Review of Crescent City: House of Flame and Shadow

[Ambar Gill]

!SPOILERS AHEAD!

My rating is 2/5 stars, if I'm feeling generous then maybe 3.

My oh my, where to begin? I don't know how many of you are familiar with Sarah J Maas and her books but let me begin by saying this was a letdown. The reason I love her writing and books so much is because of her attention to detail and ability to create magic in everything she writes. However, this series just did not do it for me.

She starts the series strong with Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood and I was incredibly excited to see what she would come up with because her previous works are amazing, in my opinion. Unfortunately, this was the only good book in the series. Book 2 felt like a dragged-out filler with an out-of-place and almost ridiculously thrown-in plot twist, in the end, to have readers coming back. Now I was excited because suddenly our main character Bryce found herself in our beloved ACOTAR world but the crossover was boring and lacklustre. The only people she met were Nesta, who seems to have digressed into her previous two-dimensional self and Azriel, who honestly could not have been there and it would not have made a difference. After a dragged-out walk through some caves and a hologram telling the tale of the Asteri, Bryce makes a disappointing journey back to her world. It felt like a crossover that should have never happened because it gave nothing to the series.

My next irk, is the absolutely unnecessary amount of POVs and from some characters that should not have even had the page time that they did (*cough* Tharion and Ithan *cough*) Multiple perspective changes within chapters that made me feel like I could not connect to any one story because as soon as I did, the perspective would change again. It was especially frustrating because some of these characters were annoying and added NOTHING to the story, while characters that were substantial to the first two books, like Fury and Juniper, were pushed to the side and given almost no time at all. They suddenly became side characters when it made no sense, especially considering how much attention was given to Fury in the previous book, alluding to her being deadly and feared by most. She could have been so helpful in this book, but nothing, she was given half a page in an outrageous 800-page book, allocating her to babysitting duties.

Probably the most baffling part of this book is the speed and efficiency with which Bryce and her friends defeated the Asteri. In the first book, it's explained that the Archangels, who run most of the world are these near "god-like" beings, with tremendous power and the Asteri were absolutely beyond that, untouchable and massively feared. Bryce was given an enormous amount of time and detail to her fight with Micah, the Archangel of Crescent City in the first book, where she lost a dear friend and written so well that we were all waiting with bated breath to see what would happen next. It was a fulfilling fight and you cheered Bryce on the entire way. However, in this book, with these near untouchable Asteri, it takes Bryce all but a few pages to take out 6 of them by herself. It made no sense. It was rushed and poorly written. After all that build-up and all the dedication her readers have given her, that was what we got? It felt like she just wanted the series to end and it came through while reading. I even wanted it to end, which is never the case with one of her books. I'm usually hoping it'll go on longer.

Here are some more points that add to why I rated the book the way I did because there are just too many to explain in detail:
1. Instead of Tharion's and Ithan's POV, a much more worthwhile POV could have been given to Fury, Lidia or even Jesiba.
2. The insane amount of lack of detail given to Hel and the Princes of Hel, even though their build-up and stories would have been so interesting and it seemed like we were going to know more about them! We got nothing. About them, their world or their stories. They came to fight, which apparently they'd been waiting 15,000 years to do (I guess nothing else was going on in Hel, so they were just waiting with a full army)?? and just left, never to be heard from again, which from previous books seems ridiculously out of character.
3. Lidia being a mom was such a lazy add-in for her motivations. She is an amazingly interesting character and instead of giving her a worthwhile story, like what we're used to seeing from Sarah, this just felt like a copout.
4. Storylines that added nothing to the plot should have been removed or summarized on the side to give more detail to the plot and the battle we waited three books for.
5. Bryce spent the majority of her time complaining about the injustice of her world and when finally given the power to change it, she throws it away in such a disappointing way.
6. The number of disappointing character deaths: Bryce's father? The king of Avallen? Sigrid? Sabine? The Prime? The Under King? Jesiba? The Asteri?? Lidia taking out Pollux was the only satisfying one.
7. Every single character felt two-dimensional. They all had one personality, which was either "boring" or "untreated trauma", which, by the way, never gets treated! Everybody is just fine with all they've endured by the end of the book.
8. Bryce and Hunt were both annoying and as the main characters, made reading their POVs aggravating.
9. For 800 pages, the book felt so rushed and also somehow, dragged out. The parts that should have been explained weren't, and the parts that didn't need to be explained were given so much detail. This book, if stuck to the plot, could have been 500 pages.
10. Even though the main plot ended, none of the characters had satisfying endings. I'm assuming to squeeze out another book but honestly, it all could have been wrapped up in this.
11. This entire series does not hold up to any critical thought. Once you start to think about it, it falls apart.

I know another book is supposed to come out but I don't think I will be reading it. I have no desire to reread these books and all the excitement I had for them, is gone. Super disappointing, but alas, it is what it is. Honestly, after Crescent City 1, every book Sarah J Maas has released has been poorly done, which is incredibly sad. It feels like the end of an era.