House of Flame and Shadow

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.