In the eagerly awaited release of A House of Flame and Shadow by renowned fantasy author Sarah J. Maas, fans were primed for a journey that would cross over the intricate realms she had crafted in her previous works. Yet, what unfolded within its pages left many readers, myself included, incredibly disheartened and disappointed.  

The book was advertised as a pivotal crossover that would unite the worlds that Maas had created and failed to deliver on its promise. Instead of the masterful novel and crossing over of worlds that had been promised, there was a narrative that was disjointed and completely lacking in the depth that Maas had us expecting. 

A key part of this was the copy-and-paste character of Bryce. In the prequels to A House of Flame and Shadow, Bryce had established her character as witty, cunning and trustful, yet in this new book, Bryce turned out to simply be a copy of the character Aelin from Maas’ debut series Throne of Glass.

The utilization of nearly a dozen different perspectives and characters that provided absolutely nothing to the plot ultimately just distracted from the goal of the novel, and made it unreadable. Many of these characters did not further the plot whatsoever and were honestly just an annoyance throughout the entire book. I found myself skipping over many of these chapters, due to the sheer lack of content or intrigue in them. 

Furthermore, due to the incredibly short timelines that this book took place in, we did not get the highly coveted character development that readers could usually expect from a Maas novel. 

Another key plotline that is now just overused in Maas’ novels is faking the main character’s death. This has occurred countless times in Maas’ novels, and at this point, I never expect a character to actually leave, because every character somehow gets their happy ending. 

Ultimately, there was no reason for this book to be 850 pages, and was missing the usual magic of Maas’ books. There was a complete lack of emotional development of the characters. It felt like this was a book that Maas simply wanted to get over with and move on to her other series. I hope that we see quality writing in her future books because we certainly did not get that in this book. 

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