Reviews with content warning for Medical content - House of Flame and Shadow

I have waited for this book for so long and it did not disappoint. I saw a lot of people being disappointed by this book but I really enjoyed it. Yes there were a few things that annoyed me but all in all I think it was a super fun read and I loved all the backstory we got for the world and the characters.

This book pretty much finished the arc of this series and since I know that there will be a fourth book I'm curious to see what story she will tell there. I will definitely be reading it but I also did like the ending to this one and I could be satisfied with this just being a trilogy.

Now on to my spoilery thoughts:

1. I enjoyed Bryce being in the ACOTAR universe but I was kind of missing a second POV from over there. I really hope we get to know what happened on their side in the next ACOTAR book. I would be really disappointed if they just ignored this ever happening over there. Also I love the Ember & Nesta bonding!! And Randall bonding with Rhys over being overprotective fathers?? I love them! But I also was annoyed by Bryce. I get that she doesn't trust them and it makes sense, especially after she finds out they have been manipulating her but to just open that coffin??? She knows better than anyone how dangerous the Asteri are and still she just let one free on the off chance that she will answer her questions?? She is so so lucky that Nesta managed to kill her otherwise she would have doomed that whole planet!

2. Bryce treated Hunt quite badly for a while. I really like them both but their fights made me mad at them for not properly communicating. I can ignore it because I understand the pressure they were under but I think especially Bryce was really unnecessarily harsh towards him and didn't even try to understand what it was like for him and what he went through. She was so focused on her own goals and kind of made fun of him for feeling like it was his fault they were in this shitty situation. He was constantly trying not to make her angry and trying to show her support and I feel like she didn't give him the grace he deserved.

3. I LOVE Ruhn and Lidia. They absolutely have my heart. But still they annoyed me a bit especially in the beginning. Lidia gave EVERYTHING for him. She risked everything and he wouldn't even talk to her?? And then once she manages to save them all by almost giving her own life (!!!) She just immidiately shuts him out and tells him he's not worth knowing what happened to her.
They clearly are obsessed with each other though. But I also didn't like that they were so distracted by each other that they literally didn't realise their friends got kidnapped? The whole "you make me feel alive" thing almost makes up for it though.

4. Tharion had a TALENT for making people mad at him and defecting. It's almost comical at this point. He swears to marry the River Queens daughter but decides not to. Defects from the River Queen. Defects from the Viper Queen. Defects from the Ocean Queen. Then MARRIES A TOTAL STRANGER! And then offers to divorce her in order to go back to the River Queens daughter and marry her!!?? I mean this man's journey is absolutely insane. He fucked up so many times and even though it did annoy me a bit it also made him interesting somehow and I'm curious to see if he manages to not fuck up in the next book.

5. All in all we got so may unhinged things happening.
- Ithan and Hypaxia freezing the Under King and then destroying the ice statue? And then Hypaxia becoming Leader of Flame and Shadow?
- Rhys taking literally AGES to get to the House of Wind!? That man can literally winnow and fly! How is it possible that they just stand there having full conversations and big goodbyes all the while saying "oops be careful Rhys will be here soon! You can already see his shadows! They are are coming..." Why is he suddenly so slow it doesn't make sense.
- Lidia having sons? And literally racing to them after being resurrected(!!!) not caring about her own health. Where is that cool and calm Hind?
- Ithan killing Sigrid. Resurrecting her as a Reaper. Watching Sabine kill the Prime and Sigrid eat his Soul. And then killing Sabine and becoming Prime himself??
- Hunt being a Son of Hell??
- The whole Parasite thing?
- Bryce opening a Portal to a Black Hole in order for it to eat another Black Hole that was a Kill Switch for Midgard?
- The Soul of Shahar helping hunt to save Bryce?
- Tharion randomly being forced to marry Sathia?
- The Winged Horses being back?
- Lidias Flame magic?
- I could go on and on truly but also I'm obsessed and I love it

6. I wish we got more Fury and Juniper content. They were some of my favourites and Bryces closest friends and I hate that they kind of just got replaced by all the men. I LOVE all those men, don't get me wrong. But I really wanted to see more of them. I love that we got more from Lidia and Hypaxia whom I both ADORE! And I was happy to see Jesiba again. Still it almost felt like these two got irrelevant and I hate to see that.

