Name: A Court of Splintered Harmony
Rating: 3.846153846153846 (13 reviews)
ISBN: 9781037200083

Sarah J. Maas

What was broken will be remade.  Deep in the heart of the continent, Koschei the Deathless is stirring. Though he's been bound to a mountain lake for millennia, the insidious threat of his return now spreads across the Fae territories, attracting powerful allies hell-bent on reclaiming what was once theirs: the human lands.  The Night Court will not stand idly by while innocents are attacked. But with Prythian still piecing itself together in the wake of the devastating Hybern War, the task of uniting is proving more difficult by the day.  To make matters worse, those who rule and protect the Night Court are reeling from recent betrayals and revealed truths. The rifts dividing them seem insurmountable.  But to defeat Koschei's creeping shadow, they must find a way back to each other and resurrect their former alliances. To survive, they must find a way to repair the splintered harmony all around them.

ACOTAR, Book 6

A Court of Splintered Harmony

a whole lotta words without a whole lotta plot. but i am a person of faith and will see the series through…

a reading mochi

You’re telling me I have to wait until January for the next one? Criminal. I love the way that this story was told, the next one is gonna hit even harder I already know it

Lauren Dale

Meh, did not enjoy the baby chat but glad Nesta is back 

Amie Mackenzie

I will be trying to give a short and succinct review without spoilers and continue later on in a more in-depth variant that will include spoilers. Please refrain from reading part two of this review if you still plan on reading ACOSH.

The book half of the reading population has long awaited is finally here and I wished it weren’t.

That’s it, that’s the TL;DR version of my opinion.

The book starts off with an author’s note explaining from the start, that this book will feel unfinished and is intended to do so, because 

 make it impossible to release the entirety of the story SJM wants to convey here. Read this again with me, slower: I am milking the cash cow I have created until there is not a drop coming out anymore. Thank you. That other authors regularly publish books with 1200 and more pages cannot be novel to an acclaimed author like Maas, so this feels like a cheap excuse of how incredibly lacking this book will make you feel (and this is the only promise kept).

Another thing, not really mentioned but noteworthy: If you haven’t read Crescent City, there will be a massive hole in the story for you because it never is reeeally explained, what happened and why and which implications lead from this.

Let me put one thing absolutely out there: If the only reasoning for you to read CC is that you want to understand ACOSH – don’t do it. It’s not worth it. I’ll gladly refer you to my reviews of that series but especially coming from ACOTAR-books, CC is an entirely different ball game and for me that is not a positive connotation. And even having read every single book out there, ACOSH didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me and I am a very thorough reader. So spare yourself this torment, if it is only for this book.

 Without spoiling anything: The timing and pacing of this book felt weird. We haven’t spent time with these characters for so long and since their last appearance somehow not much time has passed, at the same time. The POV switches feel disruptive and weird, especially because of the switches between third and first person, as everyone’s POV is written in third, except for Feyre, who still recounts everything in first person. This had me stumble quite a few times as it felt so unnatural. We also get quite a few different POVs where less would have been more, in my opinion.

We dive into a post-war world on the brink of new political challenges, but everything feels incredibly shallow: nations, countries, political personae all are introduced, but on a surface-level only which led to both the threat level lacking severity as well as the challenges in the dealings with these and the people representing the different groups lacking detail.

The characters we have come to love felt very different in this book and I barely recognised some of them. If you come straight from ACOSF this might be a jarring experience and with me hoping for not much crossover content with other books of this universe I was taken aback by this as well. Especially with a focus on the main characters of this series’ last book.

Some long awaited characters also fell incredibly flat for me, lacking the depth I had hoped for and instead turning into people I not only had trouble recognising, but I really started disliking. At some point around the half-way mark I failed to find a single character that I still liked and isn’t that horrible for a series that felt like home a few books earlier?

Along with the characters themselves, their relationships felt strained and artificially put on an icy hold for quite a few of them and even after reading this book’s title it really turned me towards a “I don’t really care about these characters anymore”, because I found them to be and behave so unbearably rude and out of character, that I really wouldn’t be bothered to continue reading at this point. Bonds like brother- and sisterhood, familial ties and previously endured, shared experiences didn’t seem to count for anything anymore.

Furthermore, characters in new roles weren’t portrayed in a way I believed them. I was over reading the word “milk” by the second chapter it got relevant (did it, though?) and my wish for less baby-content was not granted. On the contrary, I have heard far more about a fictional woman’s breasts than I ever needed to. Or wanted.

