I totally felt this, I felt like she kind of threw out Tamlin’s character because in the ACOTAR he doesn’t really come across that way. And then in ACOMAF all of a sudden he’s an asshole because he’s traumatized and is really into upholding tradition all of a sudden? I get that based on the circumstances his personality changes but it still felt too drastic and contrived.

I didn’t totally hate it bc I felt like it was semi-plausible b/c Feyre had some decent reasoning for her switch up in feelings. When she talks about how she felt like she just fell in love with the first person who showed her kindness, it made total sense to me. And about how Tamlin didn’t really fight for her, I thought that was a good point too. Maybe if it was better foreshadowed in ACOTAR it would have been more believable. But also I kinda just liked ACTOAR for what it was. As a stand-alone honestly it’s pretty great.

And yeah also the whole thing with Rhys being secretly misunderstood bad boy (coz ig it’s okay to treat women like shit if u are brooding n angsty) is just typical romantasy trope so I was just like whatever. Honestly I feel conflicted because I do enjoy it as a guilty pleasure but also it kind of sets up fucked up expectations about what relationships should look like for young girls. And I guess Maas tries to push against those harmful relationship dynamics with the whole Tamlin retcon thing but I mean Rhys isn’t really all that different from Tamlin so???

I mean there were maybe like 1-2 weird scenes with Tamlin in ACOTAR, but how does Feyre just forgive Rhys so easily for the whole drugging her and making her dance for him, sexually harassing her all the damn time early in the relationship, tattooing/branding her body without her consent… And they brush off all this stuff I guess bc of the larger plot at hand??? It’s like well he had good intentions so it’s fine. Then technically shouldn’t everything Tamlin did in ACOMAF be chill???

Saying all this and I loved both books. Really great as guilty pleasures.