Ep 76 📈 Ranking ALL the Sarah J Maas Books!

Today we’re doing the impossible task of ranking every book in the entire Sarah J. MAAS averse, including Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Crescent City, and the lesser known standalone book and DC collaboration, Catwoman. That’s SEVENTEEN books that are all 4+ stars that we pick apart with a fine-toothed comb to come up with one winner, and unfortunately, one at the bottom of the barrel.

What’s fun about this episode is that it’s full of SJM spoilers and possible connections, if you’ve read them all and you’re just here for the tea. It’s also interesting to see how much our rankings have possibly changed over the years, and after doing rereads, buddy reads, and multiple podcast conversations. Our choices might just surprise you!

Listen on to find out our official (current) Sarah j Maas book ranking, and our defense of our choices. Let us know if you agree or disagree with our criteria and ratings, and defend your case!

And don’t you worry, we have an extra special fave and fail SJM character edition, and a smash or pass to go right along with it!

Don't be shy, subscribe! New Podcasts every Tuesday!! (And sometimes Friday!…)

Check out these author interviews? ⬇️
Penn Cole talks with us about Strong Female Characters, Feminist Themes, and her debut bestselling Spark of the Everflame Series! https://youtu.be/7ukNImyoObw?si=7C3Y9kOUMN4hfcKb

We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

Check the official Author Interview with Lindsay Straube of Split or Swallow! Now a Barnes & Noble & Amazon best seller titled: Kiss of the Basilisk!  https://youtu.be/fknhocSNIKM

Need more ACOTAR in your life? Cook your way through Velaris with the help of Chelsea Cole and her cookbook A Feast of Thorns & Roses. Check out our author interview here! https://youtu.be/fjzmqd-x3OA?si=kNJ4D9cxvUjhp-Ik

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Shop bookish apparel worn in this episode!
Ashley is Wearing:  “Women of Maas World Tour” Tee from @caffeineandcurses | https://caffeineandcurses.com

Liz is Wearing:  “You Do Not Yield” Throne of Glass Tee by @shopsecondbreakfast | https://www.etsy.com/shop/ShopSecondBreakfast

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Chapters

• 0:00 Spoiler Free Intro
• 5:13 Favs and Fails Sarah J Maas Characters
• 14:54 Ranking ALL The Sarah J Maas Books
• 1:21:15 Smash or Pass SJM Characters

Transcript

0:00

Karen has a Karen haircut and now I see him completely differently. Dude, that moment in Acatar. A Don't skip it. Don't skip it. What's her name? What's her name? Calchain. Oh, Cal Train. I will play the skin from your bones when he has like the Karen haircut. Hey everyone, I'm Ashley. And I'm Liz. And welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast. Welcome. Welcome. Oh, it's been a while since we've done an SJM edition themed episode. Yeah, it's been been a hot minute. Yes. Um, this one will be spoilerfree for the first 15 minutes, but then we will be getting into a lot of spoilers for the whole entire Sarah J Massiverse, just so you know, because we are going to be ranking every book in her collection. Book ranking and we want to talk about it with no walls put up. No walls, no block. We don't want anyone holding us back. Yeah. Don't hold us back. Don't even try. Save it to your playlist. You can watch it later if you're still in the Sarah J. Mask like reading universe sphere. So, you know, it's okay. Like, I get it. No worries. You can save it and do later or watch it and listen to it and like, you know, get some stuff spoiled and maybe you'll like us and you forget all about it. Anyway, I was going to say and listen and then be like, "Oh, I forgot everything." And then go in and read it and it's no big deal. It'll get you amped. It'll get you hyped. Yeah. Um, we did already rank all of our Throne of Glass books. Yes. So, we'll make sure to link that video so you guys could check that if that out if you like if you've only read Throne of Glass. Yeah. Then you could go check that one out. I'm actually kind of curious because I didn't revisit that video before I did my my ranking. And the thing about this is I'm sure that every time I do a reread, every time a year goes by, every time something like that happens, my ranking is probably going to change. Yeah. So, here's the thing. If it's different now than it was when we ranked Throne of Glass last time, it'll probably just continue to be different every time we do a video like this. We'll do updated, especially as more books come out, more information comes out, like whatever. Cuz allegedly 6 will come out one day. One day. We have no day for that, but someday. Yeah. So, hey, there you go. Also, I mean, with that said, so we do have the Throne of Glass ranking. We didn't do individual episodes on it because we were doing it before we started the podcast, but we do we kick off we kicked off our podcast. We just realized with the Crescent City the three book deep dives. So, they're there if you want to like get really involved. And even Acatar we have now done all five book deep dives on. I know. I was actually thinking about this yesterday. I was like, "Okay, we have deep dives on all the Acatar books. We have deep dives on all the Crescent City books. We don't have deep dives on all the Throne of Glass books. Is that something that you guys want someday? Should we read reread them and do deep dives? I mean, I want it. So, I want it too. It's just a matter of when. Yeah. So, like, would you want that as one of our mini episode series perhaps for next year? Just get Throne of Glass in there. Why not? I miss I miss so much. I want to reread them so bad, guys. This is just me trying to insect you all so that you reach out and tell us we need to do it. Unless you really hated the series, you'll want it, too. Yeah. And you guys know it's like we do a little bit different of a style, so it's not like we're going to be breaking it down chapter by chapter or anything. We'd have one book per one episode. Yeah. So, I think if you do want that though, I'll give you a shout out to um Between Pages and Friends cuz they've done very thorough deep dives and they're still fun, you know, on um every like Throne of Glass chapter. They went through the whole catalog. I don't know if they're finished yet. I haven't checked recently. Yeah. So, cuz it's a lot. It is a lot. But that's great. It's out there. So, shout out to them. If you guys want to check them out, check them out. But yeah, you know, you know our style. We will bring in the triangle like you know, favorites, least favorites, all those things and cover. We cover it in a different way. That's all. Yeah, I love it. But anyway, the point of that was we've covered a lot of the Massover verse already. So, go check out any of that content if like you don't want this set of spoilers and you want something a little bit more specific. Um, but before we get into that, we just wanted to say thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thank you guys so much for being here, taking time out of your day in your book to come hang out with us. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast, including YouTube. We do have a goal to hopefully hit 1,000 subscribers on YouTube by fall. We're getting really close. So, thank you guys so much for your support. We appreciate it so much. We're at Best Seasons in the Books Podcast everywhere and also including Tik Tok and Instagram. So, come hang out with us there. Yeah, sounds good. Okay, so uh as we said before a little bit here where we do our faves and fails like intro will be spoilerfree. We will give you a warning once we get into the spoiler section just so you know. Um gosh, we'll be ranking 18 books today. Oo, I'll get a list going on the YouTube video in case that helps any of my visual learners here. Yeah, that's me. I had to I had to put a list in our episode map because I can't like I just can't wrap my head around it unless I can see it. You know what I mean? My eyes. Um, so and stick around because our faves and fails will tie back around to the end of the episode. We will go full circle with the smasher pass. There you go. Yeah. So, our faves and fails for this episode since we're covering all 18 of Sarah J. Mass's books is for the whole entire Massoververse, who is our ultimate favorite character and why? And who is our most hated character and why? Mhm. Okay. So, it could be a little spoilery when we talk about the characters, maybe. I mean, like why we like or dislike a character. Like, it's not gonna be major plot point spoilers, but it might tell you something about a character a little bit. Yeah. I mean, listen at your own risk. Okay. That's what Yeah. From here on out, guys. So, just beware. Be warned, beware. Be weary. Be cautious. Be careful. Ashley and I did not I was trying to like quiz her yesterday. I was like,"Who do you think my least favorite character is going to be? Who's my favorite?" And so, uh, yeah, we talked about this beforehand, but we're neither confirmed nor denied any information. So, this is like all gonna be a surprise to us, which I'm really looking forward to. Yeah, personally, for sure. Okay. So, why don't you tell us your least favorite? Let's start with our least favorites and then we'll do our our most favorites. Yeah. I'll say it probably comes to no shock to anybody that was around for our Crescent City deep dives, including Hass, House of Flame and Shadow. special place in hell for Ethan Holstrong. I love that you pick Ethan like above all of the villains. Like, yeah, you're like, "No, Ethan takes the cake." Ethan takes the cake. He really truly does. He is the ultimate idiot boy making rash decisions. I mean, that was born of that. Was it born of that or was it born of Harry Potter? No, it was born of that. It was born of that cuz I was born like our first like it was our second, you know, fourth and sixth episode. That's true. That's true. So that is from Whence That Came. That is from Once That Came. He is the poster boy, if you will, poster child. And listen, I know there's a lot of Ethan sympathizers out there because he's not actually evil. He's just a dumb dumb. He's just a dumb dumb. And I don't want to keep reading his chapters. Like, I just don't. Every time his POV, I was like, is this how people feel when they read Kale? Because I love Kale, right? So, I'm like, is this how people feel when they read Kale? If Kale was like a 18-year-old fat boy buffoon buffoon. He's not even 18. He's like 22. They're probably the same age. It's whatever. But the point is I was like, "Oh, is this how people feel?" Because I have not understood that until now. Yeah. Yeah. So that's rough. Sorry guys, if you love him, no offense, but I cannot. Yeah, I cannot. He was rough for sure. I'm kind of wondering where he's going to go though. Maybe he'll redeem himself. I'm not. A lot of people like him anyway. He doesn't need to redeem themself in their eyes. He's just good the way he is. I just I wish like maybe to some people he's comic relief, but to me I'm just like get out of the way. You're in the way of everything. Just like let the let the smart people go. Yeah, let the smart people go. Just stop it. It's not even funny cuz he's he is the ultimate character that he does mean well. He's trying to do something, but he just makes everything so much worse. Cuz he also has a heightened, you know, sense of self-esteem when it comes to like bravery and like I'm going to go this person inflated ego. I'm going to go release this person and then it has a domino domino effect of a lot of terrible things. Plus too much Sunball. You don't care about it. You don't care about it. Okay. Could you gander a guess at my least favorite character from the entire Massiverse? Least favorite character from the entire Massiverse? He's fairly minor in the grand scheme of things, but he really got under my skin. You didn't like Run or Rune? Run. He would not be my least favorite character. I didn't hate him that much. This was a guy. Gave that away. Run just gives me the X because he reminds me of the type of guy I would have dated when I was younger. Yeah, that's fair. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay, let's see here. Um, he just irks you. But he like sucks real bad and he sucks real bad. Like there's no way that anyone would like him. Oh, like if anyone does like him, like you guys know me, like I love a good villain, but I didn't even like him. Um, uh, Duke Pington. I love that, but no. No, no, no. Okay. Worse. Oh, in my opinion. Okay. My least favorite character is Karen. Oh, that's who um Selena was battling Throne of Glass. No, so that is who was torturing Alyn the whole time that she was trapped in the box. Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah, Ethan's still below for me. You're like, I hate Ethan more. I do. Um, but that's Sarah J. Mass's fault. It's the chapters. His character would be fine. I just had to witness some stuff. So, yeah. Karen Karen Karen Karen Karen Karen has a Karen haircut and now I see him completely differently now. He's like I will fle the skin from your bones but he has like the Karen haircut. I love it. You know it's better for our brains. Yeah. Uh but he sucks and just the amount of like emotional, mental, physical torture and then like the whole thing going on. Obviously, I won't get into detail, but with Fenry's like during that time, it's like Karen really is just a piece of crap. Yeah. And he I'm glad he got what was coming to him. Yeah. We'll just say that. There you go. Yeah, that'll do it. That'll do it. Okay. So, out of every amazing character, this is so hard. It truly is. Who's your favorite? The surreal. The surreal. That is a good choice. I love it. That's a good choice. Is it freaking um What's her name? What's her name? Cal Train. Train Cal Train. Cal Train. Cal Train. Cal Train. It's hard to say. Calain. Okay. As if that's not weird. Well, Cal Train sounds like something. Uh Caline bar. We've gone full circle. Wait, is that was that what it was called? The bars that Regina George eats to gain weight. Caline bars. Okay. Train and Caline together. This is what happens after we've been

