Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - House of Flame and Shadow

The battle was too easy for me. Wish we had been in Bryce’s head a little more in Part 1 because I still dont get why she did some things.
There are 5 bonus chapters (you can find them all on Reddit)

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mary_catherine's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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carlack7's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Crescent City is my least favorite of Sarah J Maas' series, however, a few of the characters really grew on me in this book! I was probably 75% through the book before I could decide if I actually liked the direction it was headed. So many different storylines it kept jumping between, some I cared about, some I didn't at all! Plus, a LOT of self blaming (a norm for this genre I'm finding) that kind of gets on my nerves! But, am I glad I read it and will I continue to read everything she writes? Obviously. Yes. Absolutely.

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annabithebook's review

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adventurous informative tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.75

The thought that kept coming to me throughout was “how did this get past alpha/beta readers??” Followed quickly by “I cannot believe that if I hadn’t just invested my soul into 17 previous books to get to this point, I would have DNF’d it.” 😳

I am so disappointed in how many things I disliked in the series. Let’s make a spoiler-free list in no particular order:

1. Open plot points from HOSAB were just effectively dismissed and no actual meaningful resolution occurred.
2. Where the fuck was Fury and why was she not a bigger part of this?
3. 75 perspective changes inside of a single chapter with no indicator (especially bad in the audiobook format) this made an already 30 hour book take literal HOURS of extra time rewinding and listening again to try and figure out who did what and when it changed.
4. Dumbass characters making reckless stupid decisions.
Sub point here: it really felt like in the early stages of TOG where people are young and reckless and immature but instead of them having the time and lived experiences over 8 books to grow and mature into the better version of themselves (which was 👌🏻) the entire “arc” occurs crammed into one book and feels thin/baseless/disingenuous.
5. I never thought I’d say an 800+ page book should have spread things out more but it should have been two separate books (á la Eos & ToD). There were just too many ambitious plot lines/characters/stories competing for page time and so instead of trimming some to fully flesh out the ones you keep or splitting into two books, they’re all sort of chaotic and rushed which makes the story feel disjointed and inauthentic.
6. Kind of related to 5, but SJM is famous for her character growth and well balanced storylines with beautiful relationships, but she just didn’t give herself the space to do that with this novel or really CC as a whole.
7. The crossover infodump.
8. SJMs famous “why didn’t you just tell her that in the first place.”
9. SO MUCH HEAD ST@BB1NG
10. Hunt/Bryce seem like a couple who should really just break up…. 😬
11. Bryce in general (weakest SJM FMC in terms of how well they’re written as leads).
12. Other main cast characters who aren’t even in this book.
13. Characters who only appear when SJM needs them for a plot function so they feel like tools and not people.
14. Questionable science “oh yeah, let’s just hold the _____ ____ open!” 😒
15. The rumbly in Baxian’s tummy that only hands can satisfy.

Now. A much shorter but MAY CONTAIN VAGUE SPOILERS list of what I loved:

1. Ruhn/Lidia - they got snubbed like Lorcan/Elide from more page time
2. Jessiba
3. The sprites
4. The message of unity
5. Patricide
6. ……it’s not a good sign that I ran out at 5 things?

Honestly, my thumbs are tired but if you want a more comprehensive and, frankly, hilarious review that is literally all the thoughts in my head too, here is another amazing GR reviewer’s thoughts: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4553540457

TLDR; didn’t DNF because I was stubborn but it tried to be too many things at once and so instead it was successful at nearly nothing. Very disappointed 😢 1.75⭐️

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brooklynlaura's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

3.0

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maureen_fox's review against another edition

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At approximately 1/4-1/3 of the way through the story, I stopped caring. It felt like nothing was happening except a lot of swearing in the dungeons of the Eternal Palace and the Viper Queen's place on Midgard. The protracted magical info dump of Bryce's ancestor detailing how their people came to Midgard had me rolling my eyes. I don't care about the CC characters enough to continue. SJM better step it up majorly for the next ACOTAR book, because she's hanging on by a thread for me.

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