7. I also LOVE multiple POVs and I think SJM does them so well! But in this book there were sometimes shifts of the POV within one chapter which confused me sometimes. Especially when we're still with the same group of people just a different person.

8. I still have SO MANY QUESTIONS and I really hope they get answered in the next book. My main one is what is Fury really? Where did she come from? What is her power? Also WHY is no one trying to save Vik? Have they all forgotten about her? She was Hunts friend and pretty powerful too? They do everything to save their friends and somehow they cannot manage one quick trip down the ocean to save her? We KNOW that she's still alive and suffering. If shes truly gone insane just get her and kill her so she's not suffering anymore!! And I'm also really curious about Sigrid. Is she going to be an enemy? Is she going to challenge Ithan? I hope she will become more than a plotdevice to make Ithan realise that he has to step up because no-one else will. Also what will happen to the witches? Will Morganthia fight against the new hierarchies? What will they do to replace the firstlight? Also what is going on with Ariadne? Who was she "bought" by? Why is she with the Viper Queen again? I thought that perhaps the Hind had bought her and she would help them with the escape (which ultimately turned out to be what Irithys did) but we just didn't hear from her again? That was kind of disappointing and I hope we get more about her in the next book. I also hope we get more from Celestina and Hypaxia. What even did Celestina do to make Ephraim not go help the Asteri? Is she mad at Hunt for almost killing her?
There is definitely a lot still to be explored in this universe and I'm excited for the next book.

Other things that I didn't like:
- Why did Danika just know EVERYTHING and not tell anyone? It's starting to feel like a plot convenience that everytime someone knows something without any reason it's just that Danika told them or wrote it down or something like that. Everything always ties back to her somehow.
- The whole parasite thing was strange. At first it was explained like it was just the reason people had to make the drop or die. And then it was something that hindered their full potential? But I thought the Parasite "ate" that magic so how can they just so easily bring it back? Also it was kind of weird how quickly Hypaxia managed to make an antidote.
- I don't like that we didn't get more about the motivations from Hel. They just showed up, helped and then left again saying "bye bye you don't ever have to see us again and you don't owe us anything we just wanted to help"?? I'm glad that they were real allies and didn't betray them but it didn't make sense to me that they didn't have an ulterior motive.
- And also I was kind of hoping to see a big confrontation between Hel and the Asteri. Especially Appolion. The one Asteri who was (presumably) killed by the Princes of Hell just died without us even getting to see it or it being properly mentioned. The time slowed and they went "oh wow guess another Asteri died" but I wish for how much they hyped them up we got to see some conflict between the Asteri and the Princes. Maybe some banter, some "this is for Theia" or something like that. Or at least show me what happens when they fight. The whole fight just went really quickly. Also why on Earth are we literally doing everything in this entire book to find out what the two blades can do and how to kill the Asteri when Bryce in the end just makes a portal? She doesn't even use the blades after the first kill??

Okay now on to what I liked:
It was basically everything else.
And honestly even the things I'm criticising did not bother me that much. I really wanted to keep reading and I think this book even pulled me out of my reading slump. It was so so FUN to read about and I had a great time. But im my opinion it was not only fun but GOOD. The worldbuilding and hierarchies and connections between different worlds and the overlaps etc were done so well! And they were genuinely interesting. Were there some small flaws and plotholes and some things only there for convenience? Sure. It's also quite unrealistic that almost all of our main characters survived this huge war but I don't care. I like happy endings and I think they all deserve to survive and be happy now. I also just really like the humour in this book, especially from Bryce. She might be a clique powerful protagonist now and somehow every single man is into her? but she's also so fun to read about and I love her! I wish we got to see more of her friendship with Nesta. And more of her with the other women in general. But all in all I'm happy with this book. I enjoyed reading it and I can't wait for the fourth book in this series!

