Synopsis: 'Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that’s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.

Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he's in the Asteri's dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce's fate. He's desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri's leash, his hands are quite literally tied.' from crescentcity.fandom.com/.

EFF you Sarah, I should send you my therapist bill after what part 1 put us through.

With that being said, truly an incredible read. We've heard of the darkness our favorite characters have gone through via memories, but Sarah put us there in realtime and it definitely hit deep.

Part 1 is very difficult to get through, not because of poor writing, but due to the very graphic scenes that I may agree were necessary for the story. However, the absence of comedic relief did not go unnoticed. I felt like Bryce in part 1 was a completely different character than the first two books. I still don't understand the need for the "munch munch" in part 1, but it doesn't seem like the characters were traumatized nearly as much as the readers were.

I'm still buzzing from the ACOTAR tie in and hope we see more again soon. There is another tie in mention that I hope is developed more, but out of respect for spoilers, I'll refrain from further details.

There was never a dull moment in this book, which made the 835 pg read breeze by. Despite the numerous poor choices made by Ithan and Tharion, followed by a ridiculous amount of whining from both, the storylines were cohesive. There are a couple side plots that weren't fulfilled, but I suspect that means we'll get more down the road.

Maas is a literary gem to this generation and I can't recommend her books enough to anyone interested in fantasy/romantasy. ( )

Overcooked, overbakes, overdone ( )

Firstly, to whichever Harris Teeter employee fucked up and shelved two copies of this into the corner of the book section just a week before the official release date, THANK YOU!

Here’s all of my VERY SPOILERY notes that I took while reading House of Flame and Shadow for the very first time. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. :)

• Lidia I love you
• Noooo Ruhn and Hunt and Baxian ( )

disappointed in how nonsensical most of it was. Wayyyyyy too long and of course all the action was in the last 100 pages. I loved seeing the ACOTAR world again but most of the book felt….out of character. For all characters. And I cringed a lot, which I never did with SJM. It felt like this Maasverse was played up a lot in her head but failed to deliver its emotional value through the writing/plot. A lot of the tropes are getting repetitive, I fear. The last 10 pages were pleasant. Overall, very mid. ( )

House of Flame and Shadow
I can't say that I am a die hard fan of all of Sarah J. Maas books don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed them for the most part but if you sat down and asked me all about them I probably would draw a blank.

🤷‍♀️
House of Flame and Shadow is probably one of those books that was so highly anticipated and I'm guilty myself of preordering the Kindle edition because it was going to be out before the hard cover, then I get the hardcover because let's be honest she is beautiful. Which I feel the publishing industry lately has been taking full advantage of this phenomeno of people buying books just to buy (like me ) LOL, in the fantasy realm of books is that we all get suckered in with these overly hype books and the beautiful art to only get a so- so story.

In all honestly these books are too long for no reason at all by the time I get to the end I have forgot half of what I already read, or maybe it's just me. I mean I just finish reading this book this morning and I'm already blanking out on a lot of it, however them last 6 chapters were what saved this book from being a 2 star for me. What happened in the beginning was just a cross between a weird cross over that you would see on The Flash and Arrow, then the next episode they move on and the cross over didn't exist at all.

I am not even a huge fan of ACOTAR, but wtf was the lack there of in control with the characters. I don't know I want to think maybe Sarah J. Maas is working something out to bring out a bomb shell in another book with the characters of ACOTAR but there seemed to be a lot of plot holes, like there was a huge element missing. Also did and I probably forgot or missed something but where the hell were Fury and what's her face throughout this whole book. I don't know you would think I really disliked this book but I didn't. The last 6 chapters is what saved it for me and had me really loving it but only enough to give it the rating that I did. I even shed a few tears because wtf that was an emotional roller coaster for me.

This for sure taught me a lesson, stop buying books that are highly anticipated and overly hype because they never meet my expectations. ( )

I am at a loss for words... I giggled, I laughed, I high-fived them all... I sobbed, I cried and I had multiple minor heart attacks... But I am happily speechless ( )

I understand why some people are upset at this book, and it does have its flaws — I struggled with the pacing during part one, and had hoped for more expansion on *that* plot twist (iykyk) at the end of HoSaB... But as a passionate fantasy reader this was perfectly plotted for me.

I saw someone compare HoFaS to Kingdom of Ash and I think that's an apt comparison in the way both stories bring everybody together in a "this is it" final battle. Romantasy is definitely put on the backburner like in KoA in favor of wrapping up an intricate storyline, and for me that was perfect. But there's also enough curious possibilities left unresolved to make a return to this world, (and the Maasverse at large), extremely enticing. ( )

Tucked in amidst the fantasy world building, adventure, and sex (book 2 was hotter) is a thoughtful exploration of legacy, accountability, rehabilitation, and change. I especially appreciated that the happy ending had some ragged edges and lingering questions - perhaps just to lay the groundwork for another book / a new linked series, but satisfying never-the-less. ( )

Bryce finds herself not in Hel, where she meant to go, but to the Night Court being held by Rhysand, where she learns important information about the history of Midgard how to beat the Asteri. Meanwhile, Bryce, Ruhn, and Baxian are being held - and brutally tortured by Pollux - in the dungeons, and the Hind, Lidia, is working to free them. Their other friends, including Tharian, Ithan, Declan, and Flynn, will also be working towards the ultimate goal of upending the corrupt government set up by the Asteri to use everyone's firstlight for their own power.

