ACOTAR Made Me Leave My Husband

(Not really... But it sure didn't make me want to stay, either.)

Sorry for the clickbaity title, but I do love being dramatic.

WARNING! This post contains spoilers for A Court of Thrones and Roses (ACOTAR) and the second book, whatever it’s called (I refuse to learn all the acronyms.) Do NOT read this post if you plan to read ACOTAR and hate spoilers. If you’re no fun and are never going to read the TikTok famous smutty faerie fantasy series, then read on. But just know I’m judging you.

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As soon as I pick up a book, I am the main character. Authors, don’t even bother writing descriptions because I will ignore them. I am willfully ignorant of what they’re supposed to look like because fuck it, they are ME. I am THEM. We are WE.

Sometimes this pans out. Other times… not so much.

Tamlin and Feyre art by u/Listening_stars_ on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/acotar/comments/18u2s81/tamlin_and_feyre_art/

(For a review and summary of the book, read this blog post!)

Cliff notes: ACOTAR is basically a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but in high fantasy where the “Beast” is Tamlin, a noble lord with a curse on his land, people and face. “Beauty” is Feyre Archeron, a poor human teenager who’s spent her whole life providing for her useless family and yet still finds a way to complain about living in a literal castle.

I shipped Feyre and Tamlin SO HARD in the first book of Sarah J Maas’ ACOTAR series. I’m not about to lie and claim I saw the red flags - NO. I was red/green color blind. Even when they introduced Rhysand as the tantalizingly morally gray distraction - NO.

Feyre spent the entire half of the first book fighting tooth and nail to save Tamlin and be with him. That’s what she wants and that’s what she’ll get, goddammit.

And then…. I started the second book.

And it wrecked me.

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Have you read this series?? I NEED to know what you thought about it!

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I have not sobbed this hard over a book since I read Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, (seriously, why did I have to read so many depressing dog books in school??) or Bridge to Terabithia. 😩💔💔

Feyre sacrificed so much — sacrificed everything to save Tamlin and his Spring Court. And when she needed him most (in the aftermath, in the PTSD, in the very ugly crying, the throwing up, the depression, the deep self-hatred) he abandoned her. Worse than abandoned… he isolated her. He was next to her but didn’t feel her, he looked at her but didn’t see her.

And yet….

I still shipped them.

You see, I was Feyre. I’d left my family to be with a man I trusted to take care of me. I loved him so, so deeply.

I believed without a shadow of a doubt that he was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Before becoming his wife, I’d done things I wasn’t proud of. But thanks to his love and my renewed faith, I had healed and grown.

So when I found myself in the middle of an affair, I was horrified.

How could I do this? What was wrong with me?? Why couldn’t I just be happy with the person I loved so much?

Enter Sarah J Maas, professional gut-puncher and faerie afficionado.

I hadn’t read a new book in a long time, but after seeing so many TikToks about this fantasy series, I knew I wanted to try it. I love fantasy and reading has always been an escape for me, and God knows I needed a riveting escape just then.

So I got the series on my phone.

Normally I don’t like to read on my phone, but my dearly beloved had also been hearing about these books and went on a couple well-timed rants about how it was basically just porn and people who read those books aren’t as good as people who read “real fantasy” and all that jazz. I kept my mouth shut and swiped to the next page while I sat next to him.

At first, it was perfect. Worldbuilding, mysterious masked men, a powerful curse… Just what I needed.

And then I started the second book.

If you’ve read it, you know that to help her survive the excruciating trials Under the Mountain to save her lover Tamlin and his entire court of faeries, Feyre, a humble teenage human girl, sold one week of every month to a morally gray and yet irresistibly handsome man by the name of Rhysand. It was a whole, “the means justify the end” selfless deal, as Feyre was pretty sure she wouldn’t make it out of there alive, she just wanted to save everyone. (cue a self-noble sigh)

I knew what SJM was trying to do, though… and I hated it.

