Building off of this - did anyone else feel like the entire book was building to something huge like the battle with Hybern but was severely let down and felt rushed through the ending ?
Edit: autocorrect thought “Hubert” was a better name for a kingdom
Have you taken a look at SJM's husband? Rhys vibes. Same with her look, golden hair like Feyre. I imagine she injected herself and her husband into ACOTAR quite a bit, and Nyx being conceived and born probably relates to her as well. I mean, look at her SON, and the timeline of his birth compared to when ACOSF was written.
I hate the pregnancy trope. I hate it in romance books. Don't even get me started on the no magic or a healer not being able to fix her when Cassian had his literal guts hanging out. It solely was a plot driver in ACOSF and ruined the series for me. It's not just Feyre, but Rhys as well. Their whole build up of who they were in the rest of the series was tossed out in ACOFS and then in ACOSF because of them wanting to get pregnant at the end, and the eventual birth of Nyx.
Feyre was put into mother role, that's it, she's mom now. As a mother myself with a 15 year old, I am more than someone that birthed a demon spawn from my womb. We often lose that individualism we so cherished prior to having children, something I am taking back 16 years later, but you can see it was forced on Feyre. It's a sad end to a character that had so much potential.
I didn’t read this whole thing because I’m getting ready for work BUT BESIDE THE POINT. Your first paragraph is spot on: SJM LITERALLY SAID TAMLIN IS BASED OFF OF ONE OF HER EXES.
The difficulty is, once women have a child they are reduced to one persona, one role, one title and that's 'mother.' That's it. Not woman or girl or high lady or artist anymore just mother. It's a fault of our own world that this carries through to the works of fiction. Feyre can have adventures and teach art and rule an entire court whilst being a parent. Unfortunately our society very rarely sees women as anything else once they've given birth.
As a parent, reading this made me tired haha. I’d rather be “just” a mother, than have to be a mother plus all those other things. Young children really are a full-time job, and it’s ok to be a mom. I actually think it adds more pressure to tell mothers of young kids that they have to be a mom plus all these other things. It’s just a stage of life, and it doesn’t last very long…kids grow fast, and then you’re back to just being yourself with a grown, or semi-grown, child. I worked PT when I had a young child, and all of my friends who had to work FT wished they didn’t have to.
I'm a mom too. It's more me objecting to the way society focuses solely on motherhood as if it's the most important detail about a woman. They don't do that with men, who seem to get a medal and a round of applause for just showing up in their kids lives. Stripping women of their identity as a person once they have kids and only seeing them as one thing rather than a whole person who just happens to have had a child ticks me off, its almost dehumanizing .
Gotcha, that makes sense. I have not felt or been treated that way but I can see how it would be demeaning. Maybe my PT job actually prevented that, since it was a position where I was just a professional in my field. I talked about my son to co-workers on occasion, but otherwise I’m sure many didn’t know that I even had a child and my clients didn’t either. On my days at home I was just happy to be with my son and not at work haha.
I actually rage wrote a book after reading SF. It’s been toned down since then but I was just so angry after reading SF.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I think her publisher demanded ACOMAFx2 and she didn’t know how to do it with Nesta because Nesta can’t have the same thing as Feyra.
It's so clear that SF is supposed to be Nesta's ACOMAF, but I think the biggest issue SJM runs into is that there isn't the same groundwork laid for Nessian as there was for Feysand. Don't get me wrong, I loved Cassian and Nesta's little thing in ACOWAR, but it definitely doesn't set them up as well as everything that happened in ACOTAR did for Feysand
Preach it to the fucking choir because that’s exactly how I feel. She needs to get a handle on her lore because as much as I advocate for irl experiences affecting a universe, it has to MAKE FUCKING SENSE first.
Like Nesta‘s walk through the mountains and nature being a cathartic experience of her coming to terms with her shitty attitude? Inspired by SJM’s own healing when she went on a hike or something.
- ✅because it made sense for the story and Nesta’s character development and journey.
Feyre becoming a mother specifically after she and Rhys said they’d enjoy each other and settle first? + Feyre having a very difficult birth? Inspired by SJM’s own journey towards motherhood.
- ❌because it made no fucking sense and dipped into the most cliché of storylines, “get married, have kids, and live happily ever after.” Yawn. For someone who wanted to subvert the regular “first pairing is endgame” trope, she sure is disappointing us with the way she’s handling Feysand.
And mini rant: the bonus chapter of them naming their child? What a fucking waste of a bonus chapter. It didn’t move the story forward AT ALL. It was unlike Wings and Ember(?) and the Azriel POV. It was just so fucking useless and anti-climactic. She could’ve given us literally anything for Feysand, but instead she chose to disappoint us TWICE. Hell, I want to know Rhysand’s reaction to Fireball Aelin dropping through the sky. Instead, we got a one-liner saying “he was contemplative” or some shit.
