Why I hate ACOTAR

SPOILERS 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

Y’all are gonna hate me for this one….

I am honestly shocked that this isn’t brought up more. In the first book, while Feyre is under the mountain, Rhys “befriends” her. During this, he drugs her, dresses her in an outfit so he can tell if anyone has touched her, AND touches her body, all without her consent.

If you’ve read my “Where the Crawdads Sing” post, you know that I hate when characters are unnecessary put through assault.

Now, while reading this, I thought to myself “damn, Rhys is a really bad guy, I can’t believe he would touch her unconsenually” but then again during this time, he was a “bad guy”, Feyre’s worst enemy.

However, while reading things online about the series, I accidentally spoiled to myself that Rhys and Feyre eventually make up, and get married!

I’ve seen some readers talk about how Rhys was attempting to protect Feyre but this is false, simply due to the fact that she never once explicitly gave her consent to be touched by Rhys. If this happened in real life, people would be OUTRAGED.

Let’s think about this. A girl is raped and humiliated by a man, and then forgives him and marries him. This seems very, very wrong to me. Also this book is marketed toward YA audiences, thus teaching them that forgiving abusers is okay. Some might say “Casey no it’s not, this is a fantasy novel it has nothing to do with sexual assault.” HOWEVER, I regularly see people, especially young readers talk about how “hot” or “sexy” Rhys is. It is not “hot” to assault anyone. Rhys is an abuser. End of story.

I also want to take the time to explain how this is different from other books which also deal with assault, and let’s talk about “It Ends with Us”. The difference between these books is that the character does forgive her abuser, yes, but ultimately realizes that he is abusing her and leaves him, thus teaching audiences the importance of recognizing abuse in relationships.

I’m tired of people ignoring assault in books because characters are “hot”. It is not okay in real life, and certainly not in books either. I also want people to think about their actions. Don’t ignore assault in media, because it sends a message to your audience that it is an okay thing to do. I will never condone in a book where sexual assault is used where the abuser is forgiven.