Reviews with content warning for Body horror - House of Flame and Shadow

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

60 reviews

savshanae's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I have never been so disappointed by an SJM book and it’s RUINING me. If it was any other author, I probably would have DNF’d this book. So many words for so little to happen, the end left me shaking my head, and don’t even get me started on the lack of character consistency!
As one of my friends put it, “it feels like she flew too close to the sun” and I wouldn’t be sad to see this book dropped into the ocean forever.

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booksalacarte's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

First read- 4.25⭐️ 3🌶️

Adult High Fantasy

Multi POV

Fantasy Romance

Magic

Found family

Journey

Secrets

War

Rebellion

Tech/sci-fi elements

Tw: torture on page, language,

This was a Crescent City book. It wasn’t an ACOTAR or TOG book. It was crescent city through and through with the quick POV shifts and

This large cast of characters has always been the messiest. They are completely flawed and full of contradictions and harder to completely stand behind. There wasn’t a lot of self reflection for anyone in the cast. There were a lot of really brash decisions, even from seasoned warriors and politicians, that I rolled my eyes at. There just wasn’t the character growth that I had hoped to see… if anything, some of the characters, a main character even, seemed to get worse… some character growth and revelations that were foreshadowed in the other two books seemed to have been completely tossed out the window.

The plot was A LOT… and all over the place. There were moments of world-building that was just gigantic info dumps. There were times where we went into sci-fi elements. Many things were concluded and tied up prettily. I’m having a hard time thinking of how this is going to be extended into any more books…

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sierrabowers's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

This was the best in the Crescent City series! I highly recommend to those who have already read ACOTAR. This book truly made everything come together and so much makes more sense. It ties up loose ends but also makes room for some new storylines. Was different than I thought it would be but also somehow better?

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liss_reads's review

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adventurous medium-paced

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

1.0

Don’t bother. SJM is really just collecting her check.

The manuscript was clearly rushed out the door by the publisher - occasionally lacking appropriate punctuation or even finishing a sentence in one case. Could have used more revision. How could ALL of the events that took place in this way too long book have happened over the course of one week??

Bryce is a the antithesis of the character she was built out to be in the first two books, and the mimicked those she claimed to rally against. The other characters are fighting for air time somehow in such a long book. Lidia is best supporting actress.

Two extra irritating things:
- the entire book is written like a tv show- short scenes with constant location changes - but there are no visual indicators. Not even a chapter change to swap locations and characters. Just a double line break between paragraphs and we’re jumping one world to another.
- the most irksome sentences in these books are “it was all he could do” WHAT WAS ALL HE COULD DO??

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abbey72k's review

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This installment of the Crescent City series had me hooked from the very beginning. I am a huge fan of SJM and this book did not disappoint. Loved the pacing of this book nothing felt like it was dragging. SJM has a tendency to pack a lot of action in the last hundred or so pages of her books and this one felt like major events were taking place throughout the whole thing. This might be due to the multitude of POVs throughout the novel. Altogether this was a fantastic finish to the overarching plot of CC so far with lots of twists and turns as well as an ending that felt satisfying. Also since I’m an SJM fan and have read her books up to now I loved all the nods to other works and callbacks to previous plot lines.

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kristinallard's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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jennipea382's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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kamrynkoble's review

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

My overall emotion is just disappointment and dissatisfaction.

This was hardly a crossover. It was more like a Nesta and Azrael cameo. I love Nesta more than anything, and I did love the scenes with her, but I just . . . expected more. I’m still really disappointed that Bryce didn’t even meet Feyre, and they only mentioned her twice as Rhys’s mate. I think SJM’s interviews and marketing strategies drastically oversold this “crossover.”

It just really didn’t feel like “enough” even though she had 850(!) pages to play with. Bryce and Hunt were so disappointing. Their “reunion” is CRIMINALLY awful. They just had no emotional charge or spark in this book. I felt super disconnected from Bryce constantly, and the bouncing around POVs did not help that. Her anti-fae BS also continually grew more and more annoying each time she met more fae who WEREN’T that way. It seemed extra aggressive in this compared to books 1 and 2, which I JUST read.

I HATED the info dumping with Thea. I just didn’t care, at all, and it was presented in such an unappealing way. If I tried to read it, I skimmed. If I tried to listen to it, I’d zone out. And yes, I read all three formats (print, kindle, and audio) to slog through this one.

I never laughed out loud, and I was never even close to crying or even felt emotional at all. SJM is usually so good at nailing that ending which makes up for some greater issues, but the Asteri defeat was so anticlimactic. How many times can she kill and resurrect main characters? I wasn’t worried about Bryce at all. This was literally me: 🙄

My biggest complaint with all the CC books is how many characters are seemingly pointless. It’s like SJM introduces them for a greater purpose, but then just forgets about them or kills them off and it all feels like a waste. Danika is dangerously close to this, as she was effectively dead for 95% of this trilogy. Sigrid, Sophie and her brother, Sathia… Apparently if you get an S-name, you’re useless. And the dragon girl? There were just so many guns that were created, but never fired. She says this is the end of Bryce and Hunt, so I’m very curious to see where this goes next. This worldbuilding is infamously hard to get into, and this just felt like such a letdown.

I read that SJM completely scrapped her first draft and rewrote this book in six weeks. If this is true, it makes a lot of sense. It’s just missing so much heart and follow through. I’d be very curious to hear why this happened and read the first draft.

I originally gave this a 4 but writing this review, I’m going to have to take it down. What did I love?

Ruhn. Lidia. Oh my word. They were the shining stars (lol) of this book. I LOVED both of them and their relationship. Night and Day was one of my favorite (if not my most favorite) subplots of CC2, so it’s no surprise that I adored them. I’m still not sold on Ruhn shooting her (which, again, turned out to be COMPLETELY POINTLESS) but oh well.

I wish we got a little more Hypaxia. Her relationship with Celestina also fizzled out in such a stupid way. It feels like that was just thrown in for shock value. Like so much else, SJM just threw us a bone with one sentence explaining what happened.

Ugh. I’m just a little sad. I expected a lot more from this. I’ll be interested to see if my opinion changes as I stew.

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sam_gartley91's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad 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? No

3.75

Loved it! And really anything SJM does. But it was really whiplashy with multiple pov in the same chapter. And that Bryce seemed to be doing some of the work off page at times so she knew things the audience didn’t. She did that last book too and it wasn’t my fav. It wasn’t like that the audience was learning with her. It bugged me a bit. The fantasy meets sci-fi was interesting and I don’t think I’ve seen that before. There are still some characters that I would love to learn more about. Like what is fury?!! So I’m curious where if anywhere SjM is going next with this series world. The cross over wasn’t exactly what I expected good at times and a little let down at others. I really just wanted them all to be friends!! Which maybe in the future they will/could get there. But overall SjM did seem to tie everything up in a bow. Now it’s for the world to reset itself up. Overall loved it but wish it was difffernt at times.

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sha's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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