House of Sky and Breath

Coming back to Crescent City felt like catching up with friends I'd been thinking about since the last page.

The world grows bigger, the stakes become even more impossible, and somehow I found myself even more attached to the characters than before. I loved watching their friendships, loyalties, and relationships continue to evolve while the chaos around them only intensified.

There were moments that made me smile, moments that made me nervous, and more than one that completely wrecked me emotionally. Every time I thought I could put the book down, something pulled me right back in.

I finished wanting the next book immediately, which is always the best kind of problem to have.

Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar have just saved their world and been told by those in power, the Asteri, that they need to lie low. They're trying, but trouble seems to find them. First, Connor is a Fae male who introduces himself to her as her betrothed - her father, the Autumn King, seems to have plans for her. And then she finds out a boy is missing and various factions, including the human rebels who want to overthrow the Asteri, are after him. Bryce, her brother Ruhn, Hunt, and friends will have to use all their ingenuity to stay a step ahead of their enemies.

If you've been following Sarah J. Maas's series up to this point, you pretty much know what you're in for, right? Horny faeries - or, well, in this case angel and half-human, show more half-Fae - plot twists, and lots of banter in a very long book. And that's exactly what this book delivers. It took me a very long time to read, it takes several hundred pages to actually set up the story (while I fortunately followed along because I like the characters), and then the ending basically left me gasping and ready for the next book. show less

This book takes place a few months after the end of House of Earth and Blood. Bryce is trying to adapt to her new reality as the Princess of Fae, while also trying to work things out with Hunt to build a healthy and serious relationship. Hunt is enjoying his newfound freedom and Ruhn is building back the trust between his sister and him. The friendship developing between the guys in this book is so wholesome! Ruhn, Flynn, Declan, Tharion, Hunt, and even Ithan are becoming a little boy's club. Hypaxia is also more present in this book and I can already see that Bryce and her will make a kickass duo.
Everything was fine and normal until they get sucked into a rescue mission involving some rebels and ruthless faes that will not hesitate to show more destroy them all should their affiliation with rebels be revealed.

The plot is good, full of unexpected twists and shocking revelations though, and the pace is engaging. I was both excited to know what would happen, at the same time, I wanted to take my time and enjoy this book. Conflicted emotions , well detailed plot and character from the first book have a big significance in this book, and I like that there was a deeper connection between the books than simply having the same set of characters embarking on a new adventure.

This might be an unpopular opinion, I was not impressed with Danika’s choices and behavior toward Bryce, and the friendship I admired so much in the first book turned a little sour, but the love she had for Bryce I am convinced is that of true love. I have never loved a character that died so early on as much as I love Danika. Yes, I get it she had secrets which blew my mind away . It only upsets Bryce because she sees how little she truly knew about her best friend…

The found family is one of my favorite tropes, and I loved every mundane moment with the gang in this book because of this feeling of finally having somewhere to belong and had people who cared about them.

The romance between Bryce and Hunt is still going strong some good intimate moments, even though the author did ensure that Hunt got cockblocked quite a few times before it finally happened. I like that the author managed to keep the sexual tension between them for so long but they didn’t turn into sex-obsessed fae/angel and did nothing else for the rest of the book. They enjoyed each other but kept in mind that they had more important things to do and that there were lives on the line.

I am a little disappointed though that Aidas was not more present in this book. I believe he has the potential to be a truly complex and interesting morally grey character, but we haven't seen enough of him to really know what he is up to and where he stands in the conflict that is to come. show less

i feel sick to my stomach i actually feel sick to my fucking stomach i am literally laying on the floor what the actual fuck was that last chapter shaking and crying and throwing up

