House of Flame and Shadow

Okay, my rating will scare some people, but I promise that I DID enjoy this book. It just didn't live up to the hype of the first two for me, so I'm knocking it down to 3.5 stars in rating. I can see the makings of a fantastic book here, but this one just isn't quite there.

House of Flame and Shadow deserved to be two books instead of one massive one. (House of Many Waters AND House of Flame and Shadow, anyone???) There is so much going on in this novel that should have been dragged out and foreshadowed on and done in DETAIL. There are like six or seven MAJOR plot things that happen and instead of taking our time with them we're just onto the next without really pausing to process what just happened. It feels like a bullet point list of a novel.

Character development really takes a back burner, and it SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE. I wanted to see Bryce COPE with what happens to her. What she's forced to do, what Ruhn and Hunt are forced to go through. Instead, we deal with it for what feels like a paragraph and move on. Some of these things are EXTREMELY TRAUMATIZING. We should have been dealing with them for the whole book. Nope. A paragraph here and a paragraph there, and ONTO THE NEXT THING.

Romantic and platonic relationships that we should have seen grown and shift over time just sort of bloom what feels like overnight. Other relationships needed to have the room to breathe, to have the chance to grow into a SOLID ROCK FOUNDATION. Instead, we have characters questioning legitimately questionable things and it barely feels discussed. Or, alternatively, it feels contrived and forced. Oh, and don't get me started on the weird timing of sex scenes. Maybe don't get a boner in a dangerous cave while trying to find your definitely-in-danger-friends.

I'm not going to post spoilers about specific things, but if anyone wants to come talk to me about this book my DMs on Twitter are open. I'll happily hash out my feelings to you, because I ADORED this world. I'm just disappointed about how our time here has ended. And yes, I still love Maas's writing and her Fae universe she's got going on, I just think making this one book really hurt the series as a whole.