Feyre is suffocating.

Nobody gets out of the Court Under The Mountain without trauma. In Feyre’s case that trauma is manifesting as nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and the need to avoid any rooms, colours, or situations that remind her of her time in Amarantha’s court.

Meanwhile, Tamlin’s trauma is manifesting as an urge to have Feyre laminated.

So I want to talk about Tamlin. What I find fascinating about this character is that there is a cultural conversation going on right now in which some people would absolutely see Tamlin as the good guy. He is protective. He is taking command of the situation. He is asserting himself as the dominant partner and ensuring that the Spring Court presents a strong united front. This is all coded very strongly as a traditional masculine role.

But the narrative makes it very clear that Tamlin fails Feyre. She begs him to let her out of the house, to give her the tiniest bit of freedom and agency that would save her sanity and he just says no. Like he gets to decide for her what her rights and freedoms are. He “decides” she doesn’t get to train her new powers as if her right to use them is in any way up to him.

He tells her that things will get better once they get past this – whatever “this” is – but speaking as somebody who has been through a lot of therapy, getting better is not something that just happens by magic. He’s not putting in the work of making it better. So when she manifests her powers to defend herself from his temper – he doesn’t take that as the warning sign it is that he’s gone too far, he just doesn’t talk about it. And even though he agrees to reduce the guards at one point, that concession only lasts until the next time something triggers him.

But the thing that pissed me off the most? The thing that made me put the book down long enough to fantasize about ripping his balls off? Was the incident when she and Lucien went into a town and offered to help rebuild and she was rebuffed because to the fae of the Spring Court she represented the horrible things that had been done to them. Between Tamlin and Ianthe they had turned Feyre into a symbol – not a person. Notice none of the civilians at the Summer Court reacted the same way, nobody cried on her in gratitude for saving them they way she experienced at the Spring Court. Between Tamlin and Ianthe she was completely dehumanized (de-fae-ized?) Good only for dressing up like a doll and parading in front of the common folks. She was successfully isolated from any kind of external support system and that is a massive red flag for an abusive relationship.

We don’t find out about Tamlin’s history with Rhysand until later in the book, and there is no explanation for why Tamlin betrayed somebody who was once a friend. My explanation is simply that Tamlin is weak. All that physical power and the ability to smash things and he never learned any other kind of strength – maybe never needed to learn. He couldn’t stand up to his father to protect his friend, couldn’t stand up to Amarantha to protect his lover, and never had the strength to look his own mistakes in the face and accept Feyre’s decision to leave him. Toxic masculinity in a big beautiful blonde package.

Rhysand, on the other hand, tells her over and over she has choices. He pushes her, but never forces. When he commands her to take cover during the attack of Velaris he tells her he is grateful – not angry – when she fights instead. He makes it clear that she can reject the mate bond if that’s what she wants, in spite of it’s importance to fae culture.

Which brings me to the topic of the mating bond.

I really don’t like stories with soulmates or mating bonds, I find them kind of oogie – no judgement if they happen to be your thing of course, but I find they are often used as a way to conveniently ignore issues of consent. So it matters a lot that Feyre gets a choice. In fact it makes sense to me that Rhysand doesn’t tell her about the mate thing because of the importance of that choice. I gotta tell you, if I was in love with somebody and I thought they only chose me because of some biological breeding imperative – I would not be thrilled by that.

Feyre goes absolutely ballistic when she finds out and honestly I do not blame her one bit. Based on what’s in the book it’s less than a year since the events in Amarantha’s court. She was in the Spring Court for somewhere between three and four months, and in the Night Court for about two. Almost the next day after joining the Night Court she gets throw into the deep end of the pool, dealing first with the Bone Carver and then with The Weaver. She deals with some pretty intense emotional fallout from her experiences in the Summer Court and seeing her sisters for the first time in her new body. Then she runs into Lucien and then almost immediately Rhysand is captured by Hybern’s guards. Then she finds out she has a capital-M Mate.

She is what, 20? Honestly I think throwing a minor tantrum and saying I NEED A MINUTE is absolutely justified.

I’m not going to go over every single scene in the book, but I do want to point out a couple of other details that I really appreciated.

One is that sexual abuse of men is treated with the exact same gravity as sexual abuse against women. Rhysand’s experience of being repeatedly raped by Amarantha is never glossed over or made light of. Ianthe is also portrayed as a predator and that is taken entirely seriously, even when her intended victims are able to fight her off.

The second ting is that while Feyre is portrayed as being incredibly powerful, she is not invincible. She fails in the mission with the book because it’s too strong for her. This really matters after her participation in the battle in Velaris – yes she is a badass, but there are still limits to her powers. Otherwise the story just would not have been as interesting.

And then Book Two comes to a close – the same way that Book One did, with Feyre leaving a court where she had been imprisoned to return to the Spring Court with Tamlin.

But Feyre is a very different person now.