House of Flame and Shadow

I expect this will be an unpopular opinion, and for that I am sorry, but not sorry for my opinion in itself.

Honestly? I am disappointed.

Crescent City has always been my least favorite of Sarah J Maas’ series, but I still liked it. Books 1 and 2 were good; I liked the plot (aside from how often Danika came up), the characters, the world building, and the Bryce/Hunt relationship. However, House of Flame and Shadow almost felt like it was a completely different set of characters.

Tharion, no longer the snarky sexy confident guy – now the defeated moping depressed guy.

Bryce, kind of a b*tch? In general she was extremely unlikable for most of the story. I was not rooting for her, in fact it was quite the opposite. Uncaring for Hunt in a way that made their relationship seem toxic, and a selfish asshole for several other parts that would be considered a spoiler. Their interactions made me cringe at times, and I was underwhelmed by their spice, reunion, and supposed power couple nature. I hated how she acted with everyone else, and I didn’t like her issues with her ancestry and how it became almost her whole personality.

Several other characters were different as well, and it was just not my favorite.

This review is really hard to write because I want to air my grievances with it (and there’s quite the list) but I don’t want to spoil anything since it is still a new book. I’ll outline some high level things, and maybe do a spoiler heavy part 2 where I really get into it.

The plot: horrible. Things that were easy should have been harder by a long shot, The story line did not make sense to me, the teased out combo of worlds was not what I imagined it at all to be. There were so many bad plot points and things that were stupid or just did not make sense. If you’ve read it, you can probably think of several pretty quickly.

It felt like someone else entirely wrote this book and decided to throw a bunch of things that didn’t make sense at all. The giant teaser we got at the end of book 2 had my hopes up high for the combo section, but it fell so so so flat. In my personal opinion, it was pointless, useless, and could have not happened at all. I do not believe it added any value.

I am really disappointed because as far as SJM’s 3 FMC’s, it seems like Bryce now is the most powerful, but she also didn’t have to work to master her powers at all?? How does that make sense? There is no character building with her, she just magically can wield a ton of power and it makes her so much less relatable.

Overall I am super underwhelmed and honestly really sad and disappointed. I kept having to put it down and come back to it, which is something I never thought I would say about an SJM novel. I read that she threw away draft 1 and completely started over, and I wish I could read that instead. My guess is I would like it more than this. I think in general I just did not like the story. I wished it would have gone so many different ways and wished the characters would have acted differently.

To be honest, I am not sure if I would read the next one in the series. I am not interested in hearing more about Tharion or Ithan, and that is the only realistic next step I see?

*insert sad face here*

For some reason I had deluded myself into thinking this book might be good. Given the track record of the crescent city novels, I should've known that I would be disappointed.

Anyway. Here we are. Another exceedingly disappointing addition to the series. Made even more disappointing burner fav that she squandered what cousins been an amazing crossover opportunity.

On top of that, SJM rehashes her old classic tropes (you'll know when you read the book). It's as if she's not learned anything new in the last few years and hasn't found anything new to write about.


I liked the first 20-25% only because we got to see some of my favourite characters from the ACOTAR novels. But that is all that this book has going for it. Maybe one more thing but that's a spoiler.

Disappointing.

I feel torn about this - I did definitely enjoy reading this, but not sure it lived up to my expectations? I could have used more ACOTAR crossover, honestly, the plotlines started to feel a little jumbled/too many characters...I guess perhaps some of the novelty of this series that felt so zippy in the first book has worn off. I'm glad ACOTAR is what Maas is writing next.

I really love acotar,tog & cc. I literally told everyone that waiting for this book is why I manage to get trough most days.

I considerd myself lucky to even get the book in my hands on the 26th of january.

But this book was such a huge disappointment.

The maasverse promise did not deliver in this book. No real stakes to lose and suddenly the FMC is a huge bitch? The tempo of the story also made no sens at all. Some plot point should have stopped at 3 chapters and others should have extended into another book.

House of Flame and Shadow was such a good book! I cannot stress enough that you should read the Throne of Glass series and the A Court of Thorns and Roses series first! Everything connected in a beautiful way, and had a lovely ending. I'm not sure if there is going to be a book four, as the end of this book could easily have been either the end of the series, or the start of something new for the Crescent City Series!

I didn't know what to expect from this book because I was expecting it to be the 3rd of a 4 book series but I was decently happy with it! It was fast paced and brought me through so many emotions especially at the end but it didn't feel like this should be the end of CC but I now don't see how she could continue it. I am on the fence about the overlap with ACOTAR but I'm glad Bryce didn't completely abandon Nesta in the end.

Another great book by Sarah J. Maas! I really enjoyed the ending. I want to read it again already! Would definitely recommend this Crescent City and the Court of Thorns and Roses series to fantasy romance (Romantasy) fans. I read the ebook via the Kindle app on my iPad while simultaneously listening to the Audible recording. The book was epic! While Elizabeth Evans is an awesome narrator, the high esteem of these books should allow for a male narrator for the male voices. She doesn't do those and they've become expected. I say this with a lot of audiobook experience- I own over 950 Audible titles alone, and I have subscriptions to Kobo, Everand (fka Scribd), Audiobooks.com, and I borrow them through Libby. That is a lot of audio listening so I really do believe wholeheartedly adding a male voice, in addition to Evans, would have made this even more epic!

