Just finished the Crescent City Series
Just finished reading HOFAS, and I have mixed feelings. This was my first SJM series. I really did enjoy the series, and yet, I feel like it could've been better, given the amazing world and universe SJM has created.
Highlights:
A vast and diverse world with meaningful characters beyond just the main duo. Gives the readers some scope to enjoy other characters even if they don't end up loving the main duo, and the fact that the world is so diverse and there are multiple worlds Bryce can travel between, it creates scope for many more stories and side-plots.
The Asteri are great villains, with good ideas behind their existence and history. I would have liked to see more of them in the books, tbh. Book 3 does a good job of showing just how difficult taking them down actually was, since they had puppets installed everywhere. While Bryce and her team did a good job at planning and execution, they were really lucky everything turned out perfectly.
The satisfying moments where scumbags get what's coming to them seem to be SJM's speciality, and she does it well. Anyone with a shred of emotion would enjoy them at least a little.
The whole investigation chain from book 1 to 3 - uncovering everything little by little, piecing together a large puzzle - it is good at snaring one's attention. History is always one of the best components of fiction books, as it uncovers a lot and sets the stage for the finale.
Lowlights:
The book felt like a light read, and before Danika's death, almost felt like a fanfiction to me, as I had recently read the Mistborn and Malazan series, the latter of which has incredible complexity and is way darker and serious in its theme. Some side characters lack depth, and it sometimes feels like they're just segregated into good and bad. Hunt has lived for 200+ years and endured years of torture and servitude. The same is true for many long-lived vanir, and I expected more profundity from their characters.
Way too much sex. I know I should've known what to expect, but the whole magic added into the sex part made it kinda weird, and not all that sexy to imagine, tbh.
The whole alphahole theme around males - it made me cringe a bit, because I prefer more subtle conveyances of power and dominance. Just a personal preference - I know many would disagree here, since the novels aren't meant to be as serious as some of the darker works of fiction.
The end was way to conveniently happy. Everything went perfectly after Bryce goes to the old world of the Fae - almost too good to be true. Too much luck - especially in the final war. SJM did a good job of revealing all the lore and wrapping everything up well, but there were no deaths and hardly any prices to pay.
Bryce's actions in the end became increasingly risky and selfish. Hunt was understandably skittish, considering everything he had been through over the past 2 centuries and in the dungeons at the beginning of HOFAS. I do hold the opinion that Bryce was right, because if she didn't go down that path, Rigelus would never have let her live anyway, but she really should have discussed her plans more - she ended up being super lucky on some occasions.
There are some minor issues, too. In HOSAB, Bryce and her friends are researching super dangerous stuff despite Rigelus telling her to lie low, and yet, they make it fairly obvious, hanging out in her house always, not using burner phones or untappable connections, and tangling with the Viper Queen and Under King. There's also the issue of how characters sometimes travel from Lunathion to the Eternal City in another continent in just a few hours, like Ithan did in the end. Also, how does Declan hack into everything so easily and consistently? Is the security that bad, considering how cautious the Asteri are? Also, why is Ithan so obsessed with trying to help Sigrid after she tried to kill him and sucked the secondlight out of the Prime? And most people have daddy issues? There's probably more, but I'd rather not nitpick every badly written detail of the story.
Overall, the books were a fun read. SJM has a good way of combining an overall unserious atmosphere with an intense, high stakes plot.