A review by montereads
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced

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

2.0

Definitely the instalment in this series that I enjoyed the least so far. Which… was this a trilogy? Is it over? It really says something, that I don’t even know. Anyway. Crescent City has always had a few things going for it: entertaining, accessible & easy, bombastic. The first also had lovable characters, tender moments, and some truly riotous laughter (the vacuum scene? Iconic. IYKYK). HOFAS, however, just did not live up. It gets one (1) bonus star for Lidia, whose storyline actually had some freshness and emotion. Otherwise, this was rough. To start, the pacing was terrible. Scenes from three or four different plotlines were frequently chopped up into 1- to 3-page chunks and alternated. They didn’t add to each other in any way—there was no clever concatenated reveal of information, no emotional resonance between the chunks, etc. It was simply disorienting. This, combined with lacklustre characterization, meant that big moments were underwhelming and the small in-between moments failed to tug at my heart the way they had in previous books. Add to that a Swiss cheese plot and every trope in the mass market fantasy bucket, and you’ve got 800+ pages of uninspired drivel trying to ride on the character development from previous books. I miss book 1 Bryce. Alas.