A review by anastashamarie
House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas

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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