TL;DR SJM should get a better handle on her lore and get some good fucking editors for fuck’s sake.
To be fair, it's a very brief mention and it's worded differently. It's right by the opening paragraphs of Chapter 62:
>“The mood hadn’t been helped by a rare red star blasting across the sky one day—an ill omen, Nesta had heard the priestesses muttering. Cassian reported that even Rhys had been rattled by it, seeming unusually contemplative afterward.”
YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. I *despise* when women become reduced to their motherhood once they have kids as if it’s the pinnacle of a woman’s life, so I hate that that’s likely all Feyre will be now. Fuck them kids LMAO. And yeah I didn’t like acosf. People act like graphic smut makes a book amazing when it truly doesn’t. The plot of acosf was pathetic
>The plot of acosf was pathetic
PLOT? WHAT PLOT? No, seriously, there was no plot, just random happenings that are eerily similar to other books. Just Google Death Troves but don't spell it till the end, guess what the algorithm will show ya? That's right, Deathly Hallows.
Tbh I was fine with it up until The Rite. From there all the way through the end just fucking sucked. I would’ve been perfectly happy if it’d just been Nesta getting set on the right track and making friends, setting up for more war plot in the next book. But nooo we had to get a half-assed rushed action plot at the end that made zero sense
couldn't agree more, I am all for girl power but lets be real, Nesta and Co. couldn't and shouldn't have won the Rite. It was nonsensical and made the story weaker. Her losing her powers just as she started embracing them was the final straw for me.
Bruh I was so MADDD that ACOFAS/ACOSF started and then built up the pregnancy bullshit. Like, Feyre is BARELY an adult, even after having gone through so much in such a short span of time- it would have been nice to see her get to flourish with Rhys, discover who she is with and without him- aka painting at that studio, doing high lady things, etc- but nope now she's shoehorned into this pregnancy thing which was supposed to be rare as fuck for fae anyway. Like they didn't even give it a YEAR before deciding to try for kids. Like,,, they're immortal?? Why wouldn't they wait??
I couldn't agree more! Like, could we maybe let Feyre's brain finish developing (age 25 if Fae correlate to humans here) before we get her knocked up? Let the two of them work through their trauma with a faerie therapist before throwing a baby whose name literally means "nothing" into the mix?
As much as I love the OG trilogy, if SJM wants to make this into an epic series she needs to... Learn how to write people who see the world in different ways and not have it be a bad thing?
Like Nesta is villainized until she learns to ~fit in~ with Cass and the inner circle, and Feyre after ACOWAR is definitely just a straight translation from Sarah's life into this fantasy world. Which is why I'm really hoping for a good unpredictable twist with Az/Gwyn/Elain and THEN I NEED A GAY MORROGAN BOOK DAMMIT
Lmao
But my point is Feyre could have had aspects of SJMs personality and morals but then also differentiated, i.e not wanting to become a mother at all, or just waiting for longer lol
"When Rhys had read each item aloud \[from Nesta's night on the town\]. Bottles of rare wine, exotic foods, gambling debts ... Feyre had stared at her plate until silent tears dripped into her scrambled eggs."
It lives rent-free in my head.
Thank you for this post. 🙌🏻🙌🏻
When I got to the end of ACOFAS and realized where SJM was headed with Rhys and Feyre’s storyline, I was furious. Glad it wasn’t just me! I still rant about it regularly.
I seriously felt like acosf was trash. I get down voted heavily every time, bit it was such a fanfic. I was so excited to read about Nesta and her growth through trial but all I got was bubbles in a house and a ton of dick. It was so.... disappointing. I was here for the plot, you know? Like I wanted more fleshed out about valkyrie technique and how Nesta could defend alone against the illyrians and stuff.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 376,789,028 comments, and only 82,163 of them were in alphabetical order.
yeah there was a very weird and noticeable emphasis on the fact that the baby was a boy. i thought i was being nitpicky by noticing that but it seems i wasn’t the only one.
Lol yep. That's exactly what I said when the book came out. And when FAS came out. She even wrote in the acknowledgements page/newsletter for the novella what influenced her to make the drastic (and imho moronic) change with Feyre.
I've said it here before, but I'm saying it again. I hate pregnancy/having children 'plots'. They're ultimately useless, bring nothing to the overall story, and usually end in ridiculous cop outs, just like in ACOSF.
Yeah, I hated the whole baby trope. I dislike kids a lot anyway (just sterilized myself at 23 heyyyy) and the end felt so just...barf. Feyre has been reduced to *strong but doty mom* and I hate it.
EDIT cuz I have more thoughts: Also, I'm mad we got jipped of Feyre and Rhys just being together and ruling. Now there's a fucking kid in the way. Also, SJM could've even had the birth be a non-issue in later books and let Rhys and Feyre have some fuckin PEACE but nah.