together a week. Staying up till 2: 11:13

00 in the morning every morning. That's funny. Calain. Yeah. I mean, that would be really cool. Yeah. Cuz you know, you guys, you guys that know I can't go too deep because you know it's pretty spoilery, but you guys who know. Is it her under there? That would be super under the robes cuz they have the robes, dude. That moment in Acatar. Oh yeah, I love the surreal. Justice for the surreal more surreal. Well, and I love Caline. That was one of my favorite parts in Throne of Glass. It was so badass. Yeah. And it was so meaningful and like just the symbolic symbolism symbolic symbolism that she represented, you know, and like the the way I love how Sarah J. Mass will write redemption arcs. I love the way she writes them. So, and how people are actually multiaceted people. I mean, even so, I actually and I put Landra too because shout out. I'm cheating. But um you know because Serial I love him. It's a little bit of a joke, right though. Um but uh Landra, I also loved her redemption story cuz it really much shows like how Selena viewed her doesn't mean that's who she is. Oh, totally 100%. And so and she had you know these other ulterior motives under there and um you know they became BFFs. So cute. Mhm. It is cute. I love her too. And she's freaking dragon whatever. She's whatever she wants to be, which is freaking so cool. Yeah. So, all right. Mhm. What about you? Who is your favorite? You guessed it correctly yesterday, but then you second guessed yourself. Oh, great. And now I don't even remember what my guess was. So, good luck. Cassian. Cassian. Oh, yeah. I did. Yep. Mhm. I changed it to Nesta. Yeah. Cuz the thing is it's like when I really thought about it, because obviously you guys know I love Nesa. I love Ailen. I love Bryce. I You know what I mean? And I love Hunt. But it's like all It's different. Yeah. To me, Cass is like the epitome of like a good person. Yeah. It's like he is a good person, but he's also a multiaceted character. And I like that you find out much more about him as the series goes on. And so, yeah, I just was like someone who's able to like meet Neesa where she is. um and still like give her the support she needs but stay true to himself and who is not a pushover and is super strong but also has like a very caring kind heart. Yeah. Like it's just Yeah. He's a perfectly balanced character in my opinion. Like he's funny and Yeah. He's funny but he's also like super tough and badass and like rough around the edges but like kind. Yeah. Um Yeah. I think he's just a really well-ritten character and like he's someone who Yeah. Like book boyfriend aside, like he would still be like like I would want to be his good friend, like part of the inner circle. Like I feel like me and Cass would just get along. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like if I were to pick uh what character you are most like it would actually be Cassian. Oh, really? You really think about it. That's interesting. Yeah. Cuz you're well balanced, you're funny, but you're also a badass. Like that's such a good point. Yeah. You're a lot like you're like, you know, you're a lot like him in a way. So maybe that's why I identify with him actually closely. Yeah. Whereas like all these other characters I really enjoy and love as well. But yeah, I feel like he's just a cool dude. Yeah. Yeah. So at the end of the day, I pick Cassian. There you go. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. So here's the thing. We should get started ranking these books, but we did not decide. Are we starting low? Are we going low to high or are we going high to low? Low to high. End on a high note. End on a high note. Yep. Okay. So, we'll just go back and forth. Is that the Yeah. So, officially spoilers coming in hot. We are not holding back no more. D. Let's go. I didn't know like what kind of sounds the Sarah J. Mass universe would make. So, I just went with my feelings and vibes. Whatever came out of my mouth. There are actually 17 books. I think I may have said 18 last time. Whatever. You guys know. You guys know the deal. There's eight in Throne of Glass. There's five in Acatar. There's three in Crescent City. And then Catwoman, the Weird Outlier. Yeah, we're going to include this one, by the way, which we also have a deep dive episode on cuz we had to figure out like what the hell this Catwoman book's about. That's secretly Sarah J. Mass's book. And it's not so secret, but like is nobody's reading it. It's actually spoiler really good. It is really good. So, where will it lie in this list? I don't know. It's up against some some hotties. some hotties. What does Okay, you start us off, Liz. Okay. Are we giving our star rating as well or just like ranking it, guys? I mean, almost all of them are five stars anyways. So, yeah, they're all four and five. I should say that. Just like with our Hunger Games ranking, we're ranking these by a hair, okay? But some of them, well, some of them some and maybe like petty reasons why it's in the place that it is below this book or whatever, you know? It's like we these books overall are very well-loved. You know, we'll talk about the first few that maybe have a you know tougher place on our list and why, but it's like it's only it's like the straight A student getting graded really critically. It's like that's what that is. Cuz I mean star rating I mean for me maybe the first few that I'm going to talk about might be four stars and then they're all five stars. Same. So let's just say that. Okay. Nothing on this list is rated lower than a four star for either of us. And then yeah, because especially because we have all deep dive videos on all these with the spice rating where we go really deep into it. We're doing more quick blurs. Okay. Yeah, sounds good. Let's do that. All right. So, my number 17, my lowest on the list is House of Flame and Shadow. Oh, ding ding ding ding. Me, too. It pains me to say that because previously, you know, Crescent City would have been my favorite series. Yeah. Okay. Um, all I put here is it's a mess and I need to reread it. So, I feel like the reason why it's at the bottom of my list, there's so much important information that's in House of Flame and Shadow, like so much origin, story, important info, brings it full circle, ties it together with Acatar, like so many important things. Um, but I just feel like the way that it was delivered was unreasonably chaotic. Yeah. Um, and I feel like a lot of things just felt like they were like dangling like loose threads, but like was it supposed to be like that? Dangling carrots on the side. Dangling carrots on the side of the main story. But it's like okay, we have to have faith that like things are going to get tied up in the next Acatar book and then in the fourth Crescent City. So like I do have faith that that will happen. And I think, you know, we were talking to one of our friends in book club recently who just reread um all Crescent Cities in a row. And what I did was I reread Crescent City 1 and two before reading three when it came out. I feel like I need to read them all three in a row again. Yeah. To get like the full picture because I did just reread all the Acatar books. Yeah. And hopefully that helps. But like as it is right now, and like I said before, I'm sure our rankings will change a lot as the years go on and we do rereads, but it's just it it didn't have that really satisfying feeling that I feel like I get from other SJM books, even if they are chaotic and deliver a lot of information. Yeah. you know, and now that we're like talking it out again, I'm kind of thinking of it like think of um it's like one of the other books that uh Sarah J. Mass has written where where you have multiple point of views and sometimes it's hard to get through, but there is so much information even in those weird point of view chapters that later on it does make sense and it's like, okay, like I get why we needed to be here, but because the series is not completed yet, so there's that, you know, that we're just like, what are we doing? I feel like with SJ, one of the things I like about her books though is that her series aren't completed, but you feel good at the end. Even if it ends on a cliffhanger, you still feel like, okay, wow, that was a crazy cliffhanger. The last 25% like had me on the edge of my seat, but I'm feeling okay until the next one comes out. I feel like that one just made me feel very like not enough things were explained, not enough things were tied together, and I just feel chaotic, and I don't like that. This ending was so sci-fi, which like Crescent City already has a lean sci-fi because it's more of a modern, you know, fantasy, but it went too hard. It went very hard into the sci-fi. Literally, it flew out and orbited into space. The imagery, like SJM, great job with the imagery. Like, you made us picture it exactly how you wrote it, but that wasn't great for a lot of us. Yeah. Yeah. um urban fantasy almost went too outlandish which like says a lot. It pulls you out sometimes. It pulled us out a lot because it made it funny. It made serious things funny. Yeah. Which is like I want to be crying. I don't want to be laughing at all this at how ridiculous it is. Yeah. Totally. So I think that was part of it too. So I think I just need to reread it. Yeah. At some point and then I can reassess. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, same stuff. All the same. So there you go. Yeah. have to do a reread like people are suggesting for us because Oh, that was the other thing I was going to say is like the sometimes it's the hype and the expectations Mhm. of like that book cuz we have a lot of questions. If you guys you know you're

