Laurens.Little.Library's Reviews > House of Flame and Shadow

In a word: Unsatisfying

update no. 1
24 hours after finishing and I'm already dropping this down to 2.5⭐

update no. 2
I heard you loud and clear in the comments that you want the review now instead of later. Because it's 1 AM and tomorrow 5 of my bookish friends are coming to spend the weekend at my place, I'm going to post some of my raw notes because I don't want to leave you hanging. The plan is to come back on Monday and edit these into something easier to read lol. Don't expect these to be in an order that makes sense. There will be loads of spelling errors, ya just gotta deal until I can edit.

With that said, SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT

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Fury
The fact that all we “used” was her ability to pilot a helicopter is an embarrassment. Not to mention that this series was supposed to be about female friendships. We just, do away with fury and juniper altogether in this book. Stupid. Also, Fury literally makes a scoff about how all she’s doing is playing babysitter and I was like UH YEAH. THE FUCK?

Jesiba
There should have been breadcrumbs. We should have seen her interact with SOMEONE who knows Appolion *ahem, Aidas* and had her trash talk him. Then we’d be like what’s her beef?

Book of breathings/library of parthos
big old plot hole. Disappointing.

reunion between Bryce and Hunt
one of the things that made me SO ANGRYYYYYY like in the moment I was walking around saying “the fuck??? Wait WHAT???” I don’t see Pete for 24 hours and I will leap into that man’s arms. You’re telling me that *mates* who’ve been tortured and never knew if they’d find their way back to one another were going to like the fucking Ocean Queen stop them from falling into each other’s arms??? You cannot tell me they shouldn’t have been sobbing together. bullshit.

Lack of character dev.
I was surprised by this. I expected the book to at least take place over the course of a month, not like, a week. I get we don’t tend to change as humans thaaaaat much over a week but it's historically been something I appreciate that in her writing and we got none of it.

Silene / Princes of Hel info dumps
I could go on and on here, but in essence, it’s bloody infuriating that there were people who knew everything all along and never guided or drop-fed that info to us over the three books. “You weren’t ready” I WANTED TO THROW MY PHONE what a cop-out. Secondly, by sharing all this info all at once, the reader doesn’t get to chew on any of it, the think about what it means. We’re just hanging on for dear life trying to take it all in. It’s like someone tossing us a ball… versus having a cannon full of tennis balls shot at you all at once

General messiness/she bit off more than she could chew
When I’m over here wishing that she’d kill some characters off, just so that we could have some emotional impact AND narrow the field, we’ve got a big problem. I think about Chekov’s Gun all the time when I’m reading… the rule in writing that if you include an element, you should use it by the book’s conclusion. And she just… doesn’t. I’ve never been more convinced than I am now after HoFaS that SJM doesn’t actually have some crisp master plan. She just leaves a fuck-tonne of Chekov’s Guns lying around, and picks them up willy nilly when it sort of works in a future book. That’s why it feels so messy, plot-hole-y, and just kind of ???

the (anti)climax
the whole final fight scene was anticlimactic, it never felt like anyone was actually in danger, and legit in all caps I was fuuuuuuming about the bringing her back to life. Nah. I’m fucking sick of it. Death is there for a reason. Get rid of it and you have NO stakes. Which makes all your hard work trying to get the reader to be worried about the character’s wellbeing null and void

Other things that made me real mad:
•⁠ ⁠what was the point in the viper queen getting a private fight between Sigrid and Ithan????
•⁠ ⁠⁠SIGRID. are you fucking kidding me all of that round and round in circles and FOR WHAT.
•⁠ ⁠⁠Ithan choosing to try to bring Sigrid back from the dead (reaper form) instead of focusing on what’s ACTUALLY important aka THE FIGHT OF THEIR LIFE WITH THE BIG BAD?????
•⁠ ⁠⁠Bryce opening the coffin. why she acting like a dumb bitch? I literally wrote down: “????? Girl why so reckless”
•⁠ ⁠⁠over promising and under-delivering: don’t make it seem like we’re going to get any face time with the acotar crew only to give us two of them
•⁠ ⁠⁠The parasite is something they should have learned in the previous book. And it should have been DIFFICULT and CHALLENGING and NERVE WRACKING for them to try and produce an anti-dote right under their noses. Get fucked that NO ONE in the scientific community in this urban fantasy has noticed
•⁠ ⁠⁠can anything crystal be a gate? Like shit just doesn’t line up.
•⁠ ⁠⁠"Surrounded by a fire that even Tharion’s water could not extinguish” to that I wrote: Pokemon says otherwise
•⁠ ⁠⁠RUHN SHOOTING LIDIA. for so many reasons. They’re supposed to heal quickly, so which is it?? She’s spent over a decade in an abusive relationship with Pollux, so because he walked with her sons for a bit they’re just fine with it? Nahhhh fuck that. They shouldn’t have ended up back together by the end of this book and we should have gotten him making ALL the amends, her fighting with herself to learn how to trust him again, etc in the next book. THATS the character growth I want to see. ughhhhhh I’m still so mad lol.
•⁠ ⁠⁠all that nonsense about to join or not join the blades… and she can simply summon the void herself???

Lastly, and possibly most hilariously
something that didn’t really matter but spoke to how inconsistent SJM was with her own established rules: WHY DID IT TAKE RHYS 80 YEARS TO GET TO THE HOUSE OF WIND? TWIIIIIIIICE? He has literally winnowed just outside the wards and flown inside in a matter of seconds/like, a minute. He does it when Nesta is stuck in that nightmare in ACOSF. and TWICE we get oooooo he’s coming. look at that encroaching darkness. ooooo you better go. (proceeds to have a long, heartfelt goodbye with mom hugs) *closes portal before he ever arrives* bsffr.