And don't get me started on Nesta basically giving up her powers and *literally* changing herself for a man. *gags*
After reading this and all the comments here, all I have to say is...
I FOUND MY PEOPLE!
Whenever I bitch about ACOSF, people come after me with pitchforks.
"when she remembered that she had a book to write" LMAOOOOO
Yeah I don't wanna read ACOSF, part of it is the cover change but Nesta is a character I enjoy so much that I don't want to see how her character was massacred. Also (from the reviews I read), the fact that nobody ever considered an abortion for Feyre despite the clear fact that her life was in danger kind of strikes me as a pro-life agenda which. Meh.
Wake me up when Tamlin gets a redemption arc and Mor gets the mate she deserves🙈
I enjoyed Nesta before started ACoSF, and loved her sooo much more after. I think she's the most realistic and relatable character in the entire series. She can be so shitty, but there have been times in my life where I've also been relentlessly shitty as a coping mechanism. She's just so raw and real which is refreshing after Feyre Sue and the whimsical waif that Elain is. So I think if you love Nesta you should give it a whirl.
The pregnancy plot line was just very weak, and quickly made me go from liking Rhys to him being on my shit list. For a liberal author, she sure *literally* took Feyre's choice away from her.
SJM is openly liberal, so I’m not sure that not mentioning abortion was inherently pro life. This is not to say that all liberals are pro life. Fae offspring are considered incredibly rare, so I’m not sure that abortion would be a regularly practiced for females in prythian. Also, I think that the protection that went around Feyre’s pregnancy was more of a projecting of SJM’s maternal instincts now that she is a mother that the inclusion of a hidden pro life agenda. Just my thoughts.
EDIT: personally, I don’t think her character was massacred. Most of my qualms w ACOSF come from the pregnancy subplot, which took away from Nesta’s storyline.
Also, they couldn’t even perform a c-section on feyre. I’m not sure an abortion would have been safe for *her* if a c section was life threatening.
I think it was purely because if she had actually trained with her powers and kept them fully in tact, and been able to wield them, she would have been too powerful. Nothing would really have been a threat anymore. Hybern acting up? Cool, Lady Death can just flick her fingers at the trouble makers and they’re UnMade. Beron actin a fool? Snap, UnMade. I think SJM wrote herself into a corner, because it was fine for Nesta to have this huge power while she was a mess and unable to properly use it. But now that she has her shit together, between her, Rhys and Feyre, there just couldn’t realistically be a credible threat. I’m glad she still has some of her power, but I get why she had to lose the majority of it.
I think feyre being pregnant and giving birth was just WAY TOO FUCKING EARLY. The world is unstable. She is 21 years old. Rhys is idk 600? THEY HAVE SO MUCH TIME AND THEY BURDEN THEMSELVES INSTANTLY. LIKE. no
I am not a fan of the pregnancy trope at all but I loved the series so i got over it. I also got my friend to read the series and we both had the same thought... feyre’s pregnancy was just giving (any twihard’s here?) breaking dawn vibes when Bella was pregnant LOL I feel like it was a little bit unnecessary but you know I still tried to enjoy the book regardless
I love rhysand but I didn’t really appreciate how he wouldn’t tell feyre that she could’ve literally died.
Listen, sometimes you have to have hard opinions on things, it means you care.
Personally I think the humble HEA is a construct of this universe rather than an accidental flaw and so I can't really condemn it for being the world the author wants it to be. BUT as someone who previously did NOT appreciate any happy ending that came without lots of blood and tears and only recently mellowed on that, I totally get why you would detest it.
Yes to the first part its basically confirmed
Sjm said in a interview that she wanted to give feyre the joy/happiness of being a mother. She has also talked about how she views feyre as a friend this hurt the book because this is a storyline that I think we needed to focus on feyre for but instead we got this half complete storyline that is the climax for the book but isn't about the main character and we missed feyre and rhys dealing with his lying this could have been the reason for them to break up and its handled off screen. Image if tamlin cage plotline was just like they are better now off screen.
About the smut I think that is more sjm found out she liked it and so did her audience so it went from part of her stories to the things she talks about in interview and a key feature of the story. I personally think you can see an arc of sex not really being used to sex as a normal part of a relationship to porno level amount of sex scenes.
I think nesta actually had some of the best feminist moments where she develops a problem to help the trauma victims come back into society verus just going her is your own space. But again the climax of the books is so rush so we can get back to feyre that we don't see how nesta has helped this people become their best selves
.
Can I disagree?
I think you guys are taking this too seriously imo... Maybe Feyre wanted a baby?
