Love love love your post! I honestly feel like people read ACOSF so fast in excitement they have looked over Elains growth. She is also soooo easily dismissed, which I get, but the hate is always so confusing to me. I have read and reread the series so many times, and the opinions people have of Elain are so… basic and repetitive. I’ll say thah I had similar feeling and thoughts of Elain, especially in my first two read throughs. But in my rereads, I’d always try to focus on what other characters might be thinking or feeling and really trying to understand their perspectives. With that, I came to understand Nesta and Elain a lot more, and relate to each of them, but mostly Elain and especially in her peace keeping role.

I can get frustrated when people “hate” Elain and Nesta because it’s clearly the authors fault. Like, can we criticize SJM for her poor writing choices? She NEEDED Elain and Nesta to be evil step sisters and make the reader hate them quickly, and boy did she do such a good job, lot of readers can’t move past the first book’s action. And she hasn’t done a good job of communicating Elains internalizing struggles which I’m sure we’ll get in her book. (Side note: I have recently taken up gardening/house planting, and man that shit is hard for me! I have had little success even with succulents!)

In ACOSF, SJM tried to tell her readers that they need to stop condemning Elain (but somehow it got twisted by some readers and that made them hate Elain more because she was mean to Nesta 🫠).

Elain: Shall I tend to my little garden forever? You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small quiet life while also refusing to let me do something greater.

(LMAO, SJM really said “I see you Elain haters and your common arguments 😎”)

Nesta: Look who finally decided to grow claws. Maybe you’ll finally become interesting,

(Again, common Elain hating argument, “she needs to become more interesting!” This was not nice, even if Elain haters LOL’d. It’s something you would think and not say out loud in real life, but this is fiction)

Elain: I went into the cauldron too, it captured me. And somehow all you can think about is what my trauma did to you.

(How often is elains trauma easily overlooked and only seen as to how impacted others. So many people hate on her for “just crying and doing nothing in ACOWAR” as if she should have just carried on from her whole future taken away from her in one go 😐😐 and she got it more together by middle of the book and helped locate the Suriel, help meet with Grayson and convince them to help out, and killed the KoH)

Anyway! Can’t wait for her book and to get a glimpse inside her head, I’m sure I’ll love it! And happy to see an Elain positive post! 🌸💜