Reviews - The House of Always

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307 reviews for:

The House of Always

Jenn Lyons

4.2 AVERAGE

littletreetales's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book, because this is A Chorus of Dragons series and we wouldn’t have it any other way, was a wild ride.

One thing though: I had the same issue with this one as i had with the second book, and that is that after the events of the third book this one pauses everything to deal with a problem that just came up and to tell you what everyone else was doing during the events of the previous book. Which is fine, i do think we need both of those things, but pausing like this every other book disrupts the flow of the series a little bit and both times i haven’t been able to stop myself from wishing it would go faster so we could go back to the action of the main plot.

All this to say: it’s still good even while it feels like we’re standing still and by 50% in i was already back to being fully invested and immersed in this world, but by then it had started flowing along again, and this series truly reaches its peak every time it’s moving forward with a steady momentum. Pausing right after it blows up feel counterproductive in my opinion, but like i said it’s still good and i still enjoy it (the fact that the character work (something that never once has dipped in quality in this series) remains immaculate and they are all together by now helps a lot in that!!).

And of course the ending was marvelous in true fashion for Jenn Lyons, and if this pattern remains true the next (and final!) book will go back to the action (and pain???? help????) so I can’t wait!!!

sophiesmallhands's review

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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: Yes

Content Warnings

jenn_the_unicorn's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark 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: Yes

erperry's review against another edition

3.5

I'm invested enough to need to know what happens but also this book made me constantly just wish I was finished and knew the end. Also I still barely know what's going on.

yrc's review against another edition

4.0

Real rating- 4.25
I just finished this book, and what a Lyonlanch (like sanderlanch) we got!
Because this book is really hard to review, this'll be short and sweet.

In this epic installment, all parties understand the end is near and must decide what to do about it.
Kirhin being the bullheaded character he is comes up with an elaborate crazy plan on how to save the world and stop Vol Karoth. But, Janel, Tareath and co don't necessarily agree with the plan or its execution. Mix in to that time warping in Shadrag Gur and you get a rather experimental and potentially explosive outcome.

In my mind, Lyons had her work cut out for him with a growing ensemble of characters, locations and MANY flashbacks. While I did personally feel like there could have been less flashbacks, they absolutely gave me as a reader much more understanding of the characters pasts and motives. I especially enjoyed learning about Kalindra's past and seeing brother Qown develop. The book was full of discussion of what cause justifies the means, and I also appreciated the positive and poignant conversation of feeling physically and emotionally comfortable in one's body.

While I still liked the 3'rd over the 4'th, I highly recommend this book and will of course be reading expectantly to the very end!

owlsreads's review against another edition

4.0

The House of Always was disorienting! I was very much confused during the first few chapters and it took me a while to get into the rhythm of things here. Once I did, though? So much happened all the time and there were so many reveals in every chapter that I'm going to need some time to process.

I was pretty nervous with how this book was going to go considering the end of the previous one, but I loved how Lyons addressed certain points quickly and didn't drag anything as an excuse to create drama and angst. We already had plenty of that! The ending was very satisfying, in a way, and set things up so well for the final book in the series.