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

adventurous emotional funny tense fast-paced

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

4.0

“I love you. I fell in love with you in the depths of my soul, and it’s my soul that will find yours again in the next life.” — Sarah J. Maas

i truly didn’t see myself liking this series as much as a did. urban fantasy was never my thing. the ending to this trilogy though was what gave it my stamp of approval. maas set up so much not only in this series, but others as well that got us to an ending that was pretty satisfactory. the insane possibilities of the “maasaverse” as i see some calling it are very impressive. the thing that has always drawn me to this author since high school is her ability to weave a story together. as a TOG fan through and through, you can bet i caught on to the connections between lidia and aelin, so i will be pouring over reddit threads as theories begin to come up. 

the story, however, isn’t perfect. while i can commend the complexities of the lore and weaving together of storylines this book in particular was so heavy with world building and info dumping it was hard to keep up with. i truly don’t believe this needed to be a 800 page book, especially for the lack of character growth. insane length does not necessarily equal a literary masterpiece. as always, there were some aspects of maas’s writing that made me cringe. pretty much most of bryce’s dialogue (probably my least favorite of sjm’s fmcs). now, to address the crossover, i think everyone really hyped it up which heightened our expectations. i think because there was so much focus on the crossover it then felt a little lackluster, but with the power of this fan base it was bound to happen. 

despite my criticisms, i truly did enjoy the read. the cross over between sjm’s three series was so exciting for me to see as a long time reader and the ending to this trilogy had me smiling like crazy. having a background in creative writing can make me hyper critical, however if i book is able to make me feel things like this did then i still count it as a good book.