here, you probably read Crescent City 2: 20:56

House of Sky and Breath. That ending with the crossover to Acatar that's so amazing. So that puts a lot of expectations and hype into that book. So then when they're just kind of like hanging out with two people from Acatar like underground and like through caves it's kind of answers but it's like why these two characters you know why are we hanging out with them and and Bryce was acting a fool and then when we get random point of views back to the Crescent City planet what is it Midgard Midgard then it's like why do we have to listen to this guy you know and Hypox is making weird decisions. So anyways, my point is is that uh with a reread, at least we know what we're getting into. Maybe instead of being like, "What the hell?" Like the whole time we'd be like, "Okay, where's the information that we need?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can like synthesize it a little bit better because we can kind of like not block out but like weed through the extra stuff we didn't necessarily need or think we need anyway at this point. Cuz there is a lot of important stuff in there. And now the bar is low, so maybe the Riri would be better. Yeah. And by low I mean we're both saying it's still four star. Yeah. So yeah, exactly. Okay, but it's four stars because of the expectation. Obviously, that can change when the next book comes out cuz what if we didn't need any of that stuff? I mean, that I would doubt that. I would doubt that, but you know, she's not perfect. That's true. Okay, what's your number 16? All right. Uh, Assassin's Blade. I know that's going to be polarizing. For me, it was really hard to get into. Um, and mostly because they're kind of like a few short stories from is it Selena's or Ailen's perspective? I mean, they're the same, but like who is she at the time? You know, she's Selena, right? Yeah. So, it's from Selena's perspective. So, it gives you a good backstory, but it was hard. I read it in chronological order. So, I read Assassin's Blade first. I didn't care about Sam that much. So, it didn't make me feel anything because I just felt like just like SJM where the last 75 pages is where everything happens or 75%. It's like the last 25% is where everything happens. So, it's like that's happening in like short story. So, every time I was finally into it, it's like chaos ending, boom, next story, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. However, I will say once finishing the series, I did like the tie-ins with the characters. For me, I just think it might have I might have felt something more if I read it in where it was released instead of chronological time. So, that's why it's at that part of the list. What about you? What's your number 16? Throne of Glass. Ooh. Just two. YA for me. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was good again. Four stars, right? Yeah. It was good. And um like I could see if there wasn't so like let's say I lived in a vacuum. I lived in a vacuum cleaner. I was a tiny person. Okay. No, I lived in a vacuum and I had never heard of SJM before from anyone else and I had just picked up Throne of Glass at the bookstore or the library and just read it. I don't know that I would have continued on. Yeah. You know, I think I might have read it and been like, well, that was okay, but there's probably other series that I'd like better because it's just a little YA for me. Um, but because of all the hype obviously and the fact that I had already read Acatar and Crescent City and everything, you know what I mean? It was just kind of like, okay, well, of course I'm going to continue on and I'm glad that I did obviously, but yeah. Um, yeah, cuz I would have been picking apart like a Dorian and Kale's like relationship with her. Well, especially because in Throne of Glass, we're kind of like is that it did kind of seem like, well, is this just going to end up being like a weird like young adult love triangle? Yeah. Yeah. Um cuz that's kind of what it seemed like. Um and so while it kind of was that, it kind of wasn't that. You know what I mean? It's like the classic we think we're dealing with Dorian and Kale, but then the real men enter in later. Okay. Um but yeah, so again, four star for me. It's not like these any of these are rated low, but just if I have to rank them, which is what we're doing. Yeah. Um then yeah, Throne of Glass would be my 16. So what's your 15? Yeah, I put Catwoman as number 15. Okay. And while I did enjoy it, again, it's just more, you know, it went lower because it's the epicness that I love. But she did such a great job. C, you know, Sarah really got me to care about, you know, a superhero book, which I never saw coming. I really like how she built out that character. If you're wondering if you should read it, I mean, if you love Sarah J. is writing. It's that in a, you know, kind of Catwoman almost fanfic style, like what what's the story you would wish for her to have? But she's very much like a badass like uh Selena is, you know, that found family is in it, which is really cool because you have different characters that you might know. A little bit of a YA romance. Yeah. Yeah. So, what was your number 15? Crown of Midnight. State your case. I just said just not super memorable. Yeah. But it did. See, the thing is like it's not super memorable. Like I feel like every time I think of Crown of Midnight, I have to Google what happened in Crown of Midnight. But those first three books kind of blurred together for me. So it's tricky. Yeah. Um but it was the turning point. Mhm. That's the thing. Yeah. Because that at the end is when we find out that Selena is in fact a Lynn. Yeah. And that is also when um Kale finds this out. Yeah. and sees her in her fa form when she gets sucked through the word gate or whatever. So, you know, while it was I feel like it was literally like say Selena transforms into a Lynn for just a split second, but it's enough for us to be like, "Oh, this is where this is going." And also, it's like you come back with the next book, which is a fire, right? I think so. You come back with the next book. Um, they all blend together at this point. Um, and it's like her writing changes so much and evolves so much and you feel like you're now into kind of a different level. Yeah. Which I like. Well, here's the thing, too. Assassin's Blade, Throne of Glass, most of Crown of Midnight, they're humans. Magic is banned. Like, so it's kind of like, why am I doing this? I want to read about magic and fantasy, you know? Yeah, totally. When when are we going to get to that? And then you start peeling back the layers with the word gates and the different weird suspicions and the stuff, you know? Yeah. And then you get there's the fay. Cuz when cuz I know for us when we're hearing like Rowan and we're hearing all these names and we're like where are these cool ass people? These are just like dorky humans teenagers running around a castle, you know? Yeah. It's the turning point. It is the turning point where things get serious. And it's like Nhemia gets killed off too. So, I think it's the first we get our first taste of like a main character getting killed off. And so, I think it's kind of like that turning point as well where we're like, okay, we're not just like placating to teenagers or young adult feelings. Like, this is actually going to end up being like a a real like epic series. So, that's cool. Yeah, for sure. Okay. What is your 14? Throne of Glass. Mhm. Yeah. So, that would be technically the first one in publishing order. same reasons, you know, just kind of like, well, what are we doing here? What are we reading about, you know, but still good overall now rereading it, I'd love to find out where I would rank it. Yeah. Uh, my 14 was Catwoman. Okay. I just said delightful surprise. Yeah. So, um, you know, I did rate this five stars even though it's lower on the list. Um, yeah, I think it's the same thing. You know, it's just an entertaining one-off. Yeah. Um, but because of that reason, it's like you don't get any of like the really deep epic um, you know, like the adventure, the found family that's really built over time, the grand, you know, reveals, the twist and turn. You just don't get that in Catwoman. Um, but it's still a really good like if you want like an entertaining thing you can read in a sitting that's 300 pages and just really good in that SJM style. Yeah. Yeah, it's all the things to love about SJM in a very condensed book. Yeah. With just a tiny bit of, you know, that comic book fantasy. It's not like real high fantasy stuff. It's just We don't know why it's called Soul Stealer. Don't let that mislead you. Yeah. We have no idea. Um, we cannot figure it out. But, I mean, honestly, before reading Catwoman, I'd figured ah, this would be probably the bottom of the list. And look at that. It's not. It's not. For me, it was number four on the bottom. Yours was number five, right? Fifth one from the lowest. Uh, it's 14. so forth. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, what is your 13? Crown of Midnight. Same reasons we just discussed. So, we have very similar lists so far, I would say. Mhm. Yeah. Things get going though. We're excited. By the end, I'm like, "Oh, yeah. This is where the good stuff's starting." Mhm. Yeah. Like you can tell. Yeah. I mean, a lot of stuff does happen in Crown of Midnight. So, that was the turning point. So, that for me, that would have been our third cuz you read it to the same order, right? Mhm. So that would have been the third book in if you do Assassin's Blade first. If you did publishing order, where does Assassin's Blade fit? After that, I think after Crown of Midnight, I think. Yeah. I don't know because I don't have the reading guide up in front of me, but yeah, I want to say it's after that. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yep. Okay. My 13th is uh The Assassin's Blade. Okay. Um I love a good full circle moment. I'm a big prequel lady. Um, yeah, I also read it in chronological order. I like that I did it that way. Oh, okay. Uh, I feel like it made down the line things more meaningful for me. So, like when Wyne pops up, for example, I was super pumped that that made a full circle moment. I love that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um, so I'm a big Assassin's Blade lady. It's low on the list because I have to put something down there. But yeah, I love The Assassin's Blade. I feel like everyone should read it. I don't feel like you should skip it. I feel like, you know, read it in different orders. Maybe next time when I reread Throne of Glass, I'll put it in in publishing order just to kind of see. Yeah, I want to see. I liked that once I liked that I read it first. That's good. Yeah, good for you. So, yeah. Um, but yes, so that is my number 13. What's your 12? A Court of Frost and Starlight. And I love that book. I think that it gets unnecessary hate. Um, you know, it's not as epic. It's very short, but you get that Christmas nolla vibes, but there's secretly a lot of information in it. Yeah. Or not so secretly. I mean, I think a lot of people say just to skip it and go into silver flames. There is so much especially we talked about on that deep dive video that we did where you had just reread it and you're like there is so much that you need to know for silver flames or else you'd be like what the hell it's weird cuz it's a total point of view shift. So it's a nice transition to the other point of view that's a thousand pages. Well and that's what I mean with SJM as well. Okay, just to to start here I also my number 12 was a um was a quarter of frost and starlight. So, we're talking about the same thing for number 12. Yep. Um, I feel like, you know, in Acatar, books 1, 2, and three are basically one, we'll say story for all intents and purposes, right? And then you have this great, you know, quote unquote Christmas special, small novella that actually does have a lot of important information, not just for the Acatar series, but for the whole Massiverse. Yeah. um which is a great palette cleanser before you start with silver flames which is essentially a completely new story. Yeah. Um so that's new story but you need the other stuff if you like want to get the most out of it. And I feel like that's what I love about SJM and that's why I struggled so much with Flame and Shadow was because I didn't get that feeling even if it ends on a cliffhanger I'm getting a feeling of closure and I feel no closure with Flame and Shadow. So, which is weird cuz it didn't necessarily have a cliffhanger. It was weird for her. No. And I think maybe that adds to it almost because you're like,"Why is this so why is this weird?" Yeah. Weirdly closed like case closed, but it's not. I mean, obviously, because we know it's not, you know, cuz it's SJM. And maybe she purposely We're going back to House and Flame and Shadow Slander. Um, like maybe she ended it trying to get that same vibe as Wings and Ruin. Maybe, but it didn't feel like that. And she better not give us a Nolla. It's like when you're watching a horror movie and you know that the killer they killed the killer but you know he's coming back and it's going to be that final scene where he stabby Joe jumps out and gets the person and then it fa it cuts to black and you know that they're setting it up for the sequel, right? It's like that's what I think all of us were expecting to happen with Flame and Shadow and when it didn't go down like that it made us all feel creepily uneasy. Yeah. cuz it was too too wrapped up with a bow. Well, yeah. It's like, okay, I'm sorry. Is the Scream franchise finally done? You know what I mean? It's like I don't think so. Which I don't feel like Wings and Ruin maybe because we knew there were two more books. Like I don't think Wings and Ruin I think they still left us like wanting that more. It wasn't perfect, right? I feel like it was closed, but they were all just turn No, they're all fay and they know they have to like live there now. So, it's like how are they going to navigate this? Well, that and I mean you have the slow burn going on with you know something's going to happen with Neesa and Cassie and they can't just leave that open-ended for that's like what do we know like what do we care about in House and Flame and Shadow other than just wanting more answers that weren't given like actual like storyline character development you know Bryce is being mean to Hunt great um I think it's all just speculation at this point it's like what's going on with Bryce like what's going on yeah it's like we just want to know what's going on with people but it's not necessarily like there was this intense cliffhanger so anyway without making this a whole another flame and Shadow episode. Back to Frost and Starlight. Basically, read it. Yeah, it's important. It's important. Yeah. Mhm. Um, my number 11 is Acatar. Okay. I just called it The Inception. Yeah, The Inception. Um, so, uh, A Court of Thorns and Roses, book one, you know, in the grand scheme, is it in my all-time favorites? Like, not necessarily. Yeah. Like, I love it. Yeah. But it's also it's a four-st star. So, um I feel like I love it. It's great. It obviously sucked me in. It got me into SJM and for that I am very grateful. Um however, it just there's better books. Yeah. Yeah. Builds a starter book. It's a starter book. It builds on, you know, it gets us started. It gets us invested and then we gets the people going and then we can just build and build and build on that. And so I love that for everyone involved. But yes, it would be my number 11. What about you? Empire of Storms for me, and maybe it's because I did the tandem read. I wouldn't have done it any other way though. I'll say that with Tower of Dawn, but Empire of Storms, like it it was kind of like how Air of Fire was for no how Crown of Midnight was for you. Like I have to like really think hard about what happened in that book cuz Tower of Dawn sticks out so much to me. But Empire Storms is like what was even happening except the ending. Obviously the ending was crazy. And then we we looked it up and thought about it and it was well cuz I think it's almost like a case of so much happened that then your mind goes blank and you're like what happened and it's so many especially tandem reading. It's so many point of views. I love that though. But yes, but it was a lot cuz you have Luran and Elaine like gallivanting through the circus and like hiding out cuz magic is, you know, they destroyed the pillars so people can have magic again or something. And then they're like trying to recconnect with the group and you know Ailen meets Mannon which was amazing and then that those different love stories are going on. So it's a lot and it's great and again it's pulling hairs here or whatever it's called splitting hairs and if you're reading the tandem read which is like what we did then you also are switching to Kale and Wirene's point of perspective and you're switching to Nessin and Sarax perspective. So it's like good luck. There's 10 billion perspectives which I honestly love and those are my favorite types of books. But yeah, it's a lot. It was great. But even just the story and the information we were getting out of the two of them, technically Empire of Storms would rank lower than Tower of Dawn for me. That's unpopular opinion. That is unpopular opinion. Usually people love Empire of Storms and don't like Tower of Dawn. So that's interesting. But if I read them separately, would it be different? It's just because like I'm literally comparing these. Like to me, Tower of Dawn was a different type of, you know, emotional journey. Yeah. Even though we still get all that information. Um whereas the Empire of Storms was a literal journey like Lord of the Rings style. Well, I think people struggled so much with Tower of Dawn because you know, publishing order people read Empire of Storms. You end on that insane cliffhanger. Let's say you wait. I don't know because I this didn't apply to me. Let's say you wait. It comes out finally. You're like, "Oh my god, the next book's finally out. Tower of Dawn." And then you start reading, you're like,"It's not even about that." Oh, no. Yeah. My head would explode, I think. Yeah. Again, agreed. I mean, yeah. So, but when you're doing the tandem read, it all just makes sense. It all just makes sense. It's so cool, too, that like literally these things are happening simultaneously. So, I know there's people that are like,"No, you can't do the tandem read. It's not what the author wanted." It's like, but it's okay because it's not that serious. And then also for me, if I ever when I ever reread it, honestly, I'm going to throw a curveball here and I'm going to read Tower of Dawn first and Empire of Storms. Interesting. Cuz there's no way I could wait with that Empire of Storms Cliffhanger. I mean, now I know what's going to happen. I was going to say, I mean, now I seriously I would want to get through Tower of Dawn, even though I like it better. So, it doesn't make sense. I like it better in the tandem read. I would want to see what I like it just as much reading it in that order that I want to do. Yeah, I'm just going to make up my own order. Keepers cuz I don't I want them to all be alive. Whatever makes you happy, you know. Yeah. What about you? Uh for my number 10, Air of Fire. Oh. Um I just put Row and White Thorn. End of story. End of story. Um yeah, I mean Air of Fire, it takes the turn. Yeah. You know, this is where things really, really start to amp up in Throne of Glass. This is where Rowan Whitethornne enters the chat, who is arguably, you know, one of my favorite charact. He's not my favorite character in Throne of Glass. Yeah, my favorite character is Mannon. Yeah, I'm going to call her Mannon. I don't care. Yeah. Um, we know it's Manon. We don't want to. Okay. Um, but anyways, yeah, it's like I, you know, I personally love the witch chapters. People complain, but they were my favorite. I think people don't like them at first cuz they're like trying to follow this story and then this side story suddenly is happening. But I we were I was the opposite. I was the opposite about the witches, you know, the witch when she like I mean cuz we're pretty much introduced to Mannon, you know, she like kills that guy and like basically like kind of eats him, right? Like right off the bat I was like uh this is who we needed right now. Yeah. Like come on. For sure. Um and then obviously when Rowan enters I was like oh thank god. Like I was really afraid that all we had to work with was Dorian and Kale and I was going to struggle big time and Kale had just like sent her off to Wonderland like you know this guy this guy and Dorian I mean I know people love Dorian but you know and I do too as a friend. Yeah but he to me is not a book boyfriend material. Yeah um so yeah anyway 10 would be a fire for those reasons. Okay so the next one for me is Tower of Dawn. Okay. So yeah, I didn't hate it as much as a lot of people. I did I enjoy it more than Empire of Storms. So I do love Kale's journey of like literally everything. He really needed that. He really needed that. But like imagine it's like they are racist against people with magic. He was completely indoctrinated and raised to fear those people cuz imagine you're a human and you don't have magic. Like what defense do you have against some of these like magical systems? A heart of gold. A heart of gold. Like you know he knows like we're effed as you know just simple little humans. And I'm sure there's a fear of well just the magical creatures are going to rule everything. Well yeah. Are we going to end up in a situation like Spark of the Everflame? Like that's what they're afraid of. Yeah. Exactly. So he's like, you know, he he has a lot of self-discovery and journey to like get through to get to like not be a racist against them. Well, and to heal his own like inner like self-hatred from his like personal journey, too. Yeah. Yeah. And also that. Yeah. Also, yeah. No, this isn't a kill bashing story, so I won't. But um Yeah. I I liked it. And then we do get to find out some other crazy stuff like about the what are the spiders called? The stagen stuff like that. We get to find out Mave is a freaking Belg princess. Yeah. Which is super cool. While at the time we're also seeing her hunt Ailen down, you know, we're like,"Oh no." You know, because she's a Val. You're finding out in Tower of Dawn at the same time that she's Val, but they don't know it yet. Yeah. Exactly. Which is like so crazy. And even if you if you do the traditional reading order, you're you're like, "Oh crap, Alien was just taken by her and she's a [ __ ] vow." Yeah. This is crazy. So, wo like on all Anyway, you read it. It was crazy. It was good. Yeah. Yep. What about you? My number nine is Queen of Shadows. Okay. I just put Man in Black Beak. Let's be real. Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like that's the one that gets really into um all the witch lore. Yeah. Right. Um, so hey, I love it. Yep. Queen of Shadows was my next one. Okay. So, we'll just keep talking about it. Yeah. Um, that and also Yeah, that's that's the like big um moment that you almost like think this could be the end of the series by the end of it cuz they literally destroy the glass castle and Landra cuz that's the one where Dorian like his dad dies at the end. find out that he named him Dorian somehow without knowing even though he had to forget his name and the Val prince took over. So there's just so much emotional like reactions that I had. Oh, Loran comes into the chat. We think that he's like a completely different person than he ends up being. Yeah. Like cuz he's sent to like sniff out Ailen as one of Mave's hounds. And we get to see everybody's powers in action. We get to see Landra's, you know, and Ailen go through that like rediscovering discovering who people are without these outside influences such as Arabon and everything which they also kill him in this book too. Yeah. And well and Adon becomes a main character so many people. Yeah. It's kind of like when it's like the first moment where we kind of see that the rest of the series is going to literally follow all of these people. It's not just going to be one story line. It's like no to the bitter end. We're going to be following like every single group. And they're all so good. And they're all so good. Like there's no there's no point of view in my opinion that I really disliked. It's almost like Sarah's trying to do that with House of Flame and Shadow. Not to keep coming back to that, but hey. But it's like when some of us really hate those. But hey, like you said, some people hate Kale and we're having to read about Ethan. So So Paxia, so I love I think the difference though, and I'll just say this without having to delve into more. Okay. The difference is this, Kale, if you are someone, let me look you in the eyes. If you're a person who wants to skip Tower of Dawn or who did skip Tower of Dawn or who, you know, dislikes Kale and thinks,"Okay, maybe it's not like that important of like a story line to read." There's a lot of info in there for one thing. Second of all, I feel like, you know, he's the only like human character who makes a transformation and so I feel like read it for the single reason that like his story in my opinion is the most relatable. Yeah. Like what would you do if you were in his shoes? Like literally. Yeah. Like we all love to I mean symbolically, you know, relate to characters like Alyn, but at the end of the day, like, you know, we can't really relate to her on a lot of level. Just kale. Yeah, exactly. We're just g and that's exactly right. And so I feel like Yeah, I am like a Kale supporter through and through and through. I feel like with Ethan it's different because he's not What journey is Ethan on? Like what's hope is there for him? Like he's just and there's and it's fine. He's a silly little dude that's like getting lucky essentially. Like I'm just saying it's apples and oranges. Yeah. Kale and Ethan. Like you can compare them. Is he going to get smart? Come on. Maybe. But like also like his journey at this point in time doesn't in my opinion compare in the complexity or depth at all that Kale's journey does. Yeah. Like we knew it was kind of something was going to happen there. I don't know with Kale like Yeah, there had to be more. There had to be more. Was given so many glimpses but from the beginning though as opposed to Ethan which wasn't from the beginning. So So I think it's Yeah. Apples and oranges very different. Okay. So my number eight uh is A Court of Mist and Fury. Okay. Oh, interesting. You know, love this book because in my, you know, I feel like this solidified like an enemies to lovers, villain gets the girl storyline into my brain. Um, and I feel like then where did that go, right? It spiraled out of control into like this whole world, right? Um, and so yeah, I feel like that was my first real taste in a romanty book. Obviously, we see it in popular media in some capacity often, but of that whole like, you know, the big switch. Yeah. The big switch where we think it's going to go one way and it goes completely the other way. And it was just Yeah. Very, very epic for sure. Full of so many like whoa whoa. Oh my gosh. Wo moments from a different book. Mhm. M cuz I'm trying to think like for me that's like almost that feeling that you get in reading like a murder mystery book where you only get that one satisfying moment at the end, you know? But this you're getting them spread out throughout multiple books. So it's like you have to really work for it. Well, and you're like, "Oh my god, now I have to go back and reread because this whole time Yeah. what's been happening like I thought it was this way, but it was a completely different way." Yeah. So fun. So fun. Okay. So, um, mine would be A Court of Silver Flames. Mhm. Yeah. So, I loved everything about that journey, you know, and that story. It was so good. It wasn't my favorite necessarily, but I feel like you're either a Neesa like fan, and I'm not not a fan, but like she's either your number one or not, you know? So, for that reason, that's probably also what kind of caters to putting it lower is that while I love Neesa and her story is so important. And I am a supporter of Neesa, she's still like overall like not necessarily my favorite. But I loved the scavenger hunts. I loved like finding out more about the history of Prtheon and everything like that and her and Cassian story, the blood, right? Like literally everything. Yeah. Again, splitting hairs to like narrow down this ranking system. Yes. Uh my number seven is A Court of Wings and Ruin. Okay. Um you know, it's just like that epic conclusion to that first, you know, like big story line in Acatar, which I really loved. And we also get one of the scenes in the Massoververse that lives rentree in my head until the end of time with Cass and Neesa at the big battle where we think that Cassian's going to die and she like throws herself over his body and there's like we didn't get enough time. It's like that whole that whole speech if you know you know. It's like just something that is like seared into the brain forever. Um, and I love it so much. Just eat that up. So, what's your number seven? Uh, it looks like Acatar, A Court of Thorns and Roses, the book that started it all, which you kind of touched on briefly, but yeah, I loved it and it'll always have a special place in my heart and soul. And uh, it was so good. Okay, guys, the full transparency, my we freaking refil we filmed all of this from now on and my mic went out, so we're refilming. So, good luck. Um, okay. So, my next one, number six, is Empire of Storms. Um, I mean, I love this book. I love everything about it. Like the epic, I don't know, it's just a really great epic like fantasy story. Um, and I really, really enjoyed Lurcan and Ali's story in particular. All the different points of view. Um, I'm totally I love Loran. So, you know, that was a big draw for me for sure in Empire of Storms. Um, and then, you know, we get the basically one spicy scene with Rowan's, you know, epic speech. Um, so I feel like that was definitely something that stands out in my mind. And then, you know, the ending, the like crazy ending with like him on the beach and the like where's my wife and like all that. It was Yeah. So impactful and I loved every minute of it for sure. Yeah. The my wife, the classic my wife and I think at that point was kind of like the announcement for everybody. So you're getting like the multiple like feelings involved cuz that's the first time they're publicly, you know, and it's not they they can't do it, he's saying it. And so it's shocking for everybody and also like literally where's his wife? Yeah. Like that is where that trope I think got really like solidified in my brain for sure. Yeah. Um but yeah, Empire of Storms number six in my opinion just a perfect epic romanty with great point of view. Yeah. What's your next one? So mine would be House of Sky and Breath Crescent City 2. So, uh, right in the middle there for me as it is right now. Also, right in the middle, you know, it's a middle one. Um, I didn't like particularly love the overall book necessarily because we have like a little bit of repetition, a little bit more world building. Hunt kind of betrays Bryce a little bit, so we're left kind of like not knowing how to feel, but also, you know, they've been dating for a month, so calm down. Yeah. It's not that serious yet. It's not like it's this yearslong betrayal. No. And I feel like she I don't know. She's young making silly decisions. I feel like Hunt was kind of justified in what he did. I said it. Oh, there you go. Unpopular opinion. And also ending heard around the world. That ending, guys. That ending. You can't beat it. You can't beat it. You can't beat it. You know, if you didn't, if you were able to avoid all spoilers, which I so hope you were. I know that it's hard, but it's one of those ones I think people really try to protect cuz you do not see that universe cross over coming. Absolutely not. A friend like if you recommended this book to somebody, you give them your number. You make sure that they have you to touch base with when they get to that ending because Liz did that for me. It was like, "Are you there yet? Are you there yet? Are you there yet?" Cuz like,