I didn’t want Feyre to leave Tamlin because leaving My Tamlin wasn’t an option for me.

I didn’t want Feyre to be fall in love with Rhys because I didn’t want to see that part of me exposed on paper when all I desperately wanted to do was to escape my reality.

But what else could I do?

I kept reading. I had to, you know?

Feyre saves everyone. She dies, but somehow Rhysand (and all the other lords) helped bring her back to life. She goes to supposedly live happliy ever after with Tamlin, the man she gave everything to save, and then… Something’s not right.

She wasn’t happy. It’s just the trauma, I say.

Tamlin was acting out. It’s just his trauma, I say.

They just need to talk about it, I beg.

But they don’t.

The part that broke me the most was when we finally saw Feyre from Rhysand’s perspective when he finally cashes in his week of custody Feyre time. She was gaunt, her hair was listless, and she was barely any more than skin and bones. And he was horrified.

I was horrified. All I could think was, “Why does Tamlin not see her??” and I broke. I broke HARD.

I didn’t realize how unseen I felt before that moment.

And I hadn’t realized just how much I not only identified as Feyre, but had identified my husband as Tamlin: the golden boy, the dream man who checked all the boxes of what I wanted, everything I thought I wanted. Who supported my passions (writing, not painting in this case) and provided everything I needed, and loved me loyally.

And yet… in the aftermath of giving birth, in the PTSD, in the sleepless nights, the ugly crying, the post-partum abyss, the deep self-loathing I struggled with… I felt abandoned. Not only abandoned, but isolated.

It never felt like he was excited to have a child. I felt alone in the diapers, the clothes shopping, the feeding, the sleep deprivation, the bathing, the cooking, the sleep training, the everything.

Sure he loved us, sure he was gone a lot working so much to try and provide for us, but I felt abandoned. And if I tried bringing it up, he would get defensive. “Of course I love our son, I’m trying so goddamn hard to be the perfect husband and perfect father and provide for you and working 80 hour weeks and taking care of everyone else….” On and on.

I felt abandoned when we moved and we found a church to go to together for the first time in the three years of being together, and then he stopped coming. And when I brought it up as something that was hurting me, the response I received was, “I don’t see why it’s so hard for you.” *shrug*

End of conversation.

I felt abandoned every time I brought up a hurt I’d experienced in an effort to work through it and I was met with an hour of word vomit about how much he was carrying and how he wasn’t able to even make one mistake now and then and how much he’d just try harder to be perfect for me. (I didn’t even realize until much later that he’d never given me a real, authentic apology.)

I felt abandoned when he kept important news from me because he didn’t want me to “freak out.”

I felt abandoned when he called me a bitch to my face in front of our friends because he was too drunk the night before his best friend’s wedding and I tried to tell him maybe he should be done drinking.

I felt abandoned when I called him out on his reckless and negligent behavior toward our son, his bald-faced lying, and his nicotine addiction, and his response was to pack a bag and walk out the door without a word.

So yes, when I read the description of Feyre through Rhysand’s eyes, I gasped. I asked, “How could Tamlin not see that??” and then it hit me: because he didn’t want to see it. He’d rather lock Feyre up than see her bloom.

I knew then that I couldn’t keep pretending I was fine. I couldn’t keep pretending that my life was daisies and spring roses. I couldn’t keep pretending I was happy.

I was slowly dying. I spent my days holding my breath and my nights holding my tears. It took every ounce of strength in me to pretend, and it was driving me crazy.

So when Feyre left, I realized — for the first time, I think — that that was a very real option for me too.

Not so that I could run away with my Rhys, but so that I could get the healing I needed before I withered into skin and bones and listless motions.

That wasn’t the moment where I made the decision to leave. That would come more than a month later and is a story for another post. But it was the moment I realized something was deeply, terribly flawed in our marriage, not just in me. And that maybe leaving would be the only way I would be able to figure out why.

Yours openly,

Camilla Joy