor called from the front hall, startling me from the warmth pooling in my core. “And who the hell let Cassian and Feyre decorate?” I let yet another loud giggle slip my mouth in public, in the middle of the bookstore reading, because all I could picture was drunk Feyre and drunk Cassian and their sly smiles knowing they sure as hell effed up all the decorations in their drunken state. Page 101: “Dangerous words, Rhysand,” Amren warned, strutting through the door, nearly swallowed up by the enormous white fur coat she wore. Only her chin-length dark hair and solid silver eyes were visible above the collar. She looked— “You look like an angry snowball,” Cassian said.” YOU LOOK LIKE AN ANGRY SNOWBALL. I'm WEAK. Page 107: "Don't answer that" (Rhys to Amren trying to protect Elain's innocent pointy ears) as they talk about Amren learning how to pee and poop for the first time in her Fae body. Just thinking about how Rhys is trying to protect Elain's innocence is adorable. *Starting here I started to have more problems with the story* (my bolded points are things that I didn't like) Page 119: Hold up hold up hold up... I feel like we just took a step back here with Nesta. Nesta was starting to redeem herself at the end of ACOWAR. She never really made sense to me, her coldness and abrasive personality, but I thought she was starting to open up. Now she's all of a sudden a bitch again, AND a drunkard. This is a new kind of character in this series. A horrid person who has yet to show a warm/compassionate side, but where is the end? And will she ever change? Also: I also remember when Rhys finally went to go talk to Tamlin (though I forget which page) and I feel like we took a step back here too. Like Tamlin nearly redeemed himself at the end of ACOWAR when he brought Rhys back. Rhys got everything he could ever want. Even if Rhys or Feyre couldn't quite forgive him for what he did, I know it was despicable, they could have started a mending! But now we're kind of back to ground zero and relations continue to be strained. Page 135: This weaver is talking some deep stuff. "Then there would be no Hope shining in the Void" I got some dust in my eye while reading her story. Page 142: The work "Look" is capitalized here. I know some authors capitalize random words when they become names/pronouns for things, but here... It just seems random. It doesn't make sense. Page 155: Here we have a good look at Maas trying a little too hard with her cringe-worthy humor. I mean, "shit-eating grins" ? What would that even look like? Obviously I'm picturing mischievous grins in my mind because I felt that description went better here, but I don't know what she was implying with "shit-eating." That's kind of just gross. Page 156: Alright this is the MILLIONTH time Feyre has mentioned this MASSIVE amount of money that she can't even fathom the depth of her bank account... It's getting ridiculous at this point. Like... WE GET IT. YOURE RICH. NOW STAHP rubbing it in. I was really starting to get annoyed with how much money kept getting mentioned in this book. Money this, money that. I know being High Lady and Lord requires money and money is getting spent. But we don't even know where this money is coming from considering Rhys doesn't do a Tithe and he is constantly giving money away to charity/buying expensive things. I know his ports in Velaris are lucrative, but how much do they really make? Page 173: "Cruel, wicked thing." --> Prime example of repetitive and starting-to-become-cringey dialogue. I still love nearly everything that comes out of Rhys' mouth, but let's spice it up now. Page 174: This book really is a roller coaster!! I'm tearing up every 6 pages, rolling my eyes every 10, and laughing out loud every 3. This is craziness! The birchin scene is the funniest so far. I do love when authors use their writing to make you think about what is "actually going on" with out having to really say what is happening. If that made sense to you, you know what I mean. Page 178: I love Rhys new nickname from Cassian: Rhysie (pronounced like Reece's in my head). It's cute! Page 187: I HAVE FINALLY CHOSEN A SIDE IN THE ELAIN SHIP. I WANT AZ+ELAIN. Reasons as follows: 1) Lucien is seriously pushing his mating bond thing on her too much. 2) I don't know how Feyre can stand that Lucien is doing that. 3) Azriel knows how to treat her! Azriel took care of her first in the ACOWAR. 4) Elain UNDERSTANDS Az. She really seems to, at least in my opinion. Especially when Azriel opens the present Elain gave him!! NOW THAT scene really made me happy. I really really really wanted to see Elain grow and come into her Fae self and I felt like that was her first step into joining the family. Now she has that sarcastic sense of humor the rest of the circle does (yet more caring which is a plus!). Page 204: Well.. this smut... is a bit overdone... It's spectacularly pornographic and we have waited a long time for this scene... and yet... too much? Or is that just me. I still liked it because I'm smut trash, but the Rhys and Feyre sex scenes are starting to become redundant. Page 244: The End. Now where is this gonna bring us in the spin-off?? Bonus content: PLEASE dear gods, let this be where Nesta's arc really starts to take place. She needs it desperately. I need to understand her mind. Or I may never like her. Also, she NEEDS to stop hurting my baby Cassian!!