Have you ever had a book where half your brain keeps telling you no, let it go, you aren’t going to like it, you know better, don’t do it? But at the same time it’s under your skin and you know you won’t be able to stop yourself until you read it.
(I have the same thing with most horror movies.)
But for me that book is definitely…
At first my whole thing with this was I’m just going to see if Maas is better writing “adult” fiction and how many times she uses the word mate in a romantic soulmate sort of term.
But then I told myself no. You are being better about buying books this year and why waste your time on an author you don’t like whose let you down before.
But I didn’t hate the Court of Thorns and Roses series while I was reading it.
The first two books were entertaining I just thought the end was so bad it ruined the whole series for me and made even more stark a lot of the writing problems. I was pretty willing to write Maas off. But then Crescent City.
The argument in my head goes a little like:
Me: That cover is so beautiful I need…
Also Me: No. You don’t need. No more of this woman and her fucking fairies!
Me: But isn’t part of the value in reading watching an author grow, stretch themselves and learn…
Also Me: You actually never learn do you? Life is too short to waste time on something you might not like…
Current Me: Actually you say that too much and let’s be honest there’s plenty of time right now and too much anxiety. I say it’s a perfect time for some fairy fucking.
I have actually read some reviews of this one that are positive to glowing. But they are all from reviewers who generally love Maas and her other series so that doesn’t apply here. Which leads me to another theory I had about Maas at the time of A Court of Wings and Ruin (and several other authors that aren’t relevant here) that she was simply writing too much and therefore wasn’t focused enough on any one thing.
She seems to have had more time to focus on Crescent City…
Yeah, I can convince myself of anything.
Well if history is any guide when something gets under my skin like this I wind up eventually doing it. That will likely be the case with Crescent City (which should simply be called Crescent City and drop this House of Earth and Blood nonsense or is it titled Crescent City and the other one is just the name of the series. Shit. I’m already annoyed!) I just hope there’s no Rhysand cameo.
I don’t think I could take it. 🙂
After finishing the first book and the later terrible reviews from poc, I just knew “no, this is not for me.” There’s just something about Maas that doesn’t sit right with me, I can’t explain it, but I’m going to trust it. But the cover is gorgeous! (Oh, gosh, that sounds like a passive aggressive backhanded compliment, but really the red and gold is lovely).