I enjoyed the ACOTAR books when I read them and love a lot of the characters but I definitely see where people are coming from with their criticisms.
I would say TOG is better though it comes with its own set of problems. And I was kind of enjoying the CC series until the ACOTAR crossover.
I think the main difference, for me anyway, is that TOG and CC felt like they had a lot more meaningful sacrifices. SJM wasn’t afraid of killing off characters.
But who died in ACOTAR? Feyre’s unnamed mother, Clare Beddor, and two unnamed fae. And in ACOMAF? A few unnamed citizens in Velaris, and a mortal queen.
And ACOWAR is perhaps the worst offender with thousands of unnamed civilians and soldiers of Prythian, the bone carver and the weaver who were literally introduced as antagonists, Brennan and Dagda who were also antagonists, three unnamed children of the blessed, Feyre’s unnamed father, the King of Hybern (is he unnamed or is his name literally Hybern?), and the Suriel (the only death that elicited any sort of emotional response from me).
[I’m on a train and don’t have my books to refer back to so forgive me if I got any names wrong, mixed up the books, or missed a death or two.]
Compare this to losing characters like Sam, Nehemia, Gavriel, the thirteen, even Ren (especially Ren) the impact just isn’t the same. And of course a lot of unnamed soldiers and civilians died too, so it just makes sense that with all the battles and bloodshed in all of SJM’s series that we would lose a main character or two, but in ACOTAR we didn’t. Also there’s characters that were already dead before the events of the prequel took place, specifically Aelin’s parents, that we still kind of feel a sense of loss over just because it affects some of the main characters so much and the events of the series as a whole so much.
And in CC there’s Danika, Connor and the rest of their pack, Lehabah, even Hunt’s friends Justinian and Victoria. I don’t recall any deaths in the second one except Cormac and Sophie but that’s where I lost hope for the series anyway, with the ACOTAR crossover.
But I would say my least favourite thing SJM does is try to convince me that her characters “sacrificed” their mortality. Aelin, Feyre, Nesta, Elain, Bryce. I understand that they didn’t necessarily want to be fae but I don’t think becoming one is much of a sacrifice because they were written as so ridiculously superior to humans in every way.
And Amren’s sacrifice could have been a beautifully heartbreaking moment in ACOWAR but was ruined by immediately bringing her back to life. And it also kind of ruined how Feysand came full circle, from Rhys convincing the High Lords to revive Feyre in book one to Feyre doing the same for Rhys in book three, to have another character also come back to life, it just felt overdone. (And of course Feyre died again in ACOSF and so did Nyx but I’m not going anywhere near that god awful book, it was so disappointing). I don’t think SJM even knows what to do with Amren’s character anymore, like oh god you’re slightly less immortal you’ve sacrificed so much for us 🙄.
So yeah, ultimately for me it comes down to how much a book can make me feel something, and TOG achieved this far better than ACOTAR ever could. But even with all that said I still like ACOTAR, I just think TOG is better in terms of what I want from a book.
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