For anyone that’s interested, here’s my goodreads review of ACOSF. I made this the day after reading it, so my thoughts and opinions have been further cemented, but unfortunately I ran out of space to write anymore to it with evidence. Maybe I’ll write a longer review here ♀️ (depends if I can be bothered wasting more energy and head space on acotar )
See, I hated ACOSF because, to me, it wasn’t a story of healing - it was a story of a woman who is slowly brainwashed by her abusers into thinking that she is actually the abuser. She is controlled at the beginning, straight up threatened and manipulated, then slowly her thoughts are twisted into thinking that these people controlling her life know best. Instead of breaking free of these people - she falls further under their control. And she feels happy about it, and grateful to these people, because she believes no one else will accept her. It’s classic abusive tactics. And all of them do that (maybe with the exception of Feyre but Rhys and Armen definitely and in many cases Cassian (which breaks my nessian loving heart)). Don’t believe me, I can pull up receipts (I went through and pulled out every example in the text and the other acotar books) ♀️
you know what? fuck you. just fuck you. i already know this book is not about nesta or her journey to grow as a person or heal from her trauma. how dare you dedicate 1233 pages of garbage, toxic relationships propaganda and full of self hate for girls out there who are feeling helpless? what are you trying to teach them? fuck you.
yes, janet— you finally did it! book stans are finally aware that your precious high lord is a shitty person and no, it was never feyre’s choice! congratulations!
Feyre began shaking. “If I die …” Her gaze drifted to one of her tattooed arms. She lifted her head, eyes bright with tears as she asked Amren, “You … all of you knew this?”
[…]
“Rhys knew?” Tears spilled down Feyre’s cheeks, smearing the paint splattered there. “About the threat to our lives?” She peered down at herself, at the tattooed hand cradling her abdomen.
This scene genuinely hurts, and not at all for the reasons sjm likely wants it to. It hurts because it makes it so painfully obvious how very young Feyre still is, and how much she trusts Rhysand, who is actually not at all worthy of that trust. How much she is at a disadvantage in the power dynamic in her relationship, even though she firmly believes she isn’t. It hurts because the first thing this twenty-one year-old girl thinks of when she hears that she is dying is that her husband will die with her.
This is all wrong. Everything about this situation is just so, so wrong and I just want Nesta to take Feyre and run far, far away from these people.
like maybe i’m just a toxic person but i think feyre nesta and elain having a screaming match would have added more to the book in terms of a sister relationship than that twilight baby plot ever did
like look me in the eyes and TELL ME nesta elain and feyre yelling about how they failed each other or whatever wouldnt have been a more satisfying resolution over elain being passive aggressive and feyre and nesta not caring about each other for 699 pages then having magic baby solution, i will simply tell u ur wrong
this got me thinking abt how nesta’s arc in this book (no i will not call it a healing arc, fuck that) is SO centred around the men the narrative seems to think she’s wronged. like? all of her problems are either family-related or war-related but it all gets pushed to the side in this book, and for what?
i could accept her father being important in her arc, bc he obviously falls under the banner of family problems, but s//jm not having nesta have those conversations with her sisters (or even deal with her mom problems) speaks SO LOUDLY here. but apparently there’s plenty of time for the narrative to go on abt how cassian is sm better than her & she doesn’t deserve him & etc etc. even her relationship with RHYS gets more actual closure than her relationship with her sisters, and once again it’s her making some grand gesture to make up to rhys for whatever bad thing the narrative thinks she did to him.
but fuck complex relationships between women though!!! fuck nesta’s healing bc that would require her to spend more time with her sisters & other women and this book is too busy making her grovel for men & shoving her into a shitty relationship with the guy who called her unlovable & never really apologized for it!
it is very interesting and very annoying how in ac0sf, s//jm makes nesta’s Thing dancing. bryce’s Thing in c/city was also dancing. another point in the “s//jm is so unoriginal her series are slowly losing their individual features and becoming more and more similar over time” column.
Nesta watched the shadowsinger with a frankness that most people shied from. Azriel returned the look with a stillness that most people ran from.
Even Feyre had been hesitant around Az initially, but Nesta considered him with the same unflinching assessment she laid upon everyone.
Maybe that was why Azriel had never said a bad word about Nesta. Never seemed inclined to start a fight with her. She saw him, and was not afraid of him. There weren’t many people who fit that bill.
hfhf?fhfdhfhhf???fhfhf?fhf?Fhhfhfhf?fhfh
idk man i’m outta words
Oh nice so she just admits he’s a bully picking on easy prey. :)
don’t you just love when sj///m is accidentally self-aware when she writes?