I wish this was the end of my critique, but I’m afraid I can go on even more. This book felt like it has less plot and less overall direction than A Court of Frost and Starlight. And let’s recall together: that was a novella, collection of shortstories pressed into book form to milk a cash cow dry.

Even with a surprising lack of plot, the “twists” of said sad unexistential thread were far-fetched or if you couldn’t see them coming from 3 chapters away, so absurdly out of place and continued to stay unexplained that I was in a perpetually “what the helly” frown starting from very early in this book. This didn’t leave me, unfortunately, but had turned into a “really? There? We’re going there?” perpetual eyeroll by the end of this book.

I would like to go into greater detail, and I will, but please don’t read on if you’re avoiding spoilers.

TL;DR unidentifiable characters, out of character behavior, weird non-sensical and lacking plot, reliance on happenings that are told in a book which is not part of this series, wanting to be politically interesting but failing, no justification to exist

[SPOILERS AHEAD FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, PROCEED WITH CAUTION]

Imagine me rolling up my sleeves to go for a couple of rounds with this book and not the fun ones you dirty minded hags are currently thinking. Imagine waiting for a book for so long and then being handed the half-arsed intro to a new story arc for which you have to pay full price and you get to hate every single character for the entirety of the non-existent plot – that’s ACOSH, A Court of Shit Happened and it even got published. If you have to put a note in front to justify what people are about to read you have seriously messed up as an author. This is ridiculous and there are tons of people eating this shit up “we are so back”, yes, in hell, because that’s where the bar for bestselling books is these days. If I sound bitter, hey, that’s fine, ‘cause I am.

We spent so long waiting for these characters to return and what do we get? Azriel’s point of view could be portrayed by a 14yo emo boy at school, who didn’t get picked in PE and who would really like to go out with this girl but his brother said no. Also, he somehow has a personal feud with a toothpick and is fatally wounded by the impression said toothpick chose a non-mopey individual as owner for a while. Wow. Even your dagger couldn’t stand you, you poor Illyrian baby. The big and bad spymaster is nothing but feeling sorry for himself and proclaiming he is a monster while the only thing he is is monstrously stupid.

Feyre’s point of view is easily summarised, because SHE’S A MOM. And exactly as insufferable. The number of sentences spent on the current state of her tits [aching | hurting | filling up | leaking | …] seriously redeemed “She breasted boobily down the stairs” as not the worst phrase ever typed. She’s also a mom who rarely is with her child, but hey, who cares? Overprotective mode has a time limit.

Rhys switches between cosy grandpa and being as interesting as last week’s newspaper and pulling rank on Az every second time they meet, while totally missing all of the following: charme, brains, wits, empathy, the ability to think further than his d, … The entirety of his relations to other court-members was so strangely depicted and out of character, I had reverted to hating him almost instantly.

Apropos hate. I was the biggest Nessian shipper and let me tell you, I’m rooting for Eris now. Go get your girl, redhead. WTF was all that about?

Nesta singlehandedly carried this book. I didn’t get why she needed to be forcibly isolated AGAIN (we’ve been there for a few hundred pages, one book earlier in THIS series and why is a mistake made by her in a 

 series now completely taking over the plot of 

 book?). It also really made no sense to why Emerie and Gwyn would cast her out, Feyre and Elain treat her differently, but most of all her mate. The dynamic between Nes and Cassian was unbearable for me and had I not been morbidly curious how horribly this would be solved (I was right …) I would have stopped reading then and there. When Nes finally opens up, Cassian drops his pants and thinks all is well. What?

But oh, we’re not done yet but slowly traversing into not only the POV discussion, but also the relationships between the characters. None of them made sense to me. Why is Az so isolated? Where was Mor for most of the book? Why is the mood between Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie frosty as hell? What’s the deal with Amren and Feyre? Where the fuck did that Elain and Az return come from and why was it done this horribly?

The big plottwist at the end with Lucien bursting into a room was so insane to me. How would it ever be okay to not … knock? You’ve been respectful the entire time and then fail at basic fucking courtesy? Also, you can’t proclaim you have no claim over someone and then be mad, when that someone decides to do something you don’t like with someone you don’t like. But sure, we needed to build up a new villain, I guess.

