Book Review: Crescent City by Sarah J. Maas

While all the chaos brewed by both Mother Nature and her mischievous children who can’t seem to follow simple safety rules, the book industry still continued to soar with some new releases.

One of the most popular and talked about releases was Crescent City by Sarah J. Mass. I spent a good month or four reading this book so today I have compiled my thoughts below.

Note: These book reviews are my own personal observations and experiences so if it does not align with your own views then that’s completely normal. Stories will have different interpretations and the beauty of it is that no view is the same. Friendly debates are welcome but please keep it civil.

Content Warning: mentions of murder and sexual content.

Book Information:

• Author: Sarah J. Maas
• Year Published: 2020
• Page Count: 800
• Genre: Fantasy
• Pacing: Drawling | Slow | Suspenseful Build | Fluctuating | Steady | Fast | Vague
• Type: Fantasy | Mix | Realism

Adaptations and Immersing Characters

Other than figuring out whether to get the right eye or hair color, getting actors to truly embody an existing fictional character is challenging and far too underestimated. Sure Zendaya could dye her hair red to appease the over-dramatic fandom but that doesn’t really make her Mary Jane nor does Daniel Radcliffe just having glasses makes him Harry Potter. In the point of view of a reader, I will be talking about three of many elements that aren’t taken into enough consideration when adapting stories.

Pros & Cons: Original vs Fanfiction

Original and Fan-fiction have always had a clash for many reasons. However as time went on, both mediums are now starting to live together in the entertainment industry. Perhaps not in full harmony but whether each party likes it or not, both mediums now have an interest and use in todays’ market.

This week I wanted to talk about some of the pros and cons of each of these mediums (including the community around them) and how they contribute to entertainment audiences:

Plot Changes while Writing a Book

There’s a million reasons why a book takes a long time to finish. Mostly it’s because the writer wants to provide the best possible story to their audience ensuring everything is interesting, engaging and able to evoke emotions/messages. Sometimes this involves changing the plot altogether for the sake of the story.

I’ve had to go through this recently despite finishing the first draft of the other plot. While it felt kind of disheartening at first, there are a few lessons I learnt throughout this process. This week I will mainly be talking about the main three things!

“It takes you that long to write a book?”

A question clearly giving away that someone has never written or finished a book in their entire life. Writer whether aspiring or otherwise go through a series of people who love pretending they know what it means to be a writer. Less than pleasant but well-intentioned is usually the nicest way to describe them but this post is not to completely bash this collection of people. Instead I wanted to touch on the three points usually involved in the writing process.

These are obviously based on my experiences and every writer will vary on their process but what you see in print or in online book stories has a gruelling journey that no one sees. Hopefully with a few words on this post, people (especially non-writers) can understand why it takes someone that long to write a book.

What you need to know about fan-fictions (before you judge them)

Fan-fictions may be an unconventional way to begin this new blogging scheme but I find that people jump onto the negative bandwagon far too quickly when it comes to this topic. While my experiences in both original and fan-made fiction are not as vast as some others, I do see this lack of diverse knowledge behind what fan-fictions are to people and why it is still a fairly popular medium in entertainment.

WHAT ARE FAN-FICTIONS?

If you do not already know, fan-fictions are transformative creative pieces either inspired by or contain characters from a TV show, movie or book. Fan-fictions also involve fictional characterisations inspired by celebrities mostly by their name and physical features depending on the genre or universe.

WHY DO PEOPLE WRITE FAN-FICTIONS?