Ngl tho nesta has shown way more genuine interest in azriel than she has in cassian lmao
SHE HAS! and he actually shows genuine care toward her well-being, as evidenced when he asks if someone pushed her down the stairs.
what a sentence that is damn
New canon: aroace azriel and aroace nesta trying to find a good girlfriend for their lesbian BFF mor
These conversations about Nesta are really interesting. Because there’s the standard back and forth about the cottage situation –which is just a consequence of poor writing –but then there’s the conversation about domestic violence/abuse. The ability to call out abuse seems wholly dependent on the type of victim…not the actual abuse.
Because on one hand, a lot of people who whole-heartedly dislike Nesta usually recognize that Cassian is sort of abusive or at least they see the red flags in him, but their ability to empathize with that Nesta is stunted because they believe she deserves it. I think that’s why the intervention is so conflicted because the conversation regarding the actions taken by the IC isn’t actually all that contested. Everyone recognizes the problems (Rhys, Amren), it’s Nestathat’s the point of contention.
Of course, this is because SJM essentially writes this. It’s why I began to really dislike Feyre as a character (like how she’s written, not her as like a sentient person). It’s also why I titled my first set of posts ‘the perfect victim.’ That’s essentially what the story argues about the topic of abuse. Abuse is bad because Feyre is good, not because abuse is abuse. So, this trickles down to Nesta. She’s not a perfect victim, she’s not a 'good’ person. That’s the angle of the hiking scene, Cassian…wants revenge. The entirety of the IC wants a sort of revenge. You know when someone says a comment like: 'Your pretty for a black girl,’ or something along those lines? They do believe you’re beautiful, and they want to acknowledge that. But they still intrinsically believe you are inferior. It’s the same with the idea of the white savior, or something similar. The intervention is written to humiliate and get revenge on Nesta…but the story also needs to have this moral high ground.
I’m kind of eager to see more opinions because I think the points people are making about Nesta are so crazy because it’s like a weird kind of disconnect. It just really bothers me when people say things like Cassian is too good or when people justify some of those scenes.
I need a straightforward reason from Elain haters why they actually hate Elain!!
Cause I, can’t find one logical explanation for all this hate!
1. They can’t hate on Nesta anymore
2. They ship Azriel with someone else
2.5 coz poor Lucien for some reason
3. They finally realize how she failed her sisters in many ways too and for the longest time Nesta (or Feyre) is the only one getting blamed while Elain gets away with everything coz she’s nice and quiet and she’s being held accountable now (I fall into this camp and IMO the only valid reason to criticize Elain on)
nah before acosf we knew nothing about her, she barely had any lines or appearances in the books so we couldn’t really judge her on her motives. everyone was indifferent to elain until acosf
her treatment towards nesta was gross— nesta made sure elain had the time and the space to grieve UNBOTHERED to then spit on nesta for falling apart?? THEN HOMEGIRL punishing nesta b/c she supposedly co-opted her trauma when in reality elains suffering is one of nesta’s triggers. yet no one understood that?? elain deserved that loyal dog comment and much more. where tf was elains loyalty???? what’s even worse is the sjm isn’t even going to ADDDRESS this in the following books.
apparently only nesta can be held accountable for her actions. god this book makes it so hard to re read
i mean this has been said before but let us just revisit. cause it is honestly so weird how s//jm thinks that the only way for women to heal from their traumas is through learning to fight…. like there was honestly NOTHING wrong with the library that was only for victims of sa (in fact it was one of the few aspects of s//jm’s books i actually liked….until f//eysand had sex there, why did that happen….)
instead of keeping the library a sanctuary where victims of sa can just be (exist)… she had nesta doing weird ass shit trying to push, again sa victims, wayyy out of their comfort levels and train with men who…. wait for it….. have canonically sexually harassed / assaulted (??? i can’t remember) women in the books.
- same thing with t0g, like there is honestly nothing wrong with healing through training and whatnot, but s//jm literally thinks the only way to heal is through picking up a sword like PLEASE give it a rest
p.s. — sorry for the bad wording and grammar, i suck at english :/
final thoughts you ask? that was literally just an erotica novel.
lol i’m mostlyjoking. plot was extremely meh, lots of backstory / fae history doesn’t add up, and the ending was both very predictable and very, very mid. the ending pissed me off actually. turned nesta into a feyrug 2.0 (??? ish. idk at this point)
So tired of the “Nesta has hurt and wronged somany people” narrative because who are they talking about?
A case can be made for both Feyre and Cassian, sure. While a similar case can be made for their treatment towards her. But that’s literally it.
Rhysand? Please
Morrigan? Get over yourself
Elain? Out of the question
Azriel? Of course not
Amren? I. Wish.
Nesta isn’t the monster you all have made her out to be and she always delivers what she has been served. Treat her with respect and she will treat you accordingly.
