SJM is just bad at endings, is what I’ve decided. I feel the same way about this as I did about Kingdom of Ash. And even though I think it’s the best of her three endings, I also had similar issues with A Court of Wings and Ruin. It’s a pattern, is what I’m saying. I don’t regret reading this book; the first half in particular was a major improvement over the meandering, uninteresting second book. And then she started wrapping things up. Sigh.
I’m finding it kind of funny that all the die-hard SJM fans are not liking this book as much because it really is no different to anything she’s given us before. Perhaps her tendencies have heightened a bit, but they are the same things she’s been doing in her writing forever.
Before I get to all the things that bothered me about this, I do want to say that I liked overall how Bryce’s story ended (with some quibbles), and in particular how the Asteri were defeated. It felt a bit naïve perhaps, but it played upon my emotions just like SJM wanted it to. For me, there was nothing egregious here, just things that were at worst eyeroll-worthy, because again, they are things I have disliked about SJM’s writing in the past. I also thought the first half of this book was a major improvement over book two in general, which was SO LONG and SO DULL and had WAY too many characters that she was trying to set up for future books, but who didn’t really belong as POV characters, in my opinion. This book hooked me from the beginning and was interesting the whole way through. Things were HAPPENING. Also, in terms of the cliffhanger at the end of the last book, I was pleased that SPOILERS there really wasn’t much Rhysand, and instead we got to see a whole lot of Nesta, as well as some Azriel. Ain’t nobody want that much Rhysand; this isn’t his story END SPOILERS. In terms of the characters that had the strongest arcs in this book, that honor goes to Ruhn and Lidia. They were the best part of the book for me.
Let’s bullet point the rest of this. The things that bring this book down to three stars for me:
*Almost every single character ends up some sort of powerful leader. I mean, come on, man. Literally all of the characters in this friend/acquaintance group have stepped into the most powerful positions? Why. And it was so unnecessary. Ithan’s was the most weird, and I’m pissed at what she did to Sigrid. (That better get fixed in future books.) It was just predictable and I rolled my eyes because it kept happening. The first time? yes, good surprise. Then stop. But she didn’t.
*Once again, almost all of her characters have lobstered up by the end of the story (queer characters still very much tertiary, although at least they’re there).
*Everything and the kitchen sink is in this plot. There was no attempt at editing it down for content; the more the better! seems to have been the attitude. So we don’t really get depth on anything the way I wanted.
*The amount of super special powered up characters here who just keep getting leveled up more, Bryce being the main offender (even if she doesn’t want it) was just absurd. We’ve seen this trick before, Sarah! Please stop playing it!
*And the main thing here, which is that the stakes here are just so high. The thing that I liked the most about the first Crescent City book that while the stakes of what was going on in the plot were lower (solving a murder), the emotional stakes were very high because of the more intimate nature of what Bryce was going through and overcoming. Same with Hunt, to a lesser extent, because it’s Bryce’s book. It’s her grief that matters the most, it’s her transcendence or acceptance of it that lends that book its emotional power. It feels intimate in a way that was lost starting with book two, and which we definitely didn’t have time or space for while hopping from world to world and defeating the galactic parasites while being the most magically powerful person on Midgard here in the last book. That intimacy and the emotional depth that came with it was gone, and it was just another story like I’ve seen a million times before because of that.
Anyway. Yeah, I will keep reading SJM’s books in hopes of chasing that ACOMAF and CC1 high. Love/hate relationship with this author still going strong. 🙃
