Book Review: A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas
“Feyre Archeron, a request. Leave this world a better palace than how you found it.”
Title: A Court of Frost and Starlight
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series? A Court of Thorns and Roses (#3.1)
My Rating: ★★★
Genre(s): Romantasy, Fiction
Age Range: Young Adult
Publication: 1 May 2018 (Bloomsbury YA)
CW: sex
Well… I cannot say no one warned me.
After reading all three novels in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series, I came to respect Sarah J. Maas as a young adult author. I think she is a great world-builder and storyteller for young adult audiences. That being said, this was not her best work.
I understand why A Court of Frost and Starlight is a novella and that a lot of elements of the story could not be fully developed as such. But so much of this book was just meh. Sarah J. Maas tried to bridge the gap between A Court of Wings and Ruin and A Court of Silver Flames (the next book in the instalment). Was it a success? That’s up for debate.
Regardless, I have to put my personal feelings for the series aside and focus fairly on the elements of the story that didn’t work for me.
I personally don’t think that shorter novels or novellas are Sarah J. Maas’s forte.
Maas can write a killer 700-page novel that fully engrosses readers. But these 229 pages didn’t capture my attention nearly as much as almost 1,000 pages. I don’t think there was enough space for this story to grow and breathe on its own. It was suffocated and stifled within the boundaries.
Do I think that this particular story would have captured my attention as a full-blown novel? No. But with a longer word count, Maas would have more of an opportunity to craft a great novel.
I’m not sure that there was a discernible plot here.
At its core, A Court of Frost and Starlight focuses on the Inner Circle as they prepare for Feyre’s first Winter Solstice as High Lady of the Night Court. But there were so many random sub-plots that occurred simultaneously, with so many of them being unnecessary.
While I was happy to see Feyre rediscover her passion for art and using creativity as a therapeutic outlet, it felt out of place in this novella. Many other side quests for the characters drove away from the message of the novella (if there was one, honestly). It seemed as though Maas tried to fit as many details into the pages as she could in order to catch readers up to the characters’ lives in the next instalment.
The pacing and narration were also super weird. I found the constant back-and-forth distracting. As per the synopsis, A Court of Frost and Starlight is narrated by Feyre and Rhys. It leaves out the fact that many other characters also get to narrate. Most egregious, however, was that Feyre and Rhys’s chapters were in first-person while everyone else’s were third-person. I found it so hard to weave in and out of these voices and styles, especially with each chapter only being a few pages long.
I tried to reserve my judgment on Nesta.
That being said, it was hard to ignore the less-than-positive reviews of Nesta’s character in A Court of Frost and Starlight. I can only assume that Maas’s intention was to drive Nesta’s character into the ground in the novella in order to give her a better redemption arc in A Court Silver Flames. Regardless, it was a mess.
Obviously, the plot of the new novel requires Nesta to be a complex character. But I will say that everything that occurred in A Court of Frost and Starlight negated Nesta’s entire character development to that point… And I did not love that. Regardless, I am telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end to find out what happens next.
Not-so-great novella aside, I am looking forward to seeing the continuation of this narrative.
Synopsis: Feyre, Rhys, and their close-knit circle of friends are still busy rebuilding the Night Court and the vastly-changed world beyond. But Winter Solstice is finally near, and with it, a hard-earned reprieve.
Yet even the festive atmosphere can’t keep the shadows of the past from looming. As Feyre navigates her first Winter Solstice as High Lady, she finds that those dearest to her have more wounds than she anticipated–scars that will have far-reaching impact on the future of their Court.
Were you a fan of A Court of Frost and Starlight? If you disagree with me, let’s chat about it in the comments below!
Enjoyed this review? Check out my other book reviews next.
