Olivia

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Olivia is Currently Reading

Olivia is currently reading

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

by Sarah J. Maas (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: adult-romance, fae, fantasy, magic, urban-fantasy, werewolves, witches, paranormal, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in February 2024

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Olivia said: " 3.5 stars rounded up

SJM is an incredible author and I’m in awe at the way she is able to weave elements together to create beautiful character driven stories whilst dropping breadcrumbs throughout all her books so that you are always finding somethin 3.5 stars rounded up

SJM is an incredible author and I’m in awe at the way she is able to weave elements together to create beautiful character driven stories whilst dropping breadcrumbs throughout all her books so that you are always finding something new when revisiting them.

There was a lot of hype and expectations for HOFAS and whilst I enjoyed the journey, I felt that there were areas where it fell flat and I think it’s the weakest conclusion to an SJM series which is a shame as I loved the first two CC books. Despite this, I still found it to be an overall enjoyable story and a satisfying conclusion to Bryce’s story. The book leaves room to explore more of CC in the future, possibly from another characters POV.

I enjoyed the crossover but I think many will be disappointed. I liked that it didn’t overshadow the story because at the end of the day this is a CC book and not a ACOTAR book. It served its purpose at delivering the information and establishing the beginnings of the massverse leaving the door open for further crossovers in the future as well as helping to set up the story for ACOTAR 5.

I thought Nesta stole the show and it was great seeing her through a strangers eyes. I loved how Bryce and Nesta were constantly trying to outsmart each other and you can begin to see the beginnings of friendship which I hope we will get to see more of in the future. It was also great to see more of Azriel in this book too. Nesta and Az was the duo I didn’t know I needed, they worked well together and I loved seeing how far they’ve come in their friendship.

Whilst I still enjoyed the story, I felt that some the reveals should have occurred earlier in the story, or even in books 1 and 2 and when they did happen, there was a lot of lengthy ‘info-dumping’. The constant POV changes were also quite disorientating, some were really short and would change just when something interesting was happening which was very jarring.

The final battle was underwhelming and anticlimactic, it was too easy, I wanted action and epic battle sequences which we didn’t really get and it was resolved far too quickly. This book only covers 5 days and a lot happens, I feel it could have benefitted from drawing it out over a longer timeframe.

There were also a lot of repeated elements in HOFAS from other SJM books and I felt like it could have benefitted from mixing up the formula rather than following the same patterns of previous books, as a result the stakes don’t feel that high as you never feel like anything of consequence is going to happen to the main characters.

In terms of romance, I wasn’t as invested in Bryce and Hunt which was a shame as they had so much banter and chemistry in previous books and I loved them for it. Here, there was more fighting and Hunt was reluctant to do anything and whilst I can understand why, it was still frustrating especially as Bryce was carrying the burden of everything and he didn’t feel very supportive. Their reunion wasn’t great despite being worlds apart, it should have been epic and I expected more.

Lidia and Ruhn were great though and I really enjoyed their chapters. Ruhn is a cinnamon roll and Lidia is such a badass and I loved the subtle nod about her heritage. Bryce and Ruhn’s relationship is one of the best things in this series, period. They have such an amazing sibling relationship and they will literally do anything for each other. I do feel that some characters were under utilised though, especially Fury and Juniper who only appear briefly and instead of being on the battlefield they get sidelined.

I’m interested to see what happens in CC4 which presumably is going to focus on Tharian and Ithan but we’ll probably have a long wait before we find out as there are other SJM books in the works. One things for sure though I’m very excited for ACOTAR 5. ...more "

Feb 10, 2024 01:36AM · see review