What I generally like about Sarah J. Maas's books is that she writes characters I care about and plots her stories with twists I don't see coming but in a way that makes perfect sense upon reflection. This book doesn't do any of that. Almost nothing of note other than Bryce's discoveries in the other world happen after 400 pages, and I almost put the book down then. I wish I had, because it doesn't get better. To be fair, it's been almost two years since I read the last book, so I'd forgotten who some of the characters were and how they got where they were. But there are an awful lot of characters to follow, and the point of view changes between them frequently, sometimes only a couple of pages at a time, for no discernible reason. A brand-new character gets introduced halfway through the book, and only really has a role for another 200 pages or so. Characters don't talk when they could and then have really awkward conversations at stupid moments when they should be concerned about other things, like surviving. The story is fairly predictable and even felt jerked around to get characters to the right place or the right thing to happen, with the magical abilities of a character just conveniently being what was needed at a particular moment. I kept reading because I knew that things got resolved with the Asteri and Bryce & Hunt's story wraps up in this book, and I wanted to know what happens. But I was annoyed with the characters most of the time, not invested in the story at all, and by the time I got to the action at the end, I didn't really care. The book needed a good editor and about half as many pages, and sadly could've much better. ( )

So i would say this is 100% not my favorite. But I love this world. In my personal opinion still my favorite world and characters. But to each their own.
But for the story itself the first 300 pages…i wanted and excepted sooo much more. The rest for me was on par with the first two books.
Regardless of the ending I’m glad to have seen the characters on this journey. ( )

Of course I loved it. Bryce cracks me up constantly in these books. The only part that was hard follow was the jumps back and forth between what was going on with each character. Like there were no page breaks or new chapters to switch back to a different character situation. It eventually didn't continue to be distracting but it was at first. ( )

This felt like a conclusion to the series which makes me sad. I enjoyed this book. I will admit that the end seemed too rushed for me and a little too tightly wrapped up. But still a solid read. ( )

At some point, we knew it was all going to happen, and how it all connected. It's a very good book, and I devoured it in a day. ( )

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶🌶 /4

Main complaint currently - this was trying to do tooooo many things at once. We have a magical society, fae, shifters, but wait...... it's modern and there is technology.... but WAIT.... NOW THERE ARE SPACE ALIEN PARASITES, not to mention multi-verse crossovers.

It's an exciting story, there's a lot of amazing characters. A lot of great side characters and plots. But a lot of the side plot / character plotlines just seemed too clean by the end? Maybe because this is the 3 book start and not as intentionally as long as a TOG, but it seems like for 800+800+950 pages of books... it somehow still felt like it was trying to do too much (even with all that space).

Ending couple of chapter spoiler:

The fact that our star born princess, with all of her power, and her angel + son of Hel mate have to save each other by combining the soul of his dead ex gf and leader with a iron man meets pacific rim style mech suit to save her from space.... like. Stop. just stop. Too. Many. Things. In. This. Multiverse.

**Final summary review:

Book 3: This is where things went off the rails a bit. The characters and plot lines had started going one way in book 2…. And then a BUNCH of them went in weird ways that just didn’t serve the characters. There were some plot holes left wide open. And in general, I think SJM got too excited to include TOO MANY new ideas…. Combined with getting too famous so editors were afraid to give her enough honest feedback about formatting & pacing.
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Bonus book 1-3 combo thoughts:

This series should be more like TOG: broken up into more books and each plot line given the time it deserves. I’m generally disappointed with how a bunch of the plot lines were either wrapped up or left hanging.
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Cheers to everyone else who’s disappointed and waiting for Az’s book so we can go back to Prythian instead. ( )

ending felt a little to pat ( )

After long years of waiting, the thrilling end to the Crescent City trilogy has arrived! I will admit, this one took me a while to get through. It was dense, and I suffered from a little bit of "not wanting to keep reading because when I finish it means that it's done."

I feel like the beginning and end of this book were both very strong, and the middle got kind of muddy. Stuff happens, sure, but I feel like a lot of it left me with more questions than answers. Maybe this just means that Ms. Maas is setting things up for more books, but for now it just left me a little unsatisfied.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy reading this. I did. I just wish that more of the questions I had had answers in this book. ( )

It was really good and I enjoyed it, but I have some quibbles... Other reviewers have said most of what I was thinking, so I'm not going to get into it. I'm glad there will be a 4th book to answer some of my questions (hopefully). I am glad that Bryce and Hunt got the ending they deserved though. Looking forward to re-reading this in the future to see what things I missed, and to see if my opinion changes at all. (And hopefully I'll get to read the bonus chapters soon too!) ( )

4.5 stars
My rating is so high because of my experience reading, not because all of the content was stellar. In fact, I was bored and annoyed at multiple chapters (namely Tharion and Ithan’s) but really enjoyed the bulk of the book and how it started and ended. I was impressed by the choices Sarah made and how to incorporate Maasverse elements - I think she did so well. I know I’m going to be spiraling like the rest of the Booktok world about what this means for CC4 and ACOTAR6. I stayed up laughing and cried at the end of this book and though I had hoped for some elements to be different I thoroughly enjoyed it. ( )

see other version for full review

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶🌶 /4 ( )