Usually no matter what feelings I am having for the books of one Sarah J. Maas—positive, negative, or meh—I at least find her books to be entertaining and I can’t usually put them down. Except for two books now: Kingdom of Ash, and now this one. I’m pretty sure I know why I wasn’t satisfied by this reading experience, and was quite frequently annoyed by it, but I’m not sure WHY it’s that way. In my opinion here two strongest books are A Court of Mist and Fury and the previous book in this series, House of Earth and Blood, so it’s extra weird to come off a book that was so super sure of itself to . . . this.
One of the reasons I’ve been putting this review off since August is that because the book felt so jumbled, my thoughts did, too, so I’m bullet-pointing this one to try to reign in the chaos.
First, the good:
- hahah coming up blank
- Okay, I just had to think a bit. I did give this three stars after all.
- The worldbuilding I actually am really interested in. I like that all these different types of beings are in one place for some reason (we find out why at the end of this book). I like that it’s set in a more urban, contemporary era. It’s complex but not overwhelming, and makes for a good storytelling playground.
- I do like all these characters, even if this story doesn’t serve them well.
- The overall arc of the trilogy seems solid to me: SPOILERS The idea of these all-powerful beings only being powerful because they eat the life essences of the people and planets they conquer is a really good one, and I like that the goal seems to be to defeat them, though I don’t necessarily have faith that the way it will play out in execution will be good (see, again: Kingdom of Ash) END SPOILERS.
- More LGBTQIA rep? Though still not very much. No main characters, no POV characters. Come on, Sarah. This is a backhanded bullet-point.
- There were some individual scenes, moments between characters, and arcs that did grab my attention quite a bit. But again, see below for why that’s also a negative.
Okay, I’m tapped out. Here’s the stuff that didn’t work:
- This book was so stuffed full of STUFF that nothing had room to breathe, and most of the plots and characters weren’t developed enough.
- House of Earth and Blood was such a good read, despite my criticisms of it, because it had a strong central plot, and two central characters with clear arcs and goals. This book had neither. No central plot, no central characters.
- Relatedly, Bryce and Hunt fade into the background, and even though neither of them are favorite characters of mine, I was really invested in their story in the first book. That fizzles out pretty quickly here.
- Also relatedly, TERRIBLE sex scenes. Just awful. I hate when authors get all porny and leave out the emotion. Also, not every sex scene has to be a torment of ecstasy or whatever the fuck. Like, people laugh and talk during sex? It can be weird and gross but also nice a the same time! Her sex scenes never feel real, and thus never feel sexy to me. I skip them now to be honest. They are also embarrassing to read because I feel like now I know what kind of stuff she likes and it squicks me out.
- We went from two POV characters in the first book to I don’t even know how many in this one. What even was the point of Tharion? Get him out of there! Most of the new POV characters weren’t necessary, I just feel like SJM likes her creations so much that she thinks everyone else wants to spend as much time with them as possible, and I personally do not. The only two I think were good and useful were Ruhn and the werewolf whose name I’m forgetting, because the plotlines his POV introduced were interesting and couldn’t be gotten through any other character. But again, both of those POVs suffered because were always spending time elsewhere.
- Oh did I also mention that every single one of those new POVs is a dude? And that Bryce’s lady friends are barely in the book? They’re barely even tertiary characters at this point, and Danika is dead, so. Anyway, sausage fest.
- Speaking of Danika, SJM continues to squeeze as much out of her dead character as possible, and what was sweet and emotionally affecting about her relationship with Bryce and Bryce’s grief in book one just becomes annoying here. A new discovery about this dead woman happens every hundred pages or so, and it is frankly ridiculous at this point. Did Danika even sleep?
- OH! And while part of me thinks the ending opens up the world in a cool way, the bigger part of me thinks the next book is just going to be even more of a clusterfuck, just this time with added SPOILERS Rhysand END SPOILERS.
So that’s how this book went for me. Will I continue to read her books? Yes. I’m too curious for my own good.