Crescent City / YMMV

Base-Breaking Character:
- Hunt Athalar is divisive amongst fans, especially regarding his role as one half of the Official Couple. Some readers find Hunt dull and less dynamic compared to Sarah J. Maas' previous love interests (especially Rowan and Rhysand) and find his romance with Bryce to be comparatively watered-down and lacking in passion (a few readers have said they wouldn't mind Hunt so much if he wasn't Bryce's love interest). Other readers find Hunt to be just as interesting and enjoyable as his predecessors, liking that he's a bit different from the typical morally-gray bad boy. Some readers also like that he and Bryce's relationship is more sweet and down-to-earth rather than filled with angst and melodrama; some even prefer their romance because it's less problematic compared to some of Maas' other romances^note. A third group say they struggle to get invested in Hunt because they expect him to be revealed as a Romantic False Lead, which Maas had made a habit of in previous stories.
- Bryce Quinlan engenders mixed reactions from readers, more so from House of Sky and Breath onwards. Some like her for being a sassy, independent and badass heroine who takes crap from no one and always speaks her mind, believing that her occasional emotional immaturity and other flaws can be explained or justified by the traumatic loss of her best friend. Other readers feel that she's unnecessarily rude and hostile to everyone (up to and including her own teammates and boyfriend), lacks empathy for others, and that she's not called out enough for her arrogance and pig-headed decisions. Some readers also find Bryce's tendency to plan two steps ahead and not tell anyone else (occasionally including the reader) to be clever, while others find it irritating and that it results in Ass Pull situations.
Broken Base: Over whether or not Bryce is supposed to be a woman of color and/or biracial (beyond her being half-human, half-fae). Some people point to the fact she's described as having "gold-dusted" skin as evidence of her being a POC and a few readers have even criticized fanart depicting her as white as "whitewashing", but others point out that Sarah J. Maas has previously used "golden" to describe tanned white characters (including Bryce's half-brother Ruhn in the same series) so it's hardly definitive proof. Bryce is said to get her red hair and amber eyes from her father, but there's no mention of his skin tone or ethnicity (muddying things a little is that her father isn't human); her human mother is stated to have dark hair and dark eyes with no comment on her skin color or ethnicity either, so overall it's rather vague. Some readers feel that if Bryce really is intended to be a woman of color or biracial, then the text really needs to be clearer on that matter (especially considering Maas' previous track record regarding POC characters has been controversial to say the least).
Continuity Lock-Out: For a different Sarah J. Maas series, namely A Court of Thorns and Roses. The end of House of Sky and Breath features the main characters meeting up with the Inner Circle, who are the protagonists of A Court of Thorns and Roses. Unless you've read at least up to A Court of Mist and Fury, or at bare minimum used the internet to familiarize yourself with the main cast of ACOTAR, you'll probably be clueless as to who these people are and why this is significant.
Crossover Ship: Following the release of House of Sky and Breath, many readers began shipping Bryce with Azriel, one of the main characters of A Court of Thorns and Roses whom she meets at the end of the book.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A criticism from some readers is that this series recycles a lot of tropes, plotlines and character types from Sarah J. Maas' other books. To wit, the main heroine is a sassy and beautiful young woman who is connected to fairy royalty and has rare, super-powerful magical abilities. Her love interest is a handsome, brooding man centuries older than her, who angsts about being forced to do bad things for a villain and has been enslaved by an evil queen. The two are forced to work together and trade insults while growing increasingly attracted to one another, and the plot largely concerns a quest for a magical item the villain wants. All of this was present in both Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses, with some readers joking the only thing missing is the heroine's love interest being replaced midway through.
Just Here for Godzilla: A lot of A Court of Thorns and Roses fans read the trilogy and especially the third book because of the crossover with ACOTAR, which was also heavily featured in Bloomsbury's marketing for House of Flame and Shadow. Some fans were subsequently disappointed and felt duped by the marketing given that the ACOTAR sections are relegated only to the start of the third book and don't have much relevance to the overall plot, as they'd been anticipating more of an Avengers-style crossover.
Protection from Editors: Some readers have noted that Crescent City appears less edited compared to Sarah J. Maas' earlier books (by the time House of Earth and Blood came out, she'd been firmly established as a best-selling fantasy author with a large fanbase for several years), citing issues such as excessive padding and Info Dumping, repetitive or redundant scenes, irrevelant subplots and overuse of profanity (many readers have particularly mentioned struggling through the first third of House of Earth and Blood for these reasons). Even readers who enjoy the series have noted the page count could've been trimmed down.
Slow-Paced Beginning: A recurring criticism from readers is that the first third of House of Earth and Blood (or even the first half according to some reviews) is extremely slow and plodding, with little progress being made regarding the central mystery for around 300 pages. The prologue itself is 90 pages long and little happens there save for a serious amount of Info Dumping regarding the setting and backstory, and establishing Danika's character...who gets murdered by the end of the prologue, thus leading to the actual main plot. And then there's a two-year time skip where Bryce apparently did nothing but sink into a drunken Heroic BSoD before the story picks up again with more murders resembling Danika's, which makes some wonder why it doesn't begin here instead. It's widely agreed things improve by the third and fourth parts, but considering House of Earth and Blood is a whopping 816 pages long, it can be a challenge for some readers to get through the first section.
Unexpected Character: Many readers were surprised by the protagonists meeting up with the Inner Circle at the end of House of Sky and Breath. While Sarah J. Maas has previously made references to her other series in her works, and Rhysand and Feyre had cameo appearances in Kingdom of Ash (Aelin likewise had a tiny cameo in the corresponding scene in A Court of Silver Flames), this was the first time there had been such a major crossover between the casts of two of Maas' series, with their interactions indicating this isn't just going to be a mere cameo.

YMMV / Crescent City

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