Sarah J. Maas released the latest of book in the Crescent City series end of this January and with midnight releases, huge promotions and an absolutely breathtaking cover, the book took over social media networks all over the world.

While this books brings the series to a somewhat conclusion after three books, it is clear that this is not the last we have seen of these characters. This book promises answers to a lot of questions raised in the two previous books and if you have kept up with the series, this marks the crossover between Crescent City and ACOTAR series.

This mammoth of an 800+ page book promised an action-packed resolution as Bryce Quinlan and her cohort take on the Asteri one last time. But the plotline didn’t really land.

I’m finally back here to write another book review after a while, so fair warning, if you’re new here, we don’t see the point of a spoiler-free review — while I will try my best to not give too much away, you’re here to know more about the book, so here we go.

I have read all of SJM books — all three series and have quite liked her concepts of anti-heroes, female protagonists and the mix of action, romance and magic. Her writing is accessible and her craft of storytelling, engaging. All things missing from this book.

Bryce Quinlan is my least favourite SJM protagonist, yes, even Feyre ranks higher than her in my regard (considering how SJM has written Ms. Quinlan, she might be her least favourite character as well). I understand that SJM went for an irreverant heroine who is all powerful and a little bit of a misfit, but the problem is that Bryce remains the careless brat in her actions all throughout the trilogy (there will be more books in the series). Without any character development even though she comes into power, then comes into power and then is levelled up (?) and then comes into power, in her actions, she is not a leader and neither does she wish to lead.

While that is a choice that, I suppose, is realistic enough for a character like Bryce, what about “with great power comes great responsibility?”

Bryce is written as a schemer, like Aelin (TOG) and Rhysand (ACOTAR), but if these had a meeting, they would laugh her off the House of Wind everytime.

As supporting characters keep asking Bryce what she will do after overthrowing the Asteri, she keeps saying she’ll continue to live her life and has no interest in leading the fae. While she does end up on the council to rebuild Lunathion, it is unclear what role she plays as the only meeting we get of the council, she doesn’t attend. It can be speculated that she does eventually take up a more leading role in the council, the point is after 800+ pages, we shouldn’t have to speculate. She is deemed Queen of Valbaran and Avallen Fae, she abolishes her father’s throne but keeps Avallen. There are apparently ancient magic and magical creatures in Avallen that I’m figuring would be plot-relevant for the next books across series.

The problem isn’t only Bryce, it is her mate, Hunt Athalar, as well. He has lost an uprising against the Asteri, been enslaved, has earned his freedom, been enslaved and tortured to death multiple times. He has been a general, a strategist, a really seasoned warrior and has lost the most in the series. His character development is stunted because it doesn’t align with Bryce’s, they have a fight and he eventually agrees to go with what she sees fit. Bryce doesn’t consult him for strategies, Bryce doesn’t have advisors, her plan is brute force — doesn’t matter from where.

Let’s talk about Ithan and Hypaxia. I have been trying not to spoil the story for you up untill now but there is nothing to spoil when it comes to these two. You can see the big twists of their lives coming from the chapter they first showed up in. It was so predictable, it physically hurt to read chapters featuring these two.

Okay, books can be plot-driven as well, the characters do not always need t be perfectly written. But we had only world-building in this book.

After two prime books, the third where the action was supposed to culminate did not have any links to previous books in terms of that scheme was put in place in book 1 and now comes into play. Nothing. We get a lot of history in its place. History that doesn’t really explain all the why-s.

The much-anticipated crossover with ACOTAR was the worst let-down of this book among all the other let-downs. Yes, nothing could have lived up the hype that this book had garnered but this is just low effort even compared to the other books in the series and all SJM’s previous works.

The writing quality has taken accessibility to a new low where nothing is exaplained in favour of not using any jargon. The chapter and section divisions were madness with multi-povs within one chapter. The pov switches did not make any sense to me and I would open to learning more if somebody would care to explain but to me it looked very jumbled with no structure to it. And I like multi-pov books!

The pov-s were too short that didn’t let me, personally, connect with the characters and just the whole lack of planning, on the author’s part, on Bryce’s part, was annoying. Bryce was literally asking people to help without any callateral of value to the other party and people just… agreed?

Now, an 800-page book with only poor writing, characterisation and world-building would have seen me DNF this book 200 pages in. So there were redeeming qualities in this book that kept me going.

In terms of characters, I was most excited to read Lidia, Ruhn and Tharion’s pov chapters. Lidia and Ruhn would most likely take on the role of protagonists in the upcoming books and they can’t be worse that Bryce and Hunt so there’s hope. Tharion is the only character who showed some not-so-predictable development. There was huge character development for Lidia which has started in book 2 of the series and was anyway expected to continue in this one. The only two times I went “What?” reading the book where in Lidia’s chapters.

In conclusion, this book felt like a filler while it should have been a turning point and was built up like one. Thwarting expectations like these and not having any significant wow-factor along with poor, poor plotline and storytelling, this book is a two-star for me.

This bad performance is nor expected neither justified from a seasoned author such as SJM. This book was a classic example of the expectation that a book would do great just because it comes from one of the Big 4 houses and an author of calibre but it definitely doesn’t always ensure a worthwhile read.