let's go. I got there at 2: 53:20

00 in the morning and it was I'm I don't care. I'm blowing up your phone. you did this to me. I need to tell you. And it was crazy. And then all the conspiracy theories start. Yep. For the whole Massiverse. And that was without us even reading Throne of Glass. Yeah. So when we when we went into Throne of Glass later, we're like, I hope this ties in and it wasn't like just those two worlds. Yeah. And it does. Yeah. And it does. And it will more. I predict. I think it's all connected. We know it's going to come together. We literally know it's We have to hope and pray that it's going to come together. just basically like different names for different things. Okay, so here we are in our top five. Mhm. Okay, my number five is House of Earth and Blood. Number one, Crescent City. Um, so I just wrote here best world building. Yes. So that award goes to Yes. So I am just now giving out awards. The Oscar winner for best world building goes to House House of Earth and Blood. The award statue, visualize it. It'll be a golden crow stacked on books. Yeah. And for this one would be a world. He's he's standing on a world. Okay. That's the award that Sarah J. Mask gets just a cardboard cut out of Hunt. There you go. You get this. Uh yeah, it's you know I read this before I knew anyone else who had read it. I was reading it completely by myself. This before Bookstagram, before the podcast, before book club, like literally. Um, and so I'm just glad that I stuck with it because the world building was pretty insane. And Urban Fitness. Urban Fitness. What is that? Is that a name of a gym? It must be cuz it just came out so easy. I've never been there. I don't know what that is. I don't go here. Go to the school. Urban fantasy. Urban fitness. Bryce works out. She runs. It's actually just a book about urban fitness. Okay. Anyways, um, urban fantasy. wasn't really my thing. Like, and I would say now I even still like given the opportunity to read like medieval fantasy, urban fantasy, whatever, I still tend to gravitate towards more towards like the medieval stuff. Um, but I mean, I loved it and I just powered through and I'm so glad I did because I freaking love that book and it really I mean, anyone if you know, you know, it really kicks off with a pretty crazy bang for sure. Gets you. Yeah. Right out of the gate. It does. I remember texting that to you. Like seriously, we I think we're on chapter five. Yeah. Like not very far. Yeah. So, I think she took all that criticism. That wasn't really criticism, but you know, the gest of like Acatar and Throne of Glass um taking forever to get to the like actual Well, I'll get you then. Oh, yeah. It take 75% to get there. Yeah. Well, okay. How about chapter five? I'm going to hurt you in the beginning. Yeah. I'm going to hurt you badly. Stab, stab, stab. And it's brutal, too. It is. It really is. But I mean, it's also just another testament to how well if you're able to write a character we care about that much to where they die that early on and it actually means something, that's a big deal. And I wonder if she did that because she knew I want to interview her because it's like did you know did you know that people were going to struggle with the urban fantasy aspect and all the like the intense political systems that are going on that it's like I need to make sure that they know what they're in like that like it's more than that obviously and cuz it kind of helps because it's chapter five. It's like okay like here we go like it's not just fairies on cell phones. Yeah. You know what I mean? Battling mayors. So, yeah. But yeah, best world building. I mean, hands down. Obviously, I feel like, you know, looking at Throne of Glass and the world built there and Acatar and the world built there. I mean, very intricate, very like it's easy to picture, like you feel like you're there, but I feel like there's just something different about Crescent City. So, yeah. Well, because you it's you just have a lot of layers. It's not as simple as like you're in this medieval world. You have that point of reference in media. Yeah, you have um an author playing with what would like that medieval magic vibe feel like but in modern society with cell phones and restaurants like and like plumbing and lights what would a shifter what would they be doing? Would they would everybody be paired off in their magic systems? Would they all be intermingling? Is it both? What is obviously like the class system is a really big deal in Crescent City. So there's like, you know, some political commentary in there as well. Actually, quite a bit of it. Um, so yes, that is why it is my number five. So what about you? My number five would be Kingdom of Ash, which I very much believe my ranking of this will change on a reread. It's just because of what was going on in my life. We were like in the middle of the holidays that I started reading it and then going, you know, for my kids back to school. So I remember not as much as I wanted to be able to sit down and just read it, it was a struggle bus because I never had time. you know, I got through the alien mask scene and then I remember after that like I just like didn't have time and it was so frustrating. Um, so because of that in my brain it's very disjointed as a book um when it takes like a month or two for me to read something. It it's hard you know kind of happened with Heat of the Everflame as well. So, um, but overall, obviously great book, satisfying ending, amazing. I freaking hate Elena with a passion. That is the life ghost lady. She Yeah, I feel like it's it's your fault. It's your fault. It's all her fault. And then freaking Ailen as the amazing person that she is still tries to like trade with her, but then they're the freaking Val or No, it wasn't even the Val. It was like the god the gods, which are they the Asari? Who knows? Like who are they really? The rabbit hole. The rabbit hole continues. Um so yeah, King of Vash. Great. Easily number five in the top five. There you go. Yeah, KOA is my number four. So just coming off of that, um it wins the Oscar award for expert character development and multi-pov. Yeah. Um I don't know. Okay, and I'll say this because I feel like people need to know this. I am obsessed with the multi-pov, you know. I feel like in order to execute it that well with that many different things going on, like that's amazing to me. Like what an epic story and you have to have it as a recipe for success. Like Sarah J. Mass is a master of POV. Yeah. I mean, just to be able to do that in a convincing way right now. Well, just because we don't like one of the characters doesn't mean she's not writing them well. We might not be intended to like them, too. We have to think about that. Um, but no, I was going to say the only book in my opinion outside of the SJM universe that compares in expert level writing for Multip POV is Goldfinch by Raven Kennedy, which is the last book in the Plated Prisoner series. So, if you guys haven't read it, I definitely had to throw that little plug in there so that you guys know. It's the only thing in my eyes that compares to KOA as far as like an epic ending like that, too. Um, so yeah, I also put on here too just the way Yeah, the mask scene in particular is another one of those scenes that just will never leave my mind because of the way that it was written so well. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, I just I couldn't even believe like when I cuz when I was reading it, I was totally the opposite of you. Um, I was completely sucked in and I want to say that I read all of Kingdom of Ash in like two to three days. Yeah, like I could not put it down, but I remember I was like home alone and I was crying reading the mask scene and I was like I looked cuz I was reading it on Kindle, you know, and I was like, "Oh my god, like I feel like I've already been through such a roller coaster and it was like less than 25% or something." I'm like, "Are you kidding me? This is crazy. Like, how are we not even like at the halfway point in this book? Like, what kind of emotional turmoil am I in for?" And it's a lot of emotional turmoil, just in case you haven't read it yet and you're curious. Um, but yeah, so KOA number four, best character development and multi- POV. There you go. There's your award. Mhm. My number four was actually Air of Fire, the unsung hero of the group. Yeah. Like I don't particularly hear people saying it's their top. Yeah. Um, but for me it was such a good transition book that I it just stands out to me as my favorite because you get the transition from Adland good luck with any of these darling a darling a darling a darling darling um which is like the human space right and it's symbolic not only in that transition to Ailen you know literally from Selena to Ailen to like using her magic meeting Rowan like going through the kind of that emotional turmoil and growth that we see with Kale and with Neesa, you know, in the later books. So, you get her acceptance. Um, not fully cuz it's still growth that she has to take on throughout the other books, but it's kicking it off. It's like ready to like pull the band-aid off and let the wound heal naturally like with some air. So, I loved and I loved also like we're really in the magic system now. It's what I was waiting for when I picked up Throne of Glass and it took a while to get there. Like you're getting all the different magical creatures and you know you have skin walkers and random appearances and getting to know a little bit of back like who's this mave lady? So you're getting new characters like the the cooks, you know, at the place that she stays. I forget his name, but so cute. So it's something for everyone. Loved it. Okay, so we're in top three. Top three. That's crazy. We're getting We're winding down, guys. What do you think they are? Okay, so this might surprise you