House of Sky and Breath

While the series in general took me a minute and a few tries to get sucked in, I got totally sucked in about 1/2 way though Book 1, jumped right into Book 2, though my interest waned a tiny bit at the very beginning, but then I got sucked right back in and finished Book 2 within a couple of days. Maas just has a way with making the characters so relatable and even though I have to roll my eyes at times at some of the ACOTAR “smut” and inability to name the parts. Crescent City does not hold back and is refreshing in that sense. (If you know, you know - just say “the words” already…)

The fantasy portion is so well done, and I cannot say much more for fear of giving things away, but damn I am so in awe of the twists, turns and the world created by Maas, once again!

13.10.2021
Praise for the cover! But...no praise for the the announcement or kind of marketing with which the book cover was announced: "now with 500% more sex".

Wait.

I am no erotica reader. I am a fantasy reader and I expect to have a solid plot, deep world-building and character development. Then, if the chemistry between two characters is good, sex can also be present, but that HAS TO BE second to the rest.

So I don't know what to expect, but I did not like that announcement at all.

It gives out the idea that sex is going to sell more books and considering that most of Sarah Maas' readers are female, I wonder if it is true that you are incentivized to buy certain books if there is a lot of romance and sex involved. I cannot believe that. With all the global sensibilization about women's rights, sexual harassment, emancipation, and so on, I cannot believe that Maas' readers are gonna fall for that.

Dear author and publisher, please, if you want to sell books where the main focus is sex, that's fine but AT LEAST label them as 'erotica with fantasy elements' and not as adult fantasy, because fantasy should be respected as a genre and we readers should be made aware of what we are buying.

That was a SLOG to get through. The writing was honestly just not up to SJM's standard. It should have gone through way more edits. The story was loosely thrown together with sex scenes a sloppy glue to hold it all. There was very little emotional impact or urgency to drive the story. SJM kept throwing twists at you, but because she'd spent so little time building the world in this book, she had to tell you how to feel about all of those twists, immediately losing any impact those twists should have given the story. I am so disappointed. I really enjoyed the first book. This one just did not hold up.
...

I am interested to see where she's going to take this, with the ending bringing her two worlds together.

...

And I'm sorry, but the hotly anticipated consummation of Bryce and Hunt's relationship happens with Ithan in the next room?! And then the next time in a gym?!?! What happened to all the romantic build of anticipation from the previous book? There was so much tension she could have built with the arrival of Cormac... But even that story arc was barely more than a convenient plot point.