Tamlin was called away to one of the borders hours after I found that head—where and why, he wouldn’t tell me. But I sensed enough from what he didn’t say: the blight was indeed crawling from other courts, directly toward ours.

So I see the blight is getting more presence, finally, but we really have yet to see direct effects of it. Instead we’ve gotten a hodge-podge of random things which may or may not be attributed to the blight – there was some vague talk of magic being affected, and monsters wandering around more, but also a lot of completely random things like the masks, the wingless fairy, and now the head – and altogether it makes for a pretty weak thread. In a narrative sense, at least. There’s no effect we can see, but at the same time we’ve never seen a non-blight-ed fairy land so the symptoms aren’t really visible either. I guess the wandering monsters could be good, except they always happen either off-page or when Feyre goes wandering into the wood, so…? The whole effect is something so vague and poorly defined that I have trouble caring, because there’s no tension.

Also coming right on the heels of the head thing is weird, because it’s like a cause/effect flow except the head isn’t a blight thing, at least I don’t think.

The next morning it’s Summer Solstice, and the fairies are getting ready to celebrate. Feyre compares to the poor, dull, utterly human celebrations at home, making sure to paint everything as utterly sad as possible to highlight that, no, really, fairies are just so much better.

I could tell this would be something far grander—far more spirited.

But why? Isn’t the usual theme of immortal/mortal stories that mortals take more joy in life because it’s fleeting? Why wouldn’t her poor village just absolutely revel in whatever they can, even if it’s poorly decorated and with the same old food as ever? Why would their dancing and drinking be less ‘spirited’ when it’s one of their only parties, yet fairies apparently get to party a lot?

Feyre spends most of the day thinking shippy thoughts about Tamlin and being jealous of the pretty fae ladies, because of course. Oh, and we so needed another reminder of mind-control-sex-night brought up as shipping fodder. Mmhm, sure, that’s really the take-away we need from that, Feyre being jealous.

Feyre gets dressed for the festival just in time for the pretty boys to get home.

“Cauldron boil me,” Lucien whistled as I came down the stairs. “She looks positively Fae.”

I really need to let go of this because I know it’s not going to stop, but I can’t, I still hate it with a burning passion. I mean, it’s going to get worse, I need to pace my hatred, but seriously fuck this.

It’s not like I don’t understand the appeal in this sort of story, it’s very similar to the appeal behind “Mary Sue” fanfics and it has a place. It’s nice to imagine yourself as perfect, or even just a more-perfect-you. Reality is a bummer, vacations from it are good for the soul, sure. It’s just the relentless bashing of all things human in the name of making fairies perfect – coupled with the lack of fairies being literally anything except pretty so far – that boils me and makes me lash out at even otherwise-innocuous instances.

But seriously, have the fairies done anything besides be rich and pretty yet? At least Legolas had mad skills and shit.

Okay, enough raving, everything eye-fucks each other because ship and gets ready to go to the party.

Solstice celebrates when day and night are equal

…???????????????????????????????? Summer Solstice is literally the longest day of the year. Like, that’s how you know it’s solstice day and not some other day. If that’s what you call equal then, well, I got a #meninist t-shirt with your name on it.

They go to the party and it’s…a party.

I ate my fill of strawberry shortcake, apple tart, and blueberry pie—no different from summer treats in the mortal realm

If you’re going to insist that fairies are so much more ‘spirited’ than human parties could you at least…IDK, try?

Feyre then proceeds to get super drunk on fairy wine, despite Lucien’s warnings, and I’m sure this will lead to no shipping shenanigans at all, right? Surely this book wouldn’t delve into such a tired, overused trope, right?

One of the musicians looked up from his fiddling, and I halted.

Sweat gleamed on the strong column of his neck as he rested his chin upon the dark wood of the fiddle. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing the cords of muscle along his forearms. He had once mentioned that he would have liked to be a traveling minstrel if not a warrior or a High Lord—now, hearing him play, I knew he could have made a fortune from it.

Never stop being predictable, book.

Feyre dances and Tamlin fiddles and it’s magical because reasons. Once that’s done, the two go off into the woods to do more dancing but in private.

That severed head from last chapter was so promising, what happened? Was that too much excitement for you, book? These two idiots aren’t even interesting. They’re dull as rocks and their romance has nothing to make me root for them. I’m not even saying they’re a bad couple; I actually enjoy ships where the participants get along and are all happy and sweet. But the best ships are angsty and need barriers, and if the barrier isn’t going to come from their own personality flaws then it needs to come from their situation. You know, like one of them being royal, or busy, or dealing with severed heads. We don’t get that here, because the book keeps sidelining all potential barriers. We never see Tamlin interact with his subjects or see any reason why his position would be a barrier, he’s only busy in the chapter breaks and summaries and has plenty of time to flirt otherwise, and no one fucking cares about the head so far. These two might have fine chemistry – I’m an admittedly bad judge of that when I’m reading this slow – but they have nothing impeding them and thus nothing to make me care. It’s just chapter after chapter of them getting along which is boring as fuck.

Oh yeah, and they kiss and stuff.

The next morning, they’re still being all shippy and kissy, but Lucien helpfully brings up the blight and reminds everyone that the book is kinda-sorta trying to have a plot now.

“The blight,” Lucien said tightly, softly. “It took out two dozen of their younglings. Two dozen, all gone.” He swallowed. “It just … burned through their magic, then broke apart their minds.

Ah, so that’s what it does. …for now. I’m sure it’ll change later.

No one in the Winter Court could do anything—no one could stop it once it turned its attention toward them. […] But the blight seems to be sending its wickedness this way—farther south with every attack.”

…that sounds less like a blight and more like a targeted attack.

Words still mean things, you know. I mean, I’m willing to give some leeway for this thing infecting magic instead of plants, as per the literal definition, but that’s still a far cry from “conscious attack.”

Suddenly the boys freak out, engage in some weird macho posturing like they’re going to scare whatever they just felt coming, and hide Feyre behind some magic. And then, oh look, it’s the extra-hot-boy from the it’s-totally-not-rape-because-it’s-a-dude night. His name is Rhysand. He’s here to be “bad boy sexy all in black” and mock people.

There’s lots of vague talk, but Rhys once again brings up the idea that there’s something Tamlin’s supposed to be doing and he’s not doing it. “Resigned to his fate,” apparently. Maybe Feyre will actually get curious this time and we’ll learn something.

Oh, and Rhys is High Lord of the Night Court because there’s no room in this story for characters other than High Lords. A full and robust world? Why bother when everyone who’s actually important can be a handsome prince? Rhys is also affiliated (in a biblical sense) with someone named Amarantha. Seeing as she’s the only non-servant lady in this story besides Feyre, I’m assuming she’s made of pure evil.

Heaven forbid this book do anything new or interesting.

Rhys finally notices Feyre there, and we get pages of posturing that just show off Rhys being bad but don’t amount to much. It might be interesting if we’d had it, like, 18 chapters ago. Rhys is at least good at having fun at being evil, so it’s potentially entertaining. It’s not really good, pretty cartoon-villain-y actually, but it’s entertaining. I like a ridiculously hammy villain now and again.