because of how much I love this book, but my number three spot goes to House of Sky and Breath. So, Crescent City 2. Um, the award for best ending in a book ever. Seriously. And hottest MMC goes to You get two. You get two. I mean, yeah. People win two Oscars all the time. Yeah, it's true. Um, but yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Um you you know if you know you know House of Sky and Breath I just none of us saw it coming. Spoilers aside no one's like no one saw it coming. You couldn't guess that guess there was going to be a crossover. It was crazy. Although I guess you could guess but you wouldn't see it coming. You still wouldn't listen. You wouldn't know when it was coming if if you thought so many people are listening and they're like actually I saw it coming. Really? Really? You smart cookie. Yeah. literally smart like out of this world like extracurriculars. Um like gold star to you. I say that because like if you read Throne of Glass and there are a couple little nuggets in there but still but you have to really be you know like her falling through the different worlds. Yeah. So it's like that could have been recent and then but then how what would increscent city tie you into the other world like at that point like would you even realize that the worlds are connected in that way like you know like or or she's going to do anything with it. Yeah cuz it's just pure speculation. So no I don't think any of you saw it coming. I definitely do. No but I'm very curious like honestly just aside like if you did see it coming I would love to know why like and how you figured that out. Yeah. Aside from it was spoiled for you. Yeah. Aside from a spoiler and like all jokes aside, I'm genuinely curious and I won't poke fun. Like I just genuinely would love to know how like what clues you saw that were like, "Oh, there's for sure going to be Bryce is going to meet Reand in a different world." Yeah. Or timeline or whatever it is. Cuz that's completely insane and to me came out of like I never in a million years would have guessed that's how that book was going to end. No. And I didn't have Yeah. So again, pre book club, pre- Bookstagram, pre- podcast, like I just had to digest that information all by myself. You're lonesome. Oh, so sad. But friend, I literally just had to read the last page like several times in a row and then just gaze off into nothingness for a while. And then I do remember I like explained the ending to my husband who was like, okay, like he hasn't read Crescent City. Like I feel so bad for not only our past selves like me who wasn't getting into these kind of books, didn't even try, but like all the people out there who haven't experienced that like moment in literature. Yeah. Like that mind completely like altering moment. Yeah. Um also this is our PSA. If you're holding out for Acatar 6 and not reading Crescent City yet, just do it. Please like go. It's so hard. Do you guys know who know that like try to convince people cuz you can't be too aggro about it. I'm aggro. I don't even care anymore. I'm like don't do it. Don't cuz everybody's like scared cuz it's so cumbersome and whatever. But it's like just I won't I don't want to spoil anything. You just have to read it. You'll understand when you get there. I mean we've already spoiled everything. No, I mean to No, I'm saying to tell other people. Okay. I was like too late. No, no, but like I'm telling like if you need some more help on how to convince your friend like how how to get them to read it cuz I've been there like oh it's just so hard to get through. I'm trying but it's like oh they're going to be they'll get it when they get to the they just have to trust you. I just always say you know if you're holding out for Acatar 6 before moving on to Crescent City you're doing yourself an huge disservice in understanding the world as a whole. That's what I always say. So, it's like I kind of put it's like a little bit of a masked threat. You know what I mean? Like you will be you will be sorry regretful. You will be sorry. You will be upset cuz you will not understand the extent of the complexity of whatever ends up happening in Acatar 6. And please do it before the next one comes out. Like yeah tell like because people are going to know. I just I am under the speculation. This is a side tangent, but Acatar 6 will be aftermath of Bryce leaving. Mhm. Yeah, for sure. Um, for sure. There's just there's no way like whatever Acatar 6 and Crescent City 4 Yeah. they're going to be very connected in some way. Cuz if they weren't, I truly believe Sarah would have been working on right now getting ready for the next Crescent City 4 or she's just gone off the rails and all of us will be like, "What's happening?" Yeah, maybe. Which hopefully is not the case. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. So what is your next one? So then my number three because that was your number three. Yeah. Okay. House of Earth and Blood Crescent City 1. So while number two was the ending heard around the world. We love it. I actually really loved and enjoyed House of Earth and Blood Crescent City 1 pretty much from the get-go. I knew it was cumbersome, but I don't care. Like I loved it. I liked the like figuring out and seeing what our world would look like with magical creatures involved. And then I absolutely was obsessed with like just even the map in that like whatever you know courtyard if you want to say of the different like you know the it kind of turned into a trans tourist destination right for people all around that planet that they would go and like talk on the lay lines to each other but really it's like a freaking you know mecca of power. Yeah. So that was so cool. The drop I was so obsessed with. And I don't particularly love sci-fi, but it was just enough sci-fi sci-fi that for me it wasn't too much, but it was like really neat and cool. So such a good blend. Fantasy, contemporary, sci-fi all mixed into one. So I loved it. And political, you know, it gets more as you move along. That ending hilarious, satisfying, great, amazing. him freaking Bryce vacuuming up the ashes. Oh my gosh. Hilarious. So so good. Very iconic. So good. Mhm. Yeah. And you've got the slow burn kind of enemies to lovers thing going on too, which we all love. It was a little weird there when it was just like fantasy sci-fi. Not sci-fi, sorry. Fantasy CSI, you know, with the like demons that like Bryce the sidekick. Yeah. Yeah. But that is kind of funny when you think about it that way, like after the fact. Yeah. Okay. My number two is Tower of Dawn. Yeah. The most polarizing one of them all. Yeah, for real. I mean, you guys know, like I've talked about this so much here and then, you know, obviously over on my personal page as well. Kale's story is just really important. Yeah. Like it's the most relatable because Kale is a human. Mhm. And obviously it's about him, you know, healing all of his like inner hatred, I think, is a big like theme for sure. Um, you know, while Wyne is helping him to like heal his physical body as well. So I think it's like a really beautiful symbolic journey. Yeah. Um, but I mean it gets really deep. I loved it so much. Um, I just put here the quote, you must enter where you fear to tread. I feel like that is like the one big thing that I got out of that book and it definitely for me was the most like emotional read. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That and I mean not only that emotional healing that is going on, personal development, but what it could look like for some who are diagnosed with a debilitating illness or has physical harm that is life-changing like him becoming paralyzed. And what does that look like? And what are the different stages of acceptance and grief going to look like? And not just a negative, I mean, excuse me, a positive a toxic positivity regarding it, which so many people like we deal with in life where it's like, well, everything's it's okay though cuz you you alive. It's fine. But it's like, okay, well, my entire everything changes. Like whether it doesn't mean it's bad or good, but you're like what how you do the dayto-day changes. what you wanted for the future might change. Like what does that look like in the medieval world with accessibility? Like so much changes regarding that. And like you had mentioned before when we were recording this before everything got messed up, you know, just the the masculinity that he had to grapple with with being a leader of the guard and a captain of the guard and like what where he stands now when all of his personality and identity has been defined by his physical strength. Yeah. physical strength and his ability to like protect, you know, Dorian, protect the country, protect whomever, you know, um Selena and then Ailen, whatever. Um yeah, there's a lot tied up there. And so it's like a redefinition of like what strength means even really. Yeah. Um, and I love, you know, not that you require a person, an additional person to like, you know, make that journey with you, but I feel like the symbolism of having be there as his healer, but then also as his like kind of like that rock through that whole process um was really also super I don't know, just like it was really meaningful because you don't need another person to like quote unquote complete you, but other people can help you really support you through that journey and you have to let them. Well, and she kind of to me represented like a psychologist or a therapist, like somebody who's kind of guiding you through this path and encouraging you even though like cuz she very much like she would listen to him and she went into him and found his deepest darkest secrets. So, you know, like he had they had to have that kind of relationship where it was she's not telling him,"Well, you just need to do better. Well, you just need to look at the bright side." It's like, "No, we