Reviews with content warning for Confinement - House of Sky and Breath

What a freaking GREAT read. The plot is a bit thinner than the first one but without the slog of the world building. There is still more learning about the characters and the world but I found it a lot less info dumpy. I love every character and did love that this book and more POVs and more back and forth. Bryce and Hunt may have moved up to be my favorite SJM couple and they're are just so delightful with the banter and the growth and love they have. And like everyone says...THAT ENDING. I had the very, very end spoiled for me but the build up and the twists and turns still made it one hell of a ride.
If I had to make ken complaint it's that

Danika is dead and SJM seems to just hand off anything to her and her lil' secrets club. She's gone so we don't get to hear anything from her about her motivations and can only speculate. But how many damn secrets was she walking about with??

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amanda_reads13's review against another edition

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tense fast-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

3.5

As Bryce and Hunt are trying to settle into a "normal" life, they are pulled into the rebel plans.

I was a little lost for most of this book as to why it was necessary (considering the HEA we got in book one), but as we progressed through the book it made more sense. I really liked how the multiverse was beginning to be revealed. I am excited to see how she is going to tie all these worlds together, especially after that ending!!

I felt like Dankia and Jesiba were over used to "explain" or conviently give them things. Dankia was one busy woman. How did she live this entire other life and keep a never ending list of secrets from Bryce? And Jesiba just gives Bryce whatever she needs? I feel like this is a cop out.

Speaking of women, where are all the women at? This was a very male heavy book. Can we get a few more women in the mix?

I liked that we got to see a bit more of the side characters, because the are really great. I am interested to see the direction of each one, especially

Tharion's blood oath (will the dragon be involved here?), Ruhn/Lidia, and Ithan/the Fendyr alpha!

I found the big "reveal" to be interesting. The Asteri survive off of first and secondlight of other species. It is revealed that they have have conquered different planets that they deemed suitable, then drained the life force. But have also destroyed many other planets that rebelled. We are told that both Hel and Prythian had both successfully banished the Asteri.

It turn out that Midgard is actually made up of a collection species the Asteri has stolen from other world to feed on. This explains why the Great Library of Parthos stays hidden. The Asteri do not want the citizens to know the truth of where they came from and what happened before the Asteri conquered the world. They do not want a full scale rebellion. The Asteri also created the Malakim!

We know that is possible for the Asteri to be killed because one was killed when Hel rebelled. So will Bryce return with the knowledge of how to kill them?

Tropes: urban fantasy, multiverse, mates, found family

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anjasshelf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-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

4.0

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erkietheturkey'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? Yes

4.75

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helloimjacq's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful tense slow-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

5.0

I didn’t love the second book as much as the first one, but this was still a 5 star read. The story was a bit slow for this book, and I want to say this was more of a filler book (sets the story up perfectly for the next book though). There was a lot of character growth and you get to know some new characters as well. It’s a long book so come prepared (took me a week which is pretty slow for me). The ending was definitely worth it though! I need the third book now please!!!

Just a side note, if you haven’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses, I highly recommend reading that series before this book to better understand Sarah’s writing style as well as certain themes/nuances. I would say it’s not 100% necessary but it’s the best way to familiarize yourself with certain aspects present in her worlds (overall it makes the breakdown of this series much more interesting).

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anastashamarie's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

4.25/5. I feel like everyone is rating this purely on the last pre-epilogue chapter if I'm being honest, but I'm trying to be objective here. I'm gonna keep this short and sweet because I feel like anything more would be spoiler central...

First 1/2 to 2/3 of the book is a 3/5. The pacing was slow. The plot was unnecessarily convoluted, with tons of dead ends that didn't really move the story forward imho. I honestly put the book down multiple times to read other things because it just wasn't keeping my interest that well. But we got lots of Bryce and Hunt and lots of friendship moments (both of which I love) so I'm not too mad at it.

Last 30-40% of the book is solidly 4.5 stars, however. After the first half drug on, the pacing was cranked up to 1000, and I felt like I couldn't put it down in the way I've felt about other SJM books. The last 300 or so pages were very intense, to the point that, as I neared the climax of the story, my husband asked "why I was so jimoy and breathing heavily."

And yes, that ending has me VERY intrigued and VERY excited to see what comes next. But I don't think that it's fair to call this 5 stars just because I like where SJM is taking her storyline.

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vaguely_pink's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny 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

5.0

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jen1804's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

I enjoyed this read. Again this is a very long book and I feel it’s probably stretched out longer than it needs to be. But the plot is good and the character development is good, and I adore Hunt and Bryce’s relationship and the friendships SJM creates in this book. I think the book without the last chapter would be a 3.75 similar to House of Earth and Blood but with the addition of the mind blowing final chapter it gets a 4.0! The last chapter had me weeping out of sheer unbelievable excitement and I cannot waiiiiit for the rest of this series. #SJMmultiverse
Satisfactory ending? Yeah baby!

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