9.86/10

Characters-10

The characters in this book are fantastic. There are a lot of them, and it gets to be a lot to follow while reading, but I enjoyed all the characters. I loved seeing the flaws in the characters and seeing the characters grow.

Atmosphere-10

Sarah J. Maas pulls the reader in with the atmosphere of her books. I loved exploring this world with these characters.

Writing-10

SJM proved again why she is one of my favorite authors in the fantasy genre, and in general. I loved the highs and lows of the characters in this book so much.

Plot-10

I can honestly say that I didn't know where this plot was going to go. I enjoyed the ride along with these characters. This book had such a great story, and I loved it!

Intrigue-9

Ok here's the thing, my intrigue was docked because there was os much switching between the characters. I found it hard to become interested in a storyline because it would switch to another pov mid-scene. This was still an interesting book, but the switching hindered my intrigue a bit.

Logic-10

I found this to be a logical story. I was glad the logic and choices were explained.

Enjoyment-10

I loved it. I laughed, I cried, The book hooked me, and I was brought into the world. I had many feelings and emotions while reading, but this was one of my favorite books of the year so far.

Oh SJM I love this amazing world you've woven for us, but this book missed the mark a bit for me. Loved some character arcs and others just didn't flow or make sense. Moments made me very emotional and others made me say “what the hell”. A more detailed review may come later when the books been out a bit longer and my dms are always open for thoughts and discussion. For me this was more than a 3 star but less than a 4 star read. The Crescent City series is adult fantasy, 18+ for sexual content and violence

I love SJM's characters. I grow so attached to them and end up crying multiple times during every one of her books. Her action scenes are unparalleled and the suspense is always gripping. That being said, there were too many things squished into this book. That's crazy, considering it was 800+ pages. The power ups and the parasites were over the top. It was hard for me to get used to the abrupt POV shifts to the point where every time it popped back to Ithan I would scoff and close the book for a while. Ithan and Sigrid could have been edited out and I would have been fine with it. I'm assuming the next book is going to focus a lot on Tharion and the Viper Queen and his wife, which I'm excited about. I liked where their story was going. I love Lidia and Ruhn more than Bryce and Hunt so I was happy that we got to see their romance more for this book. I almost quit reading when Lidia died for a hot minute. I loved Jesiba's whole character and the sprites. The amount of times I exclaimed, “lol. What?” out loud while reading this book was insane. Exclamations also included were: “Secret tunnel!” “Sons?!” “SON?! Bruv what is this book?” “The freaking sprites!!” “I love secret staircases!!” “I forgot about the ottersss.” “DOES THAT MEAN THAT LIDIA IS A DESCENDENT OF AELIN IF IT'S BRANNON'S FIRE???!” I will say, I'm more excited to see what will happen in the next ACOTAR book with Nesta and the sword and I'm hoping to find out what the connection between Ruhn and Azriel is. Also, the moment that Nesta got to hear loving words from a mother figure with Ember.

As a series, I've loved this since book 1, it's epic and sweeping and incredible, but as a single book this one actually fell a bit short for me. I really enjoyed most of it but in the overall Maasverse, it's probably my least favourite book, saying that they're all 5 stars so really how can you choose!

The first few hundred pages were amazing - I absolutely loved every minute we got with Bryce, Nesta and Azriel. I loved their interactions, I loved the lore they discovered, it was just perfection. I didn't love Ithan's and Tharion's chapters as much, they took a much longer time to get interesting.

Part 2 was a little slow for me, but as SJM always does she sticks the landing. That said, I do feel like part 3/the ending was a bit chaotic. There were a lot of plot points which just conveniently happened - Bryce is floating in space, but oh look there's Shahar's spirit with a handy mech suit so Hunt and pop into space and save her, and look the Princes of Hel just nicely holding a void open for them to float back on through.

Omg I'm finally done this book was so LONG. I feel like honestly Ruhn & Lidia's storyline should've just been its own book because it felt rushed and unnatural and I feel like it could've been better on its own and then the book would've been sooo much shorter. The last 100 pages saved this from being 3 stars.

some things SJM is gonna do every time:
- unleash an escalating set of MacGuffins that allow for everyone to try to be self-sacrificing but ultimately be saved by a newer MacGuffin
- reveal that the sexy villains aren't really villains they're just sexy and have tattoos and good morals
- pair everybody off by the end
- be horny (yet clearly uninterested in allowing queer characters to be on-page horny)

So we got all of that!

As-ever: TOO LONG yet DID READ? why does this woman compel me so.......

I enjoyed the crossover with ACOTAR but honestly wished for more!!!Also lol I love that the ending was basically SJM being like, "you know what? fuck you *un-urbans your urban fantasy*" She doesn't know how cell phones work therefore none of these people need them!!!!!