Content Warnings

amy_in_the_city's review

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book was just OK. It did have some major issues and was definitely my least favorite of the three books in this series. I'm just glad to have a conclusion to the Asteri plotline, even if the final battle was underwhelming.

The book suffered from pacing problems. The first third of the book dragged on and on, with Bryce spending way too much time wandering through tunnels looking at art. Maybe it would have been a bit more interesting if we at least got some angst from Bryce, but it felt like she wasn't all that concerned about her mate and brother being in grave danger. There was no sense of urgency on her part to rescue them from being tortured and maybe eventually executed. Then, later in the book, we get to follow along as Bryce wanders through tunnels again. Not exactly riveting stuff.

There were also too many POVs happening to allow enough time with the main characters. I really didn't care about Ithan's and Tharion's storylines and dreaded every time it switched back to their POVs. They were mostly just those two characters making stupid mistakes followed by a lot of self loathing. I hope they make Tharion much more interesting and likeable if he's going to feature prominently in the next book. I did like his marriage of convenience subplot and think there is interesting potential there.

Bryce and Hunt's relationship was a mess in this book, and I really didn't like Bryce much. She never communicates her plans with Hunt. Then even though Hunt is blindly following her into danger, she picks fights with him because he isn't enthusiastic about being there. How can he be 100% on board with her plans when he doesn't know what they are? She doesn't seem to care that this is only a couple days after he got back from spending several days being brutally tortured for allowing her to drag him into this mess. Or that the situation is reminiscent of how things went with Shahar and to say that ended tragically would be an understatement. Bryce was being so disrespectful towards Hunt and his trauma because she wanted to look like a badass with gotcha moments and zingers. Really, it feels like most of her plans were half-baked at best, and they only work out in her favor because of plot armor. It didn't feel like an equal partnership between the main couple. Bryce just does whatever she wants, doesn't tell Hunt, and leaves him to deal with the consequences. At least she does apologize to Hunt for being a dick at one point, but I'd prefer if she didn't spend most of the book acting like a dick to begin with.

Ruhn and Lidia were this book's saving grace. I kept wishing they were the main couple because they were great, and I wanted the story to spend more time with them. Lidia was such a badass, so clever and sneaky. I love sneaky characters who know how to play along with the game in order to achieve their goals and there aren't nearly enough leading women out there like this. I don't know that we got enough justification for why she joined the evil side to begin with though, and I feel like the explanation for why she changed sides was kind of flimsy. Ruhn is almost perfect in every way, with a major exception for

when he shot Lidia to try to save her. That was kind of a patriarchal bullshit move.

. I still love him so much.

Other characters I really liked spending time with in this book were Nesta, Azriel, Hypaxia, and Aidas.

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cnannery19's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

rhiannon_burden's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I enjoyed this book at the root of it but Bryce was absolutely insufferable for the most part, she spent half the book complaining about the fae being selfish and callous and then proceeded to do exactly the same. She is essentially a hypocrite and I have no idea how Hunt puts up with her considering how horrible she was to him throughout. But despite what appears to be the popular opinion I enjoyed Ithan and Tharions stories as they had intricacies that others were lacking. There are some clear set ups for the next book namely the return of Ariadne at the end but otherwise the story felt finished as most ends were tied up.

Content Warnings

princessrory's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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frantically's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

guys i thought this was about fairy sex u lied to me 😭😭

Fully convinced that Sarah keeps making these books >800pgs so that by the time we get to the end, we've all forgotten the messy things in the first half. Not with me, Sarah, not with me!! 😤😤

But still, be aware that it took me 20 days to read this (because i was sick and fantasy is hard) and I have probably forgotten all of it.

The beginning had suuuch weird pacing. Bryce spends a solid 200pgs...going through caves?? While her friends are trying to save her and themselves and oh, also the world and she's just acting like me when I go to a museum being like "omg look at that carving!!" "if i were to analyse this..." "well, as an ancient fae historian..." which was extremely relatable to me (as the annoying history student in museums) but I'm not sure if we really needed all of that.

