House Of Flame and Shadow

This book made me cry. And not in a good way.

This review contains spoilers for the SJM universe. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

I’ve done it. I finished it. Release me from this torment. 

House of Flame and Shadow is the third installment in the Crescent City series. It follows Bryce Quinlan, a super cool, super hot, and super powerful woman, as she tries to end the authoritarian rule of the Asteri—along with her 350 friends. 

Let me start this off by listing my credentials, before these people try to find where I live. Number One: I have a Master’s degree in Literature. I don’t say this to say I’m smarter than you. I most certainly am not. But do you know what I wrote my thesis on? Sarah J. Maas. My thesis research includes (and is dependent on, actually) A Court of Thorns and Roses. I love that series. I bow at the altar of A Court of Mist and Fury. I’m a hater, for sure. But I give credit where it's due. I like Maas’s work. Number Two: I’m a big fantasy reader. I’m not scared of world-building. I welcome multiple POVs and I get giddy over impenetrable magical systems. I’m down with the vision. 

With that being said, let me give you my opinions on this trainwreck. 

I really enjoyed the first Crescent City novel, House of Earth and Blood. It’s Sarah at her coolest: unique magic systems, narrative shifts, and a seemingly complex female main character. It’s a good mystery. The first act kills. It gets lost in the middle, but it finds its way back for a great finale. This is basically how I feel about the second book also. House of Flame and Shadow had a lot to live up to, especially after the implications of the end of the previous book (“Hello, Bryce Quinlan. My name is…” STOP reading this right now if you haven't read these books. Last warning.) 

We’ve waited for this for just about two years. Because of the pressure to deliver a crossover of this magnitude, this book was bound to let some people down. What I feared most was that there would be too many characters. And I was right. Where this book suffers most is the sheer deafening volume of all these voices. I counted. In more than one chapter, the point of view shifts eight. Times. Because of this, we’re 200 pages in and no one has gotten anywhere. Everyone is still in the same setting, same scene even, for the most part. For a book with so many storylines, the momentum is stalled with almost every new chapter. It takes so unbearably long to get anywhere because there are simply too many people to cater to. And I get it. If she abandons one plotline for too long, we’ll have forgotten about it. But I think I speak for most everyone when I say I honestly could not care less about Tharion and Ithan (one more “the wolves have to know there’s another option!” monologue and I would have laid in traffic).

Also because of this, arcs have to suffer. There’s so many people to pay attention to, that there is no time to fully develop anyone. Flynn and Declan, Ruhn’s best friends, are on the surface, intrinsic to the whole operation. But they’re diluted to guys who speak sometimes. To comic relief. To guy who answers the phone and says “on it” and hacks into the mainframe. Literally. 

Sathia Flynn, Tharion’s wife from a marriage of convenience, shows up over halfway through the book, has a girl-power moment with Bryce, and then leaves again to…* checks notes *... save her ex boyfriend? It doesn’t seem like Tharion learns anything or that the story benefits from this whatsoever. Perry, the Omega of the Black Rose pack, serves a similar purpose. Why is Ithan smelling her “cinnamon and strawberry scent” all the time? I’m happy for her for standing up to the wolves, but don’t we have a planet to save? The same can be said for Ariadne, the dragon. Other characters too. This is not to say that minor characters are not important. They are, absolutely. But when there are this many major players already suffering from a lack of development, why throw in ten more people?

Everything is rushing toward a final battle with the Asteri. Let me take a second to say the Asteri are great villains. I like that they’re “Intergalactic parasites” who have no power other than what they steal from others. I even like the nod that they tried to do the same with the world of ACOTAR and failed.

But because of the stunted momentum, caused by all the jumping around, the final battle just… fizzles out. There is no payoff, because there was no real buildup. The Princes of Hel are so criminally underused. They’ve been dancing in our periphery for three books now and we get almost nothing from them but an army of little freaks. All these big deaths of these big bad guys—that are so impossible to kill we had to leave the planet to get help from two separate worlds!—are supposed to be huge and epic and cathartic, they just happen… off-page? And so abruptly! One Asteri dies at the hands of Bryce, in a one-two punch that finally shows us what the combined power of the Starsword, Truth-Teller, and Theia’s star can do. And that is cathartic. After all this talk of what her power can “probably” do, we finally see it work out. Love that. But the rest die in pretty much one fell swoop, with no fighting whatsoever. And then that’s it? 

Let me change the subject. Another significant problem, and this goes for many of the later books in all three of Maas’s series, is the de-characterization of some of her most important characters. I would argue that Bryce is a complete stranger in this entry. I would describe Bryce as stubborn, selfless, and whip-smart. I would say she would run into a burning building to save a cat. To do the right by others, she’d do just about anything. This is the girl who ran through a demon-ridden Lunathion on her own to save innocents. The girl who crawled into the shower to comfort Hunt, a guy she didn’t know at the time. The girl who sold her soul to the Underking for her friend to have a dignified burial. The Bryce in this book, I don’t know her. Here’s an abbreviated list of things she should care about, but doesn’t: She doesn’t care about Lidia’s sons being kidnapped. She doesn’t care about Ruhn or Baxian in the dungeon, just Hunt, mostly. She cares so little about Hunt’s trauma that she actually accuses him of not having his head in the fight. And when the big attack on Asphodel Meadows happens, the human neighborhood of Crescent City, she has about a paragraph of reaction then we never hear about it again. Her biggest crime, I think, is her raising the Fallen. How has no one been talking about how sick and twisted it is to raise hundreds of dead angels and fuse their souls to mechanical machines and make them fight their doomed cause over again? It would be one thing if it was all they had, but these bastardized versions of angels are just a distraction. That makes me feel a little weird, not going to lie! 