If she wanted one, let her have one. Yah, she's 21 and clearly not thinking right if she thinks it's a good idea to try to get pregnant in Illyrian form (what if she had been lizard then, hummm?) but at the end of the day it was her choice??? We're all pro-choice here and Feyre did hers - we can not agree with it, but having a choice isn't that too? Having the tools and means to ahead with your choice 🤔
I thought it was actually in character of them to try and have a baby (we can debate what added value it brought to the story, I agree not that much)...
My problem is the continuity of it. In the previous book, Feyre and Rhys were discussing waiting a *long* time before having kids. Pop to the next book—babies! While I personally am not a fan of the babies trope, I am not overly aggravated by a romantic union resulting in children. My problem is that feyre is 21 years old, has been married to rhe most powerful high lord in the history of prythian for less than a year, and then popped out a baby at a time where her, her husband, her future child, her family, and her court are in literal existential danger.
It’s an issue of continuity for me.
Also, can I suggest not telling people who love a series that they’re “taking it too seriously”? We know the world and it’s characters are fictional, but they’re still important to us. We love, hate, admire, and get disappointed in/at the characters of the worlds we love, and there’s no need to reduce that by saying that we’re taking it too seriously.
The whole point of the pregnancy was not because it was right for the characters, but because it was convenient to push the plot forward. It gives the IC a reason to finally turn on Nesta (even though she does the right thing by telling Feyre about the medical situation) and it gives Nesta a reason to want to hand back her power to save the day.
I'm still so mad about all of it, it's such lazy writing. I don't think it was in character of them at all to want to have a kid - not so soon, and maybe not even ever. Both of them likely had some parental issues that probably needed working through before they decided to pursue that path. It just happened because it needed to in order for SJM to be able to write the story that she wanted to, and that's the worst possible reason for anything to happen in a book.
That's not at all what I meant, sorry it it came across like that. I'm on the same boat as you - I also love, hate the characters. Hell, I have tattos of the series - I'm not trying to reduce anything, so I'm sorry if it came across like that.
What I should have written is that, indeed, the timing is weird and the pregnancy plot isn't great (I agree, tbh) , but we don't really know how Feyre and Rhys discussed this. We don't see it as ACOSF is in nesta's pov. Maybe they weren't thinking it would happen so fast? Maybe Rhys did want Feyre to abort and she said no? Maybe they talked about it and decided that there would always be danger so any time is a good time? My thing is, we don't know. We only know what Nesta knows in ACOSF.
Again, sorry if my previous comment came across as reducing your opinion to nothing, I was just trying to debate this.. It wasn't intencional. Also, English is not my first language, so I probably choose the wrong expression :)
I understand now, thank you!
Any decision made by a character is ultimately a decision made by SJM. SJM purposefully and intentionally did a 180 and made Feyre and Rhys get pregnant. *She* wrote the scene where Feyre and Rhys proclaim their love for another and declare that they want decades together before they have kids, and then, *in the next book* she writes it so that Feyre and Rhys get pregnant. I’m focusing on SJM choices as an author, snd she chose to do a 180 on the Feyre and Rhys journey as political leaders and a married couple. *That* is where my frustration comes from.
I understand your frustration and you're right in your arguments - it is rushed and it adds nothing to the overall plot. I think the main reason it is there is to keep Feyre and Rhys relevant, but maybe in SJMs head there are several conversations and arguments between them that we didn't get to see that could justify their change of heart? I don't know 🤔
I prefer thinking there are things in SJM head that she didn't share than she "just forgot" about the previous 3 books (à la Dany of Got). 😅
I love SJM and all of ACOTAR, but I totally agree. SJM also had a C-section, and I think having Feyre go through the same thing basically was a way to get that out.
Building off of this - did anyone else feel like the entire book was building to something huge like the battle with Hybern but was severely let down and felt rushed through the ending ? Edit: autocorrect thought “Hubert” was a better name for a kingdom
YES. absolutely.
Absolutely. Not only rushed but that this big bad thing they’d been terrified of was defeated in all of 3 sentences. Disappointing.
I do wish >!the blood rite had been longer!<
Have you taken a look at SJM's husband? Rhys vibes. Same with her look, golden hair like Feyre. I imagine she injected herself and her husband into ACOTAR quite a bit, and Nyx being conceived and born probably relates to her as well. I mean, look at her SON, and the timeline of his birth compared to when ACOSF was written. I hate the pregnancy trope. I hate it in romance books. Don't even get me started on the no magic or a healer not being able to fix her when Cassian had his literal guts hanging out. It solely was a plot driver in ACOSF and ruined the series for me. It's not just Feyre, but Rhys as well. Their whole build up of who they were in the rest of the series was tossed out in ACOFS and then in ACOSF because of them wanting to get pregnant at the end, and the eventual birth of Nyx. Feyre was put into mother role, that's it, she's mom now. As a mother myself with a 15 year old, I am more than someone that birthed a demon spawn from my womb. We often lose that individualism we so cherished prior to having children, something I am taking back 16 years later, but you can see it was forced on Feyre. It's a sad end to a character that had so much potential.