Oh speaking of villains. Let’s get to Court politics. Or, well, what could have been. We’re introduced to new nations and leaders and some brewing conflict that is OH SO PRESSING that no one fucking talks about it after 50% of the book. And then, when two talks fail, the Nightcourt squabbles over differing opinions and ends up not talking to each other for the rest of the book, the solution is TO BUILD A WALL???? And even not just one, but THREE? WHO ARE YOU? DONALD FUCKING TRUMP? Are you going to rename the Spring Court to South Nightcourt soon and Koschei’s Lake to Rhysand’s Footbath? What are you on about?

Also … Prythian is an island, right? Night Court at the top, mortal lands at the bottom, the “continent” to the east. What exactly stops the ships from the continent to go straight to the mortal lands?

If Maas really went through and used this book as a stepping stool for the following ones to lean on, I wouldn’t be as mad, but this is so shallow. So disappointing. If you can’t even sell the reader the life-altering, dooming conflict as somewhat dangerous, you have failed as an author. Why were we subject to the squabbles of nation leaders when nothing comes out of it and they are not even needed for the rest of the book? Why bore your readers to death with tedious talks that have no substance at all?

 You see, I love a good high fantasy. (Yes, I know this is not one) I love the scheming. I love finding the unsaid things that tell you 1000 times more than what the rulers at those tables actually say out loud but there was nothing here. Nothing to be found. Everything is so obviously bland it could have come out of a British kitchen. That is what annoys me. Every important information is spoon-fed to the reader and then hammered into his skull by repetition at every chance. Chekhov would rival an American city with the number of guns placed, locked and loaded in this book, if all of them were actually used. But 

 comes of it. Ever. You can’t write an entire book with stuff you need to know for the upcoming releases without giving the reader anything. This is incredible.

And more so that there actually are people claiming this is a good book. We’re doomed if this is the direction mainstream publishing goes.

Yes, I understand this book is supposed to be a setup – which is, as I have hopefully pointed out, a travesty in itself already – but what has really been set up, here? We’ve only witnessed our beloved characters behave in strange ways, everyone doing their own stuff you’re just waiting for to topple down on all of their heads, people feeling morally superior while being the biggest POS of them all and oh yes, Feyre’s tits. How could I forget about them. It is a sort of random collection of bits and pieces and should never have been published like this. It’s a cash grab, nothing more. And y’all readily gobble it up.

I could go on and on, but honestly, I don’t want to, anymore. This was utterly disappointing and might as well be the book I needed not to care about any future publications. For me, ACOTAR ended with ACOSF. It is disrespectful to the readers and ridiculously blown up at this point. I’m so done.

Leonie

I will be trying to give a short and succinct review without spoilers and continue later on in a more in-depth variant that will include spoilers. Please refrain from reading part two of this review if you still plan on reading ACOSH.


The book half of the reading population has long awaited is finally here and I wished it weren’t.

 

That’s it, that’s the TL;DR version of my opinion.

 


# SPOILER FREE VERSION #
The book starts off with an author’s note explaining from the start, that this book will feel unfinished and is intended to do so, because publishing realities make it impossible to release the entirety of the story SJM wants to convey here. Read this again with me, slower: I am milking the cash cow I have created until there is not a drop coming out anymore. Thank you. That other authors regularly publish books with 1200 and more pages cannot be novel to an acclaimed author like Maas, so this feels like a cheap excuse of how incredibly lacking this book will make you feel (and this is the only promise kept).
Another thing, not really mentioned but noteworthy: If you haven’t read Crescent City, there will be a massive hole in the story for you because it never is reeeally explained, what happened and why and which implications lead from this.