I still have so much to say, guys. Let me try to get through them quicker, before my last big grievance. 

Hunt has no real arc. His whole “Just Hunt” epiphany is undercooked, and his Son of Hel revelation is a useless explanation of how he has lightning powers. For Throne of Glass readers, I almost think Hunt is Bryce’s Chaol. 

I have this same criticism of a lot of SJM’s work: all the planning, all the cleverness is done off-page. It works really well sometimes (looking at you, ACOMAF climax) but most of the time it reads as a groan-inducing snoozefest of “uhh that just happened!” style dialogue and plot reveals. Very “You and what army?”

Everything in this book is so convenient. Every answer to every question, they just stumble on in the town square basically. 800 pages and there is not one moment where they actually have to discover something and it takes longer than 5 pages. We find out that Bryce’s Starborn power from Theia is actually one of three pieces of Theia’s star that she split and gave to each of her daughters. Directly following, a mission ensues to find the other two pieces. And lo and behold, it was under our feet the entire time! Give me a break. 

Speaking of Marvel-esque dialogue. The writing in this is crazy. Like actually insane. Hunt’s cock is too big for the underwear on the Depth Charger? Ithan is “just…a dude?” A very large part of the climax takes place in actual space! At more than one point, I put down the book and wondered aloud, “what are we doing?” (Also see: Ithan’s entire storyline, Tharion offering to marry Sathia. Baxian munching on Ruhn’s hand).

I know while I’m talking about this, I should mention the part where Hunt realizes that he is “Made” because he finished inside Bryce and therefore their souls are entwined, but I can’t bring myself to say anything else about it. Please leave me alone. 

These are all small complaints, though. The two big ones are really: 1. There are too many characters and 2. The crossover. 

Feyre, they will never make me hate you. I will avenge you for the treatment you’ve suffered at the hands of this book. This is how I see the crossover: a completely worthless fan service that accomplishes nothing but getting the Mask and Truth-Teller into Bryce’s hands, and a wink-wink to the audience about the Wyrd marks, Lidia’s connection to Terrasen, and the Fae’s roots in Prythian. I don’t even mind these smaller implications. Urd comes from Wyrd and Lidia is probably related to Aelin. That’s cute! It has no real stakes and can serve as a history of sorts. 

It’s the actual hands-on crossover part that bothers me. Nesta and Azriel are the only real participants. Why are they hanging out? Where is Cassian? Nesta gets a Silver Flames Part Two and has more redemption? It’s so out of place. Now is not the time for it. I understand there’s another connection between her and Bryce with the eight-pointed star, but still.  

I think the crossover should have been Bryce going to Prythian, Bryce finding out information, Bryce getting the Mask and Truth-Teller, and we never see or hear from them again. Of course, Bryce should have given Truth-Teller back and I’m glad she did. I almost DNF’ed on the spot when she took it from Azriel and he was panicked. 

But the crossover compromises existing characters to serve the needs of the Crescent City characters, and I find it strange. Maas does this thing where she throws characters to the wind if they no longer serve her. She threw Feyre aside to serve Nesta, and threw all of ACOTAR aside to serve Bryce. 

Nesta even gets a weirdly out of place scene at the end, where Ember–Bryce’s mother– hugs her and says that the time she has spent with her has been a gift. We watch in real-time as Nesta gets mommy issues resolved in the very same scene as Feyre Cursebreaker herself is referred to as “Rhysand’s mate”.

The foul disrespect of Feyre Archeron will be my villain origin story. But I’m with everyone on the assessment that it’s not her book, it’s not her time! But if that’s the case, why is Nesta here? If that’s the case, why does Amren get to be there, why does Rhys? Why does Azriel? The complete omission is worse than having her be in the room and not say anything, I think. She is referred to only as “Nesta’s sister” and “Rhysand’s mate.” That is Feyre Cauldron-Blessed! The High Lady of the Night Court! The girl who defeated a Middengard Wyrm as an injured human with no weapons, while it took Nesta, Bryce, Azriel, and an ancient unknowable evil Mask to defeat one. Maas reduced her to a pregnancy trope in Silver Flames to benefit Nesta, and did worse in this book: reduced her to nothing. I actually cried at the “Rhysand’s mate” line. This is not empowerment. This is not feminism. This is not even girl-bossing. In fact, I think it’s a colossal failure and betrayal of a beloved main character, and not even for a solid reason. I don’t even think Nesta provides much of anything to this plot. Even her characterization, which to Maas’s credit, is very strong across her series, is diminished down to simply responding to Bryce in conversations.

My ears are pouring steam, let me relax. I hated this book. And it sounds like I hate Maas’s work. I don’t. I love the first three ACOTAR books so much I devoted my academic life to them. I don’t love Throne of Glass, but I love Manon, Dorian, and so much of the story as a whole. I love the first two Crescent City books, even though they’re bulky and long and there are too many characters. I even really liked Bryce! I think the Marvelification of SJM books has gone too far, though. I dread to see what she comes up with next. Elain ACOTAR book, I’m calling it now. My dear friend Ali says it best: “Anything she does that I like, I don't believe she does on purpose,” and I have to agree. 

1 / 5  stars