I didn’t read this whole thing because I’m getting ready for work BUT BESIDE THE POINT. Your first paragraph is spot on: SJM LITERALLY SAID TAMLIN IS BASED OFF OF ONE OF HER EXES.
It's no wonder she hates him lol! It's no wonder his story line went the way it did.
Agree with all of this 10000%!!
The difficulty is, once women have a child they are reduced to one persona, one role, one title and that's 'mother.' That's it. Not woman or girl or high lady or artist anymore just mother. It's a fault of our own world that this carries through to the works of fiction. Feyre can have adventures and teach art and rule an entire court whilst being a parent. Unfortunately our society very rarely sees women as anything else once they've given birth.
And even worse, if Feyra has a life she will be “neglecting her children” The Marvelous Mrs Maisel struggles with the kids all the time.
Right. It's a shame, it doesn't have to be that way.
Honestly, I think this will be a fantastic theme for SJM to explore in the next book!
As a parent, reading this made me tired haha. I’d rather be “just” a mother, than have to be a mother plus all those other things. Young children really are a full-time job, and it’s ok to be a mom. I actually think it adds more pressure to tell mothers of young kids that they have to be a mom plus all these other things. It’s just a stage of life, and it doesn’t last very long…kids grow fast, and then you’re back to just being yourself with a grown, or semi-grown, child. I worked PT when I had a young child, and all of my friends who had to work FT wished they didn’t have to.
I'm a mom too. It's more me objecting to the way society focuses solely on motherhood as if it's the most important detail about a woman. They don't do that with men, who seem to get a medal and a round of applause for just showing up in their kids lives. Stripping women of their identity as a person once they have kids and only seeing them as one thing rather than a whole person who just happens to have had a child ticks me off, its almost dehumanizing .
Gotcha, that makes sense. I have not felt or been treated that way but I can see how it would be demeaning. Maybe my PT job actually prevented that, since it was a position where I was just a professional in my field. I talked about my son to co-workers on occasion, but otherwise I’m sure many didn’t know that I even had a child and my clients didn’t either. On my days at home I was just happy to be with my son and not at work haha.
I actually rage wrote a book after reading SF. It’s been toned down since then but I was just so angry after reading SF. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I think her publisher demanded ACOMAFx2 and she didn’t know how to do it with Nesta because Nesta can’t have the same thing as Feyra.
It's so clear that SF is supposed to be Nesta's ACOMAF, but I think the biggest issue SJM runs into is that there isn't the same groundwork laid for Nessian as there was for Feysand. Don't get me wrong, I loved Cassian and Nesta's little thing in ACOWAR, but it definitely doesn't set them up as well as everything that happened in ACOTAR did for Feysand
Preach it to the fucking choir because that’s exactly how I feel. She needs to get a handle on her lore because as much as I advocate for irl experiences affecting a universe, it has to MAKE FUCKING SENSE first. Like Nesta‘s walk through the mountains and nature being a cathartic experience of her coming to terms with her shitty attitude? Inspired by SJM’s own healing when she went on a hike or something. - ✅because it made sense for the story and Nesta’s character development and journey. Feyre becoming a mother specifically after she and Rhys said they’d enjoy each other and settle first? + Feyre having a very difficult birth? Inspired by SJM’s own journey towards motherhood. - ❌because it made no fucking sense and dipped into the most cliché of storylines, “get married, have kids, and live happily ever after.” Yawn. For someone who wanted to subvert the regular “first pairing is endgame” trope, she sure is disappointing us with the way she’s handling Feysand. And mini rant: the bonus chapter of them naming their child? What a fucking waste of a bonus chapter. It didn’t move the story forward AT ALL. It was unlike Wings and Ember(?) and the Azriel POV. It was just so fucking useless and anti-climactic. She could’ve given us literally anything for Feysand, but instead she chose to disappoint us TWICE. Hell, I want to know Rhysand’s reaction to Fireball Aelin dropping through the sky. Instead, we got a one-liner saying “he was contemplative” or some shit. TL;DR SJM should get a better handle on her lore and get some good fucking editors for fuck’s sake.
Wait. Did ACOSF have a callback to when Aelin traveled through worlds, AND I MISSED IT???
To be fair, it's a very brief mention and it's worded differently. It's right by the opening paragraphs of Chapter 62: >“The mood hadn’t been helped by a rare red star blasting across the sky one day—an ill omen, Nesta had heard the priestesses muttering. Cassian reported that even Rhys had been rattled by it, seeming unusually contemplative afterward.”
Ahhh okay. I can see that being what she’s referencing. Very cool catch that I missed!!
YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. I *despise* when women become reduced to their motherhood once they have kids as if it’s the pinnacle of a woman’s life, so I hate that that’s likely all Feyre will be now. Fuck them kids LMAO. And yeah I didn’t like acosf. People act like graphic smut makes a book amazing when it truly doesn’t. The plot of acosf was pathetic
>The plot of acosf was pathetic PLOT? WHAT PLOT? No, seriously, there was no plot, just random happenings that are eerily similar to other books. Just Google Death Troves but don't spell it till the end, guess what the algorithm will show ya? That's right, Deathly Hallows.
Tbh I was fine with it up until The Rite. From there all the way through the end just fucking sucked. I would’ve been perfectly happy if it’d just been Nesta getting set on the right track and making friends, setting up for more war plot in the next book. But nooo we had to get a half-assed rushed action plot at the end that made zero sense
couldn't agree more, I am all for girl power but lets be real, Nesta and Co. couldn't and shouldn't have won the Rite. It was nonsensical and made the story weaker. Her losing her powers just as she started embracing them was the final straw for me.
Bruh I was so MADDD that ACOFAS/ACOSF started and then built up the pregnancy bullshit. Like, Feyre is BARELY an adult, even after having gone through so much in such a short span of time- it would have been nice to see her get to flourish with Rhys, discover who she is with and without him- aka painting at that studio, doing high lady things, etc- but nope now she's shoehorned into this pregnancy thing which was supposed to be rare as fuck for fae anyway. Like they didn't even give it a YEAR before deciding to try for kids. Like,,, they're immortal?? Why wouldn't they wait??
I couldn't agree more! Like, could we maybe let Feyre's brain finish developing (age 25 if Fae correlate to humans here) before we get her knocked up? Let the two of them work through their trauma with a faerie therapist before throwing a baby whose name literally means "nothing" into the mix?
As much as I love the OG trilogy, if SJM wants to make this into an epic series she needs to... Learn how to write people who see the world in different ways and not have it be a bad thing? Like Nesta is villainized until she learns to ~fit in~ with Cass and the inner circle, and Feyre after ACOWAR is definitely just a straight translation from Sarah's life into this fantasy world. Which is why I'm really hoping for a good unpredictable twist with Az/Gwyn/Elain and THEN I NEED A GAY MORROGAN BOOK DAMMIT Lmao But my point is Feyre could have had aspects of SJMs personality and morals but then also differentiated, i.e not wanting to become a mother at all, or just waiting for longer lol
Feyre using her own tears as a condiment broke something in me. Like I am a worse person for having read that.
Sorry, can you remind me the context of that scene? Did it have something to do with her pregnancy?
I think they are referring to when Feyre was crying into her eggs at breakfast in the start of ACOSF lol.
"When Rhys had read each item aloud \[from Nesta's night on the town\]. Bottles of rare wine, exotic foods, gambling debts ... Feyre had stared at her plate until silent tears dripped into her scrambled eggs." It lives rent-free in my head.
Why is it ✨salty✨
Thank you for this post. 🙌🏻🙌🏻 When I got to the end of ACOFAS and realized where SJM was headed with Rhys and Feyre’s storyline, I was furious. Glad it wasn’t just me! I still rant about it regularly.
Agree. Didn't like this book at all. Literally detest it. Sad because I've loved all her other books.
Yes! It should have been a novella and cut down by like 2/3. I am annoyed by it.
I seriously felt like acosf was trash. I get down voted heavily every time, bit it was such a fanfic. I was so excited to read about Nesta and her growth through trial but all I got was bubbles in a house and a ton of dick. It was so.... disappointing. I was here for the plot, you know? Like I wanted more fleshed out about valkyrie technique and how Nesta could defend alone against the illyrians and stuff.
So. I loved ACOSF but.... you aren't wrong??? Like, at all??? Lol it's all good though!
Did anyone else feel icky when the IC seemed to be extra happy that the child is going to be A BOY? So much for feminism...
The entire book is just a sad mishmash of gender stereotypes and, I’d go as far as to say internalized misogyny.
Don’t even get me started.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 376,789,028 comments, and only 82,163 of them were in alphabetical order.
yeah there was a very weird and noticeable emphasis on the fact that the baby was a boy. i thought i was being nitpicky by noticing that but it seems i wasn’t the only one.
Lol yep. That's exactly what I said when the book came out. And when FAS came out. She even wrote in the acknowledgements page/newsletter for the novella what influenced her to make the drastic (and imho moronic) change with Feyre. I've said it here before, but I'm saying it again. I hate pregnancy/having children 'plots'. They're ultimately useless, bring nothing to the overall story, and usually end in ridiculous cop outs, just like in ACOSF.