Let me put one thing absolutely out there: If the only reasoning for you to read CC is that you want to understand ACOSH – don’t do it. It’s not worth it. I’ll gladly refer you to my reviews of that series but especially coming from ACOTAR-books, CC is an entirely different ball game and for me that is not a positive connotation. And even having read every single book out there, ACOSH didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me and I am a very thorough reader. So spare yourself this torment, if it is only for this book.
 Without spoiling anything: The timing and pacing of this book felt weird. We haven’t spent time with these characters for so long and since their last appearance somehow not much time has passed, at the same time. The POV switches feel disruptive and weird, especially because of the switches between third and first person, as everyone’s POV is written in third, except for Feyre, who still recounts everything in first person. This had me stumble quite a few times as it felt so unnatural. We also get quite a few different POVs where less would have been more, in my opinion.
We dive into a post-war world on the brink of new political challenges, but everything feels incredibly shallow: nations, countries, political personae all are introduced, but on a surface-level only which led to both the threat level lacking severity as well as the challenges in the dealings with these and the people representing the different groups lacking detail.
The characters we have come to love felt very different in this book and I barely recognised some of them. If you come straight from ACOSF this might be a jarring experience and with me hoping for not much crossover content with other books of this universe I was taken aback by this as well. Especially with a focus on the main characters of this series’ last book.
Some long awaited characters also fell incredibly flat for me, lacking the depth I had hoped for and instead turning into people I not only had trouble recognising, but I really started disliking. At some point around the half-way mark I failed to find a single character that I still liked and isn’t that horrible for a series that felt like home a few books earlier?
Along with the characters themselves, their relationships felt strained and artificially put on an icy hold for quite a few of them and even after reading this book’s title it really turned me towards a “I don’t really care about these characters anymore”, because I found them to be and behave so unbearably rude and out of character, that I really wouldn’t be bothered to continue reading at this point. Bonds like brother- and sisterhood, familial ties and previously endured, shared experiences didn’t seem to count for anything anymore.
Furthermore, characters in new roles weren’t portrayed in a way I believed them. I was over reading the word “milk” by the second chapter it got relevant (did it, though?) and my wish for less baby-content was not granted. On the contrary, I have heard far more about a fictional woman’s breasts than I ever needed to. Or wanted.
I wish this was the end of my critique, but I’m afraid I can go on even more. This book felt like it has less plot and less overall direction than A Court of Frost and Starlight. And let’s recall together: that was a novella, collection of shortstories pressed into book form to milk a cash cow dry.
Even with a surprising lack of plot, the “twists” of said sad unexistential thread were far-fetched or if you couldn’t see them coming from 3 chapters away, so absurdly out of place and continued to stay unexplained that I was in a perpetually “what the helly” frown starting from very early in this book. This didn’t leave me, unfortunately, but had turned into a “really? There? We’re going there?” perpetual eyeroll by the end of this book.

I would like to go into greater detail, and I will, but please don’t read on if you’re avoiding spoilers.
TL;DR unidentifiable characters, out of character behavior, weird non-sensical and lacking plot, reliance on happenings that are told in a book which is not part of this series, wanting to be politically interesting but failing, no justification to exist

 

# END OF SPOILER FREE SECTION #

 

[SPOILERS AHEAD FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, PROCEED WITH CAUTION]

Imagine me rolling up my sleeves to go for a couple of rounds with this book and not the fun ones you dirty minded hags are currently thinking. Imagine waiting for a book for so long and then being handed the half-arsed intro to a new story arc for which you have to pay full price and you get to hate every single character for the entirety of the non-existent plot – that’s ACOSH, A Court of Shit Happened and it even got published. If you have to put a note in front to justify what people are about to read you have seriously messed up as an author. This is ridiculous and there are tons of people eating this shit up “we are so back”, yes, in hell, because that’s where the bar for bestselling books is these days. If I sound bitter, hey, that’s fine, ‘cause I am.

We spent so long waiting for these characters to return and what do we get? Azriel’s point of view could be portrayed by a 14yo emo boy at school, who didn’t get picked in PE and who would really like to go out with this girl but his brother said no. Also, he somehow has a personal feud with a toothpick and is fatally wounded by the impression said toothpick chose a non-mopey individual as owner for a while. Wow. Even your dagger couldn’t stand you, you poor Illyrian baby. The big and bad spymaster is nothing but feeling sorry for himself and proclaiming he is a monster while the only thing he is is monstrously stupid.

Feyre’s point of view is easily summarised, because SHE’S A MOM. And exactly as insufferable. The number of sentences spent on the current state of her tits [aching | hurting | filling up | leaking | …] seriously redeemed “She breasted boobily down the stairs” as not the worst phrase ever typed. She’s also a mom who rarely is with her child, but hey, who cares? Overprotective mode has a time limit.

Rhys switches between cosy grandpa and being as interesting as last week’s newspaper and pulling rank on Az every second time they meet, while totally missing all of the following: charme, brains, wits, empathy, the ability to think further than his d, … The entirety of his relations to other court-members was so strangely depicted and out of character, I had reverted to hating him almost instantly.

Apropos hate. I was the biggest Nessian shipper and let me tell you, I’m rooting for Eris now. Go get your girl, redhead. WTF was all that about?

