A Court of Silver Flames No Spoilers Review

In the long-awaited "A Court of Silver Flames", Nesta, the sharp-tongued former human is battling with immortality and the trauma of the previous war as new enemies once again rise. At the same time, Cassian, the Night Court's general, who has been watching the woman he loves self-destroying for months now, is forced to face up against his own ghosts as a new enemy rises.

General Impressions

Sarah J. Maas books are always character-driven and none other more than a Court of Silver Flames. This was Nesta healing journey from beginning to end and everything else are details.

Some hate her, some love but everyone agrees that seeing a female character like Nesta be written in such a complex, flawed, human way was a breath of fresh air. Nesta has her reasons for distrusting and often disliking The Inner Circle, and I wish that had been made clearer throughout the book. She is not stupid or blind and a lot of the people that are the most vocal about their disapproval of her, are the ones that decided they hated her before they even met her. While Nesta strives to heal and make amends, no one else does and that ultimately hindered my enjoyment of this book.

In a lot of ways, this has been the best work by Maas' hand. On the most technical aspects though, this was definitely her best book. Although there were a couple of big incongruencies, most of the battle scenes, exercise and above all Nesta's inner mind held up throughout the book and added a lot of depth to the story.

Sadly, the war plot on the other hand was so underdeveloped that felt like a cheap replacement of the Illyrian war and Night Court tensions that had been building up throughout several books and were dealt with in a single sentence.

The last quarter of the book felt rushed and unedited: there were no conversations, no discussions, people that had spent years hating each other simply started loving one another without ever discussing all the ways they had hurt one another. Most secondary characters felt soulless, barely appeared or went up against everything they had represented up till then for no reason other than drama.

I wish this book had been divided into a duology or trilogy so we could have taken our time and had a story worthy of Nesta and Cassian's love and journeys.

Nessian

Nesta's journey and the way Sarah was able to write about mental health and making amends was truly beautiful, raw and uncensored. I like that we got to see such a serious theme through the ways of a woman that was not instantly likeable, was not meek or easy to deal with but her pain was still taken seriously, even when she doesn't know to ask for help. Unlike a lot of entertainment written by men, here, a mental health crisis is not sexy, trauma is not attractive and being loved by others means nothing when you can't even love yourself.

While I was not fully convinced by the purity of the Inner Circles motives when they sent Nesta away, some of the most healing and healthy parts of Nesta's journey occurred there. She started to make peace with her trauma, she started measuring her words in order not to hurt others, she took stock of her actions and trauma and even made friendships that became instant fan favourites, deservingly so, even if at times they felt a bit wooden.

I was a bit angry for Cassian's trauma not having been explored in a way that let him heal as Nesta did, but that is noticeable mostly towards the end of the book. For most of the story, Cassian shows himself to be a thoughtful, sensible, smart man, that loves deeply and cares for everyone in his family.

Conclusions

The ending was not my favourite: content-wise, all the major plot points were solved but the way those arcs were finalized made me feel very unsatisfied. It felt as if several chapters were missing.

Despite everything, Sarah J. Maas delivered a meaningful story about trauma and healing and the fanart at least will be amazing. We can only wait for the next book now :)

Rating: 3/5