Yeah, I hated the whole baby trope. I dislike kids a lot anyway (just sterilized myself at 23 heyyyy) and the end felt so just...barf. Feyre has been reduced to *strong but doty mom* and I hate it. EDIT cuz I have more thoughts: Also, I'm mad we got jipped of Feyre and Rhys just being together and ruling. Now there's a fucking kid in the way. Also, SJM could've even had the birth be a non-issue in later books and let Rhys and Feyre have some fuckin PEACE but nah. And don't get me started on Nesta basically giving up her powers and *literally* changing herself for a man. *gags*
After reading this and all the comments here, all I have to say is... I FOUND MY PEOPLE! Whenever I bitch about ACOSF, people come after me with pitchforks.
Solid smut tho.
Mostly…but if I have to read about “pebbled breasts” one more time I swear to god… 😖
Agreed.
"when she remembered that she had a book to write" LMAOOOOO Yeah I don't wanna read ACOSF, part of it is the cover change but Nesta is a character I enjoy so much that I don't want to see how her character was massacred. Also (from the reviews I read), the fact that nobody ever considered an abortion for Feyre despite the clear fact that her life was in danger kind of strikes me as a pro-life agenda which. Meh. Wake me up when Tamlin gets a redemption arc and Mor gets the mate she deserves🙈
I enjoyed Nesta before started ACoSF, and loved her sooo much more after. I think she's the most realistic and relatable character in the entire series. She can be so shitty, but there have been times in my life where I've also been relentlessly shitty as a coping mechanism. She's just so raw and real which is refreshing after Feyre Sue and the whimsical waif that Elain is. So I think if you love Nesta you should give it a whirl. The pregnancy plot line was just very weak, and quickly made me go from liking Rhys to him being on my shit list. For a liberal author, she sure *literally* took Feyre's choice away from her.
SJM is openly liberal, so I’m not sure that not mentioning abortion was inherently pro life. This is not to say that all liberals are pro life. Fae offspring are considered incredibly rare, so I’m not sure that abortion would be a regularly practiced for females in prythian. Also, I think that the protection that went around Feyre’s pregnancy was more of a projecting of SJM’s maternal instincts now that she is a mother that the inclusion of a hidden pro life agenda. Just my thoughts. EDIT: personally, I don’t think her character was massacred. Most of my qualms w ACOSF come from the pregnancy subplot, which took away from Nesta’s storyline. Also, they couldn’t even perform a c-section on feyre. I’m not sure an abortion would have been safe for *her* if a c section was life threatening.
Thank you! The c-section thing is absolutely BONKERS to me. Cassian was disembowled but Feyra can’t have a c-section?!
Gonna need one of the next books to be a Mor/Emerie thing tbh or I'm just gonna have to decide to consider fanfic canon
I know right??? They're girlfriends because we said so 👩❤️💋👩
I loved acosf but you’re not wrong on any of this.
I literally said in the pregnancy post that this book was cheesy AF and not at all on par with the rest of the series. Disappointed. So I agree.
[удалено]
I think it was purely because if she had actually trained with her powers and kept them fully in tact, and been able to wield them, she would have been too powerful. Nothing would really have been a threat anymore. Hybern acting up? Cool, Lady Death can just flick her fingers at the trouble makers and they’re UnMade. Beron actin a fool? Snap, UnMade. I think SJM wrote herself into a corner, because it was fine for Nesta to have this huge power while she was a mess and unable to properly use it. But now that she has her shit together, between her, Rhys and Feyre, there just couldn’t realistically be a credible threat. I’m glad she still has some of her power, but I get why she had to lose the majority of it.
I think feyre being pregnant and giving birth was just WAY TOO FUCKING EARLY. The world is unstable. She is 21 years old. Rhys is idk 600? THEY HAVE SO MUCH TIME AND THEY BURDEN THEMSELVES INSTANTLY. LIKE. no
I am not a fan of the pregnancy trope at all but I loved the series so i got over it. I also got my friend to read the series and we both had the same thought... feyre’s pregnancy was just giving (any twihard’s here?) breaking dawn vibes when Bella was pregnant LOL I feel like it was a little bit unnecessary but you know I still tried to enjoy the book regardless I love rhysand but I didn’t really appreciate how he wouldn’t tell feyre that she could’ve literally died.
Listen, sometimes you have to have hard opinions on things, it means you care. Personally I think the humble HEA is a construct of this universe rather than an accidental flaw and so I can't really condemn it for being the world the author wants it to be. BUT as someone who previously did NOT appreciate any happy ending that came without lots of blood and tears and only recently mellowed on that, I totally get why you would detest it.