spoiler-y jumbled up thoughts beyond this point

• first of all the last eight chapters had me so stressed like my heart was beating so fast while i was reading
• this was better than hoeab to me but i also don’t completely remember what went down in hoeab so
• i loved the way that bryce and hunt were like “you know what fuck it let’s be mates” and then they actually ARE lmao and then when they used it against the autumn king at ephiram and celestina’s mating ceremony that was amazing
• speaking of celestina i hope hypaxia wakes the fuck up and show more sees what her lover is doing. unless celestina is redeemed which i’m not sure if i even want that.
• AND THEN BAXIAN IS DANIKA’S MATE???? FUCK LMAO i literally had to go lay down for a few minutes after i read that
• and i had my theory that lidia was daybreaker as soon as the scene where the guy woke her up for sex like i knew that was little bitch ass pollux. i hope she gets a second chance with ruhn. like she’s so hot she deserves it.
• i couldn’t have asked for a more perfect final chapter. bryce totally jumped through a wrydgate to get to prythian you can’t convince me otherwise. i do kinda hope that acotar 5/6 focuses on the acotar characters and cc 3/however many books there are focus on the cc characters. i want my azriel book to be about az and gwyn only lmao.
• and genuinely who cared about the epilogue after THAT lmao
• i hope the cc and acotar characters gets to go to erilea as well because i miss my tog bbs like doctor strange in the multiverse of madness who??
• also as soon as i finished this i went on tumblr and saw that people are now shipping bryce and az???? like NO THANKS az is not a homewrecker!!! and quinlar is finally canon and mated i’m happy where i am sarah please don’t ruin this for me
• and also sarah please don’t kill bryce or hunt or ruhn or lidia or baxian or tharion or ithan or dec or flynn or hypaxia or aidas or ember or randall or cooper or fitzroy in the next books everyone else is fair game please sarah
• OH YEAH i forgot to add when bryce introduces herself as her full name and rhys only said his first name i just rolled my eyes like we’re never gonna get this man’s last name are we but then i had a thought
• WHAT IF RHYS’S LAST NAME IS DANAAN.
• BRYCE LITERALLY THOUGHT HE WAS RUHN FOR A MINUTE.
• THEY BOTH HAVE POWERS RELATED TO NIGHT, SHADOWS AND DARKNESS.
• THAT’S GOTTA MEAN SOMETHING.
• FUCK.
• also i just read the target exclusive bonus chapter while in target cuz a bitch is broke and i just gotta say that fitzroy brookings is my all-time favorite character of the series now i said what i said

spoiler-y jumbled up thoughts end here

okay. my jumbled thoughts are out. i’m planning to reread throne of glass next and actually finish the series this time around. might reread acotar too for funsies. k bye. show less

I hated the first book, not sure why I expected anything else from this one

To quote Pitch Perfect 2, this book is "a heated mess. So what once was a little messy is now even messier."

The characters
-Bryce, aka Super Powerful and Special Magic Starborn Princess (not joking, these are the words SJM uses). Bryce is THE hottest person probably on the earth. She has legs for days. She has a perfect ass. She has even more perfect boobs. Every male character is straight and every female character is gay probably just so that they can all lust after her because, once again, she is so unbelievable hot. Does she have much of a personality? No, not really. She's hot though so it's ok!

-Hunt/Cormac/Tharion/Ithan/Ruhn/Flynn/Every Other Man In This show more Book, also known as Big Hot Alpha Man Creature who growls when someone looks at Bryce. Honestly these characters were all interchangeable. Why there were so many, I have no idea. Oh wait, actually I do. Maybe to convince us EVEN FURTHER that Bryce is so unbelievably hot, cause like literally everyone except her brother and cousin (who is also her fiance at some point so does that even count?) has a thing for her.

-Everyone else who we don't really care about and SJM doesn't either because they each get about two lines in the book. Oh, and these make up all of the diversity in the book (racially, sexually, etc.).

Side note, every single character is 11/10 beautiful. That literally isn't possible. If literally everyone is that attractive, they would actually just be average.