While loads of storylines were satisfyingly ended in this final part, especially in the beginning, there were so many started storylines that just seemed so unnecessary and had no consequences whatsoever for the story.

I'll be the first person to say it – this shit too sci-fi for me. There. The urban fantasy thingy was cute in the first and second book but girl why are we talking about black holes 😭😭 literally read like they were NASA agents at the end iykyk

ACOTAR my love <3 sorry sarah u can't expect to open the multiverse and bring me back to the messy beautiful high fantasy of my heart and then go back to Crescent City. I'd take Azriel's ass over phones any day

wait i forgot about the exposition omg

yall remember that scene in city of bones where clary asks luke what happened with valentine and it just turns into this whole chapter where nothing happens for 20 pages except for luke telling clary what's up?? yeah clary and bryce can bond over that now!

thank god we always have trusty fae ancestors to tell us what went on 15000 years ago 🙏🏻🙏🏻 now available in holographic form!

Now, onto Bryce herself...Bryce, baby, I'm so sorry but you will never be Aelin Galathynius, no matter how hard you try!! Let's just say it like this – Bryce is a great main character, she knows what she wants and how to get it but that also makes her unlikeable at times especially in how she dealt with Hunt and his trauma. He's so understandably scared of going against the Asteri again, he's especially scared of losing her just like he lost Shahar and she basically just tells him to "get through it" 🙃 I wish we could've had more sweet scenes of them, I miss my babies!

Plot-wise (aside from weird physics at the end lol), I really enjoyed this! We've got most of the main cast working together and we get loads of Lydia and Ruhn kinda stepping in and leading everyone when Hunt and Bryce are gone. Goddd, that relationship!! Kill me!!! I love them so much 😭 Lydia has some secrets revealed and she becomes an even more fascinating character and her story has suchhh a good conclusion.

As was already teased at the ending of the last book, the Maasverse has been opened! 👀 Things...have happened and while this isn't ACOTAR 6 (sorry to disappoint), there are loads of new things we learn about Prythian! Can't say I was the biggest fan of that, idk I'm kinda an ACOTAR purist lmao, don't touch my OG trilogy!! but it was still so sweet to return to Prythian <3

There were also some TOG easter eggs and while I already knew, we were gonna have some ACOTAR stuff, I really didn't expect that haha, so that was what had me really screaming.

While I find there are loads of similarities between CC and TOG (esp when looking at Aelin/Rowan/Aedion and Bryce/Hunt/Ruhn, PLEASE tell me I'm not the only one), I feel that Sarah still managed to make this a series that stands apart from her other books. Her writing style, the world building and her plots have just gotten better and better and while I'm still not the biggest fan of urban fantasy, I can still appreciate that!

As I said above, I felt that some new storylines here were unnecessary but at least all old ones were finished. I found myself thinking "hmm haven't heard about [character] in some time, maybe they'll show up again, too?" and it seems like Sarah was listening because EVERYONE appears again – good job, Sarah. I promise, there are still several surprises to be had!

So in conclusion: this was long (too long, some people would say (it's me, I'm people)) but it was a solid ending to the trilogy. We met Bryce as this traumatised young woman and ended with her as someone determined enough to stand against the Asteri and everything that would entail. Without giving anything away about Hunt and Bryce's ending, we also got a relationship arc spanning a whole series!! Woop woop. Sarah truly showed us all that she's capable of writing, pulling together all the fantasy creatures she could think of and I'm so excited to see where she leads us to next 🫶🏻

Content Warnings

fairytalefootnotes's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spice: 🌶️🌶️

Tropes: Chosen One, Fated Mates

3rd Act Breakup?: No

The Praise: I really love SJM’s writing style and how she develops her characters. She makes it so easy to love them, become attached, and really root for them.

The Critique: As usual for CC, just a bit too long. Also Tharion’s early chapters were pretty boring.

Final Thoughts: I liked this one more than the last 2 CC books.

I loved the ACOTAR cameos and the TOG references and how things all tied together.

Content Warnings

winterwoodbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book had me ugly crying so hard I couldn't read anymore.

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