House Of Flame And Shadow

Adult Fantasy

“The friends they’d made were what mattered in the end. Not the enemies. Through love, all is possible.”

― Sarah J. Maas, House of Flame and Shadow

I have been looking forward to reading this book since it was announced! I’ve been a Sarah J. Maas girlie since I first read A Court Of Thorns And Roses!

Unfortunately, this book did leave me a little disappointed. First things first there will be spoilers in this so proceed with caution.

Lets get into it! We start out where House of Sky and Breath left off, Bryce is in the ACOTAR world and Hunt, Rhun, and Baxian are left as the Asteri’s captives in the Crescent City world. Something I really liked is that we did pick up right where the last book left off. I HATE when authors leave you on a cliff hanger like that to then pick up at a different point in time and you’re left scrambling trying to figure out what happened during that time.

I have seen so many people online who were disappointed in the ACOTAR crossover aspect. In my opinion House of Flame and Shadow was NEVER marketed as a crossover. I think a lot of people got their hopes up for a Marvel Cinematic Universe style book because there were so many theories and Easter eggs that you can find throughout the other Crescent City books if you’re looking hard enough for them. Personally, this wasn’t what disappointed me about the book, I never thought it was going to be a true crossover. I actually really liked how Sarah J Maas meshed the world of ACOTAR with the world of Crescent City, I really enjoyed the parallels and then tensions that came with it. Seeing Bryce interact and outsmart Nesta and Azriel was so fun. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Nesta and I am an Az girlie. It was so refreshing thought to see the dymanic change and have these characters who are so used to having everything figured out and being in charge having to let someone else be in charge. I also saw a lot of people were upset we didn’t see Feyre at all and didn’t really get a lot of time with anyone but Nesta and Azriel during this mini crossover, but I thought it made a lot of sense for the plot that we really only get Nesta and Az in those scenes.

This is also the point that I started to feel like Sarah J Maas was taking some easy outs, because as much as I loved that we were finding out information from different worlds and really intertwining stories and idea. I felt that Bryce’s star leading her through these complex cave systems and tunnels was a little too easy. I would have liked it more if she was being led solely by the drawings on the cave walls since that would make more sense, in my opinion, based on what had already been established about her character. I also thought her finding basically a hidden lockbox of power was again a little too convenient especially since there wasn’t a learning curve with the power, she just knew how to use it. I expected it to be more like Feyre learning how to use her powers, especially when she was learning how to use the wings she would shapeshift to get. It just felt too easy for me tastes. She’s just suddenly able to really understand how to world jump the second time she tries to do it, realistically she probably would have ended up somewhere she didn’t mean to be at least once.

The scenes where Hunt, Rhun and Baxian were stuck in the dungeons had me cringing, those bits are not for the weak and I may have nightmares about them. This was another part where I thought things felt rushed and a little unrealistic. Lidia being able to successfully free all three of the Asteri’s most prized prisoners and get away herself just seemed a little too easy.

As always I loved all the lore that we were unlocking the entire time, I loved how Sarah J Maas builds upon what she’s already given us and how those unlock more and more as we go. I also loved how Avallen really seems as close to the ACOTAR world as we were going to find in the Crescent City world. I think it makes a lot of sense plot wise that there would be a nugget of the ancient fae world still existing in this more modern world. I also didn’t think Bryce found the information as easily in this part as she did in the ACOTAR world though.

From this point on I just felt like everything felt a little rushed. It didn’t feel like the normal end of the book/series ramp up into the conflict, it felt almost like Sarah J Maas was just ready for this book to be done. Even Hypaxia finding the antidote for the parasite we had JUST found out about felt incredibly unrealistic and also too convenient. Especially with how the antidote amplifies everyone’s existing powers. This felt to me like an easy out to boost the characters up to be able to defeat the Asteri. Considering the fact that the drop was only supposed to take ( in my understanding) a small portion of their power, the extreme amplification just felt off..

I also just didn’t vibe with Bryce sending her parents into the ACOTAR world and retrieving the death mask from Nesta. It just seemed like overkill for Bryce to send her parents there when they would have been safe in Avallen, and it seemed out of character for her to use her loved ones as collateral. Even Bryce’s control of the death mask seemed out of place, we see Nesta struggling with this in A Court of Silver Flames, but somehow Bryce isn’t affected nearly as much, it just seems to go against what we know and has already been established about the death mask.

I love this series and I genuinely liked this book despite being a little disappointed with some of the things happening in it. I find that this kind of things happens a lot with authors and the last book in a series, they just seem to want to wrap things up quickly and neatly. Sometimes this works out well but in some cases the story lines are so complex that, like in this instance, it just falls flat. Which wasn’t my experience with Kingdom of Ash, the final book in the Throne of Glass series, also written by Sarah J Maas. There’s a massive conflict with these all powerful beings and very few deaths and no main character deaths at all, this just makes the ending feel less satisfying. So while I did enjoy the conclusion of the Crescent City series, I also just wish Sarah J Maas had really taken the time to do the series justice. She built an incredibly complex world, with great characters and a strong plot, to just let everything fall flatter than my hair in the summer.

I’m also so over bonus chapters. Especially multiple bonus chapters that are only available if you buy multiple copies of the exact book just to read what is basically a reject chapter that got cut from the book. I could go on multiple rants about bonus chapters and also epilogues but I’ll save those for another post!

I know there are a lot of people who feel similarly with the ending of this book, I’ve had similar conversations with my brother and his girlfriend, which made me feel better because sometimes I wonder if I’m a little too picky when it comes too books, especially when it comes to the last book in a series. So while I was disappointed I still enjoyed the book and I would still recommend the Crescent City series!

Happy Reading!