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8 reviews

Alyssa Smith

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Alyssa Smith is currently reading

House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in July 2024

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Alyssa Smith said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" The third instalment to SJM’s Crescent City series continues to follow Bryce Quinlan and Co through their adventures in Lunathion and Midgard. Maas further builds on well established worlds from her other series as well as the CC series, with the int The third instalment to SJM’s Crescent City series continues to follow Bryce Quinlan and Co through their adventures in Lunathion and Midgard. Maas further builds on well established worlds from her other series as well as the CC series, with the introduction of much loved characters the entire fandom is very happy to see back on the page. The first part of the book follows two main story lines with Bryce separated from the other main characters.

While I am a fan of the other books in this series, as well as other books by Maas, this book falls below the expectations. The multiple POV’s which we have seen so far on CC became very jumpy and provided some whiplash which made the story very confusing at times. The changing of POV’s mid-chapter I feel was unnecessary and detracted from the plot of the book.
Besides this, Bryce’s character development is flawed and she makes some odd choices for a Maas FMC and falls well short of the mark.
Other notable characters include Lidia “The Hind” and I found her character development surprising and well written and exactly what you would expect from Maas’ usual writing style.
Other main characters in this book were underdeveloped, such as Hunt. I would hope if we get another CC book, his character would be developed further and we have the chance to explore his heritage a bit more.
RDCPVF also makes some questionable choices in this book which I feel were not in line with his previous character development and not within the hype the fandom places with him. However, he does somewhat redeem himself and we can again find ourselves loving our prince.

Overall, the storytelling was good and the well established world building continues in this third instalment and is consistent across all 3 books. Despite the POV whiplash, the conclusion to the story was well written and brought some good closure for Bryce, Hunt and the main storyline. However, I would like to see a fourth book in this series as a lot was still left up in the air and hanging for a number of the other main characters.
I would recommend this book for anyone who loves fantasy, good world building, looking for Easter eggs and over analysing EVERYTHING! ...more "

Jul 17, 2024 10:20AM · see review