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House of Earth and Blood
House of Sky and Breath
House of Flame and Shadow
3/5. Trilogy of urban romantic fantasy doorstops about a half-human who ends up with a fallen angel bodyguard while she tries to solve the murders of her friends, also lots of overthrowing evil autocrats stuff.
IDK, these are stupid long, have some bullet point thoughts.
• Thing is, parts of the first book were doing what people say she does well: slow trauma integration, relationship building, coalescing a strong group of complicated friends. All of that drew me in. Then the second and third books got all excited about a macro plot, I got less and less interested, and by mid third book it was a real slog.
• I will never get over how these books exclusively, and I do mean exclusively, use “male” and “female.” You have to see it to believe it but trust me, it is incredibly off-putting.
• An incomplete list of major plot reveals I figured out sometimes 500 pages in advance: the murderer in book one, the identity of the mysterious unnamed doctor, the identity of the super-secret spy in book two, I could go on. It’s a bit hard to really surprise me, but come on, my hit rate should be a bit lower.
• At one point I was like oh no, do I have to read ACOTAR now and the answer is yes, these books want me to, but no, after this experience, I decline.
• It is not great that, in my boredom during the third book, I started daydreaming about how much better the whole series would be as a femslash AU where Danika lives and the two of them actually tell each other important shit and have all the plotty adventures. Totally different books. Books she would never write. But probably more to my taste.
• All these sadsack men (excuse me, males) really weigh down these books. If I cared less about any of their endless crap, my head might fall off.
• Someone please take science fiction away from her. Do not touch, SJM. You are bad at it, and not in a fun way. Just in a baffling way where I’m like are these literal different planets or different dimensions? Who even fucking knows. Not her. Also, that is not how black holes do anything, please stop, I’m begging you.
• I did read all of this though? I’m not entirely sure why. I didn’t even particularly like the main character by the end. And yet I did it. It’s true, SJM has something going for her. It’s a messy, under-edited, kind of stupid thing, but she’s got it, I guess.
Content notes: Violence, death, torture, references to rape, drug use, fantasy racism
House of Sky and Breath
House of Flame and Shadow
3/5. Trilogy of urban romantic fantasy doorstops about a half-human who ends up with a fallen angel bodyguard while she tries to solve the murders of her friends, also lots of overthrowing evil autocrats stuff.
IDK, these are stupid long, have some bullet point thoughts.
• Thing is, parts of the first book were doing what people say she does well: slow trauma integration, relationship building, coalescing a strong group of complicated friends. All of that drew me in. Then the second and third books got all excited about a macro plot, I got less and less interested, and by mid third book it was a real slog.
• I will never get over how these books exclusively, and I do mean exclusively, use “male” and “female.” You have to see it to believe it but trust me, it is incredibly off-putting.
• An incomplete list of major plot reveals I figured out sometimes 500 pages in advance: the murderer in book one, the identity of the mysterious unnamed doctor, the identity of the super-secret spy in book two, I could go on. It’s a bit hard to really surprise me, but come on, my hit rate should be a bit lower.
• At one point I was like oh no, do I have to read ACOTAR now and the answer is yes, these books want me to, but no, after this experience, I decline.
• It is not great that, in my boredom during the third book, I started daydreaming about how much better the whole series would be as a femslash AU where Danika lives and the two of them actually tell each other important shit and have all the plotty adventures. Totally different books. Books she would never write. But probably more to my taste.
• All these sadsack men (excuse me, males) really weigh down these books. If I cared less about any of their endless crap, my head might fall off.
• Someone please take science fiction away from her. Do not touch, SJM. You are bad at it, and not in a fun way. Just in a baffling way where I’m like are these literal different planets or different dimensions? Who even fucking knows. Not her. Also, that is not how black holes do anything, please stop, I’m begging you.
• I did read all of this though? I’m not entirely sure why. I didn’t even particularly like the main character by the end. And yet I did it. It’s true, SJM has something going for her. It’s a messy, under-edited, kind of stupid thing, but she’s got it, I guess.
Content notes: Violence, death, torture, references to rape, drug use, fantasy racism
