This book has gotten so vile and so disgusting that I don’t care enough to do detailed chapters. So here’s the last six. None of it makes a goddamned bit of sense and Rhys is the scum of this earth, his own, and all others as well.

What followed the second trial was a series of days that I don’t care to recall.

Yeah, neither do I.

She overhears some portentous BS about how the king of Hybern is mad at Amarantha, then there’s sexual fuckery again with Rhys YET AGAIN having to ‘save’ Feyre by assaulting her. “Oh, your paint was all messed up by your tryst with Tamlin, so I just had to force a kiss on you so people would think I did it.” YOU PAINTED HER IN THE FIRST PLACE, ASSHOLE.

Rhys comes down to her cell to try and get some pity and I respond with more DIE IN A FIRE because it’s all I’ve got for this character. He’s just so sad that Amarantha uses him for sex, yes, heaps and mounds of empathy you’ve got there, Rhys, knowing what that’s like and then putting Feyre through the same, yeah, I feel so bad for your putrid puss-filled boil of a waste of a space.

Rhys says he’s playing with Feyre to make Tamlin blindly angry and hopefully push him into attacking Amarantha, but also he doesn’t sex her so maybe Tamlin will think twice before turning said rage on him as well.

Let’s look at his plan.

It’s shit.

First of all, Amarantha is already intent on breaking Feyre’s spirit, mind, and body, so framing Rhys’s sexual assaults as ‘pushing him over the edge’ just puts Feyre’s sexuality as the most important thing about her/her relationship with Tamlin. It’s saying that Tamlin’s sexual jealousy over seeing Feyre pawed at by another man is stronger than his anger at seeing her being tortured, and just every single thing about that entire concept is wrong.

Second, Rhys once again posits that he’s allowed to drug her and violate her and humiliate her and assault her, but as long as his penis isn’t involved, he has a ‘claim to innocence,’ and yes that’s the exact phrase he uses. No, fuck that whole idea, your penis is not some magical weapon of ultimate power. Drugging and assaulting someone is fucking horrible and you’re a horrible person.

Third, Rhys’s entire plan does not require a lack of consent and agency from Feyre. There is nothing about his intended outcomes that means he has to do this without her knowledge and against her will. The whole thing could have played out as a collusion between the two of them and been…weird as fucking hell, but also a lot less rapey.

“Hey, Feyre, I know you’re in a horrible mental place and leaving you alone with your thoughts was part of Amarantha’s plan to break you. But I got a plan. See this wine I’ve got will make you not think, hence less chance of breaking, and then I can pretend to do sexy things to you and that will result in X, Y, Z.”

“How do I know you’ll only pretend while I’m out?”

“I’ll paint you so you can see where my hands were.”

“You could just repaint me after assault?”

“Fine, I’ll…let Lucien shadow us everywhere and he can report on my actions.”

“Cool, deal, let’s do it, I’d rather not stew in my own fears for weeks at a time anyway and this makes me feel proactive.”

TA-FUCKING-DA.

And it’s not like there’s not plenty of angst to be had with her participating, she can second-guess herself or worry about Tamlin’s reactions not going to plan, or just have that inner turmoil over ‘rock and a hard place’ decisions. Plus, having her permission goes a hell of a lot further towards Rhys’s last justification (make Tamlin not hate me) that just a lack of penis activity.

And that’s why this shit is so lazy. There are so many other things that could have been done and could have had layers. There could have been decisions and plans and machinations, but nope, instead it’s just…this. This farce of a plot point which pretends to be complex, but is really just one guy’s decision overriding all others, not multiple decisions interacting.

YOU DON’T NEED SEXUAL ASSAULT TO CAUSE DRAMA THERE ARE SO MANY OPTIONS FOR SO MUCH DRAMA THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE IS VAST AND ENDLESSLY FASCINATING BUT ONLY IF YOU GET OUT OF THE SHALLOW END OF THE POOL.

Feyre goes in for her final task and everyone’s all silent and respectful watching, instead of jeering like usual.

Perhaps, like Rhysand’s, their oaths of allegiance and betting on my life and nastiness had been a show. And perhaps now—now that the end was imminent—they, too, would face my potential death with whatever dignity they had left.

You haven’t earned this. You just…haven’t. Maybe if you’d spent more time on Feyre’s interaction with the court, but nope, you’ve focused instead on sexual assault. A total tonal 180 from your background characters feels like what it is – arbitrary.

Feyre’s final task is to murder-stab three innocent Fae, and there’s a…fairly decent bit of writing as she actually does it. Feyre doing hard, bad things is usually done pretty well in these books, it’s just the follow-through that’s always lacking.

Anyway, the third fae she has to stab is Tamlin himself, and after several pages of utter flailing, she finally realizes it’s a trick and Tamlin can’t die by being stabbed in the heart because he has no (physical) heart. So she decides to call Amarantha’s bluff and does it.

Aaaaaaand then Amarantha goes into a wild, flailing rage screaming about how Feyre doesn’t really love him and all humans are garbage, etc, etc. I really hate this villain. I hate how one-note her character is, I hate her lack of control and nuance, I hate the cartoonish focus on this one topic simply because that’s all the book cares about. She loses her temper like a 3 year-old throwing a tantrum and all I can do is yawn.

It’s not like childish villains can’t work. Really, the concept can be very well done. Someone overpowered, but with the temperament of a toddler, is scary. But it has to be done with intent and it’s hard to pull off as legitimately frightening instead of just ‘clichés gone wrong.’ Or, hell, maybe I was just too biased against this book by the time Amarantha showed up to take her as that kind of a villain. Or maybe it’s because of the ‘love’ topic that she harps on, which hasn’t been handled well elsewhere, that makes me think her character is too much of a cartoon. Maybe it’s all of the above. Whatever the reason (or multitude of reasons) just really, really hate this villain. And there’s little this book could have done to make me hate her more than have her knock Feyre down while screaming “Admit that you don’t love him!”

In the middle of her curbstomp beatdown, Feyre finally realizes the painfully obvious answer to the riddle and shouts it out.

Feyre actually dies right after she says it, but the curse is broken and Tamlin, with all his magic back, kills Amarantha. Don’t worry (as if you were), Feyre only stays dead for about three pages before fairy magic brings her back.

And she’s back as a High Fae because of course she is. What kind of ending would this be otherwise?

Actually, really, she’d be facing a romance with an ageless immortal whom she would soon out-mature and eventually leave behind as she died of old age. And while that’s certainly an interesting story, it’s kind of a downer as the end of a story, and I’m not one to begrudge lovers of HEA endings.

Although after a whole book of how humans are dirty, dirty critters, Feyre turning into a fae has as many downsides as it does upsides, so mixed blessing, really.

The rest of the book is normal wrapping up chitchat and shmoopiness and angst. Nothing really to report.

And with that, I am FINALLY DONE. Y’all ain’t picking my next book, I don’t trust you. >.>