The "plot"
I'm not really sure what the main plot was supposed to be. Maybe the missing persons search (in which they essentially walk around a park looking for some random kid as if he was a lost cat)? Maybe the rebel cause (in which they pretty much decide to overthrow the government with no plans to rebuild a better one, which I doubt they would even do a good job of because they don't seem to see a huge issue with the slavery and concentration camps)? At some point Bryce actually says:

“My mate was a slave. I can’t turn a blind eye to it anymore." Because slavery is only an issue once someone you know has been affected by it?

The subplots
-Tharion sells himself into SLAVERY because he doesn't really feel like marrying some princess mermaid girly (who he basically fucked and then forgot about).

-Ruhn is featured in a Love is Blind episode (i'm paraphrasing), and gets catfished.

-Danika (who is dead and has been for about 2k pages) had a secret mate who lived on another continent and somehow they were getting together all the time?

-Bryce becomes a princess and is really upset about it (like "first born child murdered" upset) and complains about having to use her daddy's credit cards

I could spend a long time going over each subplot and how idiotic it was, but I'll save us all the time and say the plot was overall stupid, futile, and inconsequential to how the book ended.

The spice
I don’t usually skip sex scenes in books (or even movies and tv) because I believe that they are part of the artistic expression of the author and necessary for the plot or for developing the characters. That being said, I skipped over half the sex scenes in this book because they were THAT bad. They are so uncomfortable and just so so so so bad and icky and just no and thinking about them makes me want to vomit. A few highlights were astral plane sex, teleporting during sex, and more. SJM seems to have a foot fetish (biting toes was mentioned an absurd number of times) and some sort of breastfeeding/suckling fetish (believe it or not, I actually would prefer to not read about sucking each others nipples).

The rest
-The worldbuilding still makes no sense. I have no idea how the government works (still). They live in a 1984 surveillance state but no one cares or sees a problem with it. The magic makes no sense (Bryce is so powerful and has so much magic but she needs other people to give her their magic to do certain magical things, mainly just teleport). The asteri honestly makes no sense, they eat both magic and human babies?

-The writing is terrible, once again. The descriptions suck. The banter is comparable to that of preschoolers ("You're dumb" and "I'm uninviting you to my birthday party" type shit). Everytime someone shudders, winks, tilts their head, etc, all the other characters just seem to know exactly what they mean. The amount of hearts skipping beats seems medically dangerous. The amount of "padding" makes me wonder if they're cats or something.

-How do you make a bad thing worse? A crossover! A crossover can ruin pretty much anything good (this is completely factual) and when applied to something bad, you get a dumpster fire (this has also been proven by scientific evidence).

I hope by now I have convinced you not to read this book, and if you do I pray to the literary gods that you do not spend money on this because SJM does not need more money to fund this psychotic shitshow series. Honestly I didn't want to be this harsh (lol whoops) because I used to love SJM but this series has ruined her for me. show less

Why is it always "You up?" and never:

"Our love is stronger than time, greater than any distance. Our love spans across stars and worlds. I will find you again. I promise."

I digress.

This book was wild but I had fun (in that 'I might be a little emotionally traumatized' sort of way.)

What a rollercoaster. My mind is still going up and down and screaming with the revelations and info bombing. (Which I enjoy.)

The world is more fleshed out, so I loved the world building and how the puzzle is coming together.

And for the fact of Norse Mythology mixed into this series. Thank Urd.

Bryce is still my kinda Fae. Bad ass darling.

Hunt such a powerhouse . . . I don't want to stand in his way.

Ruhn is such a sweety, and I want to wrap him in a blanky with cuddles.

Agent Daylight - my second hunch was right but still blew my my mind.

Cormac - I still don't like you.

Ithan grew on me a lot in this novel.

Tharion . . . No opinion on him still.

The Helhound - what a 180 that was. . . Shocking.

Sabine and The Autumn King can still die show more for all I care. Most hated for me I. This series so far.

I enjoyed the exchange between Day and Night. This melted my heart and couldn't help going awww.

This was more action-packed than the first book. It has everything, drama, suspense, spice, and death.

The ending, though . . . My toes curled, and I grinned. . .

This is my second favourite series by this author. I can't wait to start book 3. show less