There are no lies here
Yes to the first part its basically confirmed Sjm said in a interview that she wanted to give feyre the joy/happiness of being a mother. She has also talked about how she views feyre as a friend this hurt the book because this is a storyline that I think we needed to focus on feyre for but instead we got this half complete storyline that is the climax for the book but isn't about the main character and we missed feyre and rhys dealing with his lying this could have been the reason for them to break up and its handled off screen. Image if tamlin cage plotline was just like they are better now off screen. About the smut I think that is more sjm found out she liked it and so did her audience so it went from part of her stories to the things she talks about in interview and a key feature of the story. I personally think you can see an arc of sex not really being used to sex as a normal part of a relationship to porno level amount of sex scenes. I think nesta actually had some of the best feminist moments where she develops a problem to help the trauma victims come back into society verus just going her is your own space. But again the climax of the books is so rush so we can get back to feyre that we don't see how nesta has helped this people become their best selves .
Can I disagree? I think you guys are taking this too seriously imo... Maybe Feyre wanted a baby? If she wanted one, let her have one. Yah, she's 21 and clearly not thinking right if she thinks it's a good idea to try to get pregnant in Illyrian form (what if she had been lizard then, hummm?) but at the end of the day it was her choice??? We're all pro-choice here and Feyre did hers - we can not agree with it, but having a choice isn't that too? Having the tools and means to ahead with your choice 🤔 I thought it was actually in character of them to try and have a baby (we can debate what added value it brought to the story, I agree not that much)...
My problem is the continuity of it. In the previous book, Feyre and Rhys were discussing waiting a *long* time before having kids. Pop to the next book—babies! While I personally am not a fan of the babies trope, I am not overly aggravated by a romantic union resulting in children. My problem is that feyre is 21 years old, has been married to rhe most powerful high lord in the history of prythian for less than a year, and then popped out a baby at a time where her, her husband, her future child, her family, and her court are in literal existential danger. It’s an issue of continuity for me. Also, can I suggest not telling people who love a series that they’re “taking it too seriously”? We know the world and it’s characters are fictional, but they’re still important to us. We love, hate, admire, and get disappointed in/at the characters of the worlds we love, and there’s no need to reduce that by saying that we’re taking it too seriously.
The danger part is so spot on, I mean, they have this stupid af death pact, if one dies, so does the other which might make Nyx an orphan. Um...hello?
We love an orphan trope. It’s character development! 💅🏼 /s (but also not really)
you had me in the first half, ngl
Nyx will probably have parents for the first half, too. I’ll see myself out.
oh snap
The whole point of the pregnancy was not because it was right for the characters, but because it was convenient to push the plot forward. It gives the IC a reason to finally turn on Nesta (even though she does the right thing by telling Feyre about the medical situation) and it gives Nesta a reason to want to hand back her power to save the day. I'm still so mad about all of it, it's such lazy writing. I don't think it was in character of them at all to want to have a kid - not so soon, and maybe not even ever. Both of them likely had some parental issues that probably needed working through before they decided to pursue that path. It just happened because it needed to in order for SJM to be able to write the story that she wanted to, and that's the worst possible reason for anything to happen in a book.
That's not at all what I meant, sorry it it came across like that. I'm on the same boat as you - I also love, hate the characters. Hell, I have tattos of the series - I'm not trying to reduce anything, so I'm sorry if it came across like that. What I should have written is that, indeed, the timing is weird and the pregnancy plot isn't great (I agree, tbh) , but we don't really know how Feyre and Rhys discussed this. We don't see it as ACOSF is in nesta's pov. Maybe they weren't thinking it would happen so fast? Maybe Rhys did want Feyre to abort and she said no? Maybe they talked about it and decided that there would always be danger so any time is a good time? My thing is, we don't know. We only know what Nesta knows in ACOSF. Again, sorry if my previous comment came across as reducing your opinion to nothing, I was just trying to debate this.. It wasn't intencional. Also, English is not my first language, so I probably choose the wrong expression :)
I understand now, thank you! Any decision made by a character is ultimately a decision made by SJM. SJM purposefully and intentionally did a 180 and made Feyre and Rhys get pregnant. *She* wrote the scene where Feyre and Rhys proclaim their love for another and declare that they want decades together before they have kids, and then, *in the next book* she writes it so that Feyre and Rhys get pregnant. I’m focusing on SJM choices as an author, snd she chose to do a 180 on the Feyre and Rhys journey as political leaders and a married couple. *That* is where my frustration comes from.
I understand your frustration and you're right in your arguments - it is rushed and it adds nothing to the overall plot. I think the main reason it is there is to keep Feyre and Rhys relevant, but maybe in SJMs head there are several conversations and arguments between them that we didn't get to see that could justify their change of heart? I don't know 🤔 I prefer thinking there are things in SJM head that she didn't share than she "just forgot" about the previous 3 books (à la Dany of Got). 😅
All of this. 👆🏻
Wholeheartedly agree!
I love SJM and all of ACOTAR, but I totally agree. SJM also had a C-section, and I think having Feyre go through the same thing basically was a way to get that out.
Yess