Nesta singlehandedly carried this book. I didn’t get why she needed to be forcibly isolated AGAIN (we’ve been there for a few hundred pages, one book earlier in THIS series and why is a mistake made by her in a different series now completely taking over the plot of this book?). It also really made no sense to why Emerie and Gwyn would cast her out, Feyre and Elain treat her differently, but most of all her mate. The dynamic between Nes and Cassian was unbearable for me and had I not been morbidly curious how horribly this would be solved (I was right …) I would have stopped reading then and there. When Nes finally opens up, Cassian drops his pants and thinks all is well. What?

But oh, we’re not done yet but slowly traversing into not only the POV discussion, but also the relationships between the characters. None of them made sense to me. Why is Az so isolated? Where was Mor for most of the book? Why is the mood between Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie frosty as hell? What’s the deal with Amren and Feyre? Where the fuck did that Elain and Az return come from and why was it done this horribly?

The big plottwist at the end with Lucien bursting into a room was so insane to me. How would it ever be okay to not … knock? You’ve been respectful the entire time and then fail at basic fucking courtesy? Also, you can’t proclaim you have no claim over someone and then be mad, when that someone decides to do something you don’t like with someone you don’t like. But sure, we needed to build up a new villain, I guess.

Oh speaking of villains. Let’s get to Court politics. Or, well, what could have been. We’re introduced to new nations and leaders and some brewing conflict that is OH SO PRESSING that no one fucking talks about it after 50% of the book. And then, when two talks fail, the Nightcourt squabbles over differing opinions and ends up not talking to each other for the rest of the book, the solution is TO BUILD A WALL???? And even not just one, but THREE? WHO ARE YOU? DONALD FUCKING TRUMP? Are you going to rename the Spring Court to South Nightcourt soon and Koschei’s Lake to Rhysand’s Footbath? What are you on about?

Also … Prythian is an island, right? Night Court at the top, mortal lands at the bottom, the “continent” to the east. What exactly stops the ships from the continent to go straight to the mortal lands?

If Maas really went through and used this book as a stepping stool for the following ones to lean on, I wouldn’t be as mad, but this is so shallow. So disappointing. If you can’t even sell the reader the life-altering, dooming conflict as somewhat dangerous, you have failed as an author. Why were we subject to the squabbles of nation leaders when nothing comes out of it and they are not even needed for the rest of the book? Why bore your readers to death with tedious talks that have no substance at all?

 You see, I love a good high fantasy. (Yes, I know this is not one) I love the scheming. I love finding the unsaid things that tell you 1000 times more than what the rulers at those tables actually say out loud but there was nothing here. Nothing to be found. Everything is so obviously bland it could have come out of a British kitchen. That is what annoys me. Every important information is spoon-fed to the reader and then hammered into his skull by repetition at every chance. Chekhov would rival an American city with the number of guns placed, locked and loaded in this book, if all of them were actually used. But nothing comes of it. Ever. You can’t write an entire book with stuff you need to know for the upcoming releases without giving the reader anything. This is incredible.

And more so that there actually are people claiming this is a good book. We’re doomed if this is the direction mainstream publishing goes.

Yes, I understand this book is supposed to be a setup – which is, as I have hopefully pointed out, a travesty in itself already – but what has really been set up, here? We’ve only witnessed our beloved characters behave in strange ways, everyone doing their own stuff you’re just waiting for to topple down on all of their heads, people feeling morally superior while being the biggest POS of them all and oh yes, Feyre’s tits. How could I forget about them. It is a sort of random collection of bits and pieces and should never have been published like this. It’s a cash grab, nothing more. And y’all readily gobble it up.

 

I could go on and on, but honestly, I don’t want to, anymore. This was utterly disappointing and might as well be the book I needed not to care about any future publications. For me, ACOTAR ended with ACOSF. It is disrespectful to the readers and ridiculously blown up at this point. I’m so done.

I will always love SJM and I will always preorder all her new things however, that being said, this book felt different to the others. Still good female led fantasy but it did feel a little more tell not show ? this books just felt like it had been edited for the new audience of acotar, similar to how all TV is now written to be watched while people are on their phones. I loved the story and I love the ending but it did feel a little dumbed down I think. Also, what happened to nuance and complicated characters/morals? The whole plot of this is "we must defeat the evil!" with no true grey area at any point ??? I know people hate Bryce for this but I think a book needs a morally grey character or element and this all feels too safe. I loved Bryce for being an almost unlikeable FMC! Either way, an easy read and a good world/magic set up has me excited for the next one!

A Court of Splintered Harmony ACOTAR, Book 6

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