need to heal and go through this," you know? Well, and from like a systemic level, like I mean, she's literally going in there and pulling all the darkness out, which is require him requiring him to literally take that inward journey to excavate it, which is really literally and figuratively painful for him because it's a complete like unlearning and like reworking of his entire like perception of himself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great book. I mean, till the end of time, I will say it. Don't skip it. Don't skip I love it. Okay, so my number two is actually a Court of Wings and Ruin. So, it's like, you know, the epic conclusion to what could be a trilogy if she wanted to end it there. Yeah. You know, everything. It had all the elements that I wanted. Had some scavenger hunt in there. It we got to know about the world. We get to see the full development of Phah and Rean's relationship. Um, and I loved it. It was great. Mhm. There you go. Yeah, it's a great book. Yeah, I agree. Um, okay. Well, I guess that brings us to number one. Oh, which is crazy. Out of the whole entire Sarah J. Mass universe. I'm sure this will change in the future. Maybe. I don't know. Um, my number one is A Court of Silver Flames, book five in Acatar series. For anyone who hasn't made it there yet, maybe. I just put literally changed my life because of Neesa's character arc and Cassian's depth. Yeah. And then I put the quote, you know, I am the rock against which the surf crashes, which is, you know, if you've heard that, you're not sure where that comes from, that's where it comes from. I feel like just Neesa's journey Yeah. was so important, you know, redemption arc. Yeah. But then also just kind of like I don't know, I felt like really relatable. Yeah. Um, you know, to me the most, and I think that's probably why it gets the number one and number two spot in my ranking is when I feel like that emotional relatability and connection to a character. And I feel like, you know, Kale's character and Neesa's character, in my opinion, were the two most evolved characters with the most tumultuous emotional journeys. Um, and so, and therefore the most relatable to me personally. Um, also, you know, just to bring it back around with Cassian's character and him being my favorite, um, really when you get down to it in the whole SJM universe, it's like seeing him with her and like the support that he gives her, that unwavering support, you know, as he like literally is there with her at the lake and he's there training her, you know, every day to be a warrior and doesn't judge her, project his feelings onto her when she's saying like, I want to, you know, bring back the Valkyries. Like I want to, you know, my friends, the priestesses who are super traumatized and like living in the library. Like I want to bring them like literally out of the shadows to come fight with me. That's not that's not something the Lyans do, but yet he's there the whole way to like make that happen with her. Yeah. Um and you know the blood right obviously like that's super symbolic too. Um just everything Yeah. Everything about it just really resonated with me. And at this time, Accord Silver Flames has to be my number one for all of those reasons. And what award did it get? Oh, it just got the award of being number one. Great. Yeah. Being the best. Being the best as far as I am concerned right now at this time. Best in show. Yeah, exactly. Best allaround book of the year, all that. I mean, I gotta say to this day, like our like real Tik Tok, whatever about Neesa, like are you a Nesta? Like, are you understanding of her plight is still so polarizing and still gets a lot of people having conversations in the comments. So, yeah, because of, you know, either, oh, you know what, I honestly never thought of it that way, you know, or oh, I don't care, I still hate Nesa, or oh, thank you. Like, I am a Nesta and nobody gets it. You know, those kind of things. So, lots very a very polarizing character also just like Kale. Just like Kale, you know, like I think that the the bottom line for both of their characters is they both have like an extremely deep-seated selfhatred. Yeah. And I think that like working through that with the assistance of your people, right? So whether that's the inner circle and then Cassian is a love interest or it's the inner circle and then Wyne is a love interest. Really the main theme there is like how are you going to overcome that self-hatred to remember that you're worthy of of everything you know not just of success or greatness but like just of to exist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. I think that that can be really hard like if you haven't gone through something like that it can be hard to be relatable to you. Yeah. I think that's why it's polarizing. people can feel as if the excuses are being made uh for the behaviors, especially Neesa's. Um and really though, I think Sarah is giving us um you know, a not a fantasy, you know, take on the fact that people are multiaceted beings and sometimes people are just[ __ ] Sometimes they are, but sometimes not, you know, and they're working through um other issues to and they're masking and they're covering up and they're using addiction and things like that to get through it because they can't deal with it right now. So, it just gives some other perspectives. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So, my number one total opposite reasons of Liz, it's on vibes. Vibes alone. So if anybody's keeping count, it would be Court of Mist and Fury cuz it's the book that like fully did it to me, you know? So I give I give Aatar credit because it was like the gateway, right? But the Court of Mist and Fury was the solidifier. Like, oh, I'm in it and I'm in it for the long haul and I'm eating this up because we had such different things happen than a traditional fantasy book would be like in a one-off. You know, you had all those connections that are so satisfying to me and we get so much more of the overall world. I absolutely was obsessed with the way Phah went back to Supreme Court and just destroyed it, you know, Yeah. So, like all of those things were so great. Loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a good book. I agree. So, there you go. Okay. So, do you have any final thoughts on our ranking at this time? At this time, no. Ino. So, I will say I haven't reread anything. So, where Liz has mostly reread except for Throne of Glass, my I could definitely change my ranking if I reread everything. Know what information I am. I'm sure I'll change it all the time. Change it all the time. Yeah. Depending on Yeah. new books coming out, rereads happening, things that are going on in your life at the time, what's more relatable to you. Um, if you were to pick one book off of your shelf right now in the universe to reread, like you had one Time to read one. Yeah. What would you pick? It would be A Court of Mist and Fury. It'd be an easy one to do. Yeah. Yeah. Mine would be Tower of Dawn, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Just on its own. Not the tandem read, just like by itself. Yeah. Cuz it's such an impactful journey for him as it is alone. Yeah, for sure. I think I would read that just in isolation. I mean, I my snap judgment is to pick Kingdom of Ash, but it's like I can't read that by itself. Yeah. emotional torture. Well, and it's like I need I feel like the reason why it's so good is because we have everything leading up to it. So, I feel like I need that context going into it. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, there you go. All right. There you go. Let us know what is your favorite and least favorite in the Sarah J. Mass universe and your favorite character and least favorite character. We'll have to post a box cuz I'm curious. Definitely. So, all right. Just to tie it back around to the beginning, we chose, you know, obviously our least favorite, most favorite character in the whole entire universe. So, let's smash or pass him. Okay, let's do it. Okay, so yours was Ethan. He's your least favorite. Smash or pass Ethan. Pass. Hard pass all day. Hard pass. Mhm. Mhm. I'd smash him. You'd smash him anyways. He's a wolf shifter. So, for curiosity, for science. Okay. Yep. There you go. Do it for science. And then I also had the cereal smash. Yeah, I think we've actually done the cereal before. Um, and yeah, Smash just again for science. Yeah, why not? And just to hang out with even and yeah, have tea. Yeah, for sure. Tell me the tea. Tell me the tea. Yeah. Um, okay. So then mine was Cass, which I think is across the board. I don't know. I We'll have to put these up because I'm like, is there is there a soul? Is there anybody out there who's like Cass pass Cass pass? Yeah. passing gas. Lit. Literally though. Like, is there someone out there? Who are you? Someone's saying it right now. They're saying it's me. I'm the problem. It's me. What's wrong with him? Tell us. Yeah, literally. I'm curious. Okay, so that's a smash across the board for sure. Um, and then my least favorite character was Karen, who we hate and who I would never smash in a million billion years. Oh, guys, he is like a literal serial killer. Not a serial killer, but a serial killer. Serial serial killer without with permission. Yeah, he's like a sociopath. He's not okay. He deserved what he got. Yeah. Rowan torturing him. Yeah. Peeling his skin off was a good thing for everyone involved. Um, so that is a pass. Hard pass. I am scared if someone says smash for him. Yeah. But hey, would be so scary. Okay. I'd be worried for you. It'd be scared for you. Oh, okay. Well, I think that that pretty much wraps up our current 2025 ranking of the SJM universe. Yep. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah. Thank you guys so much for being here. Take time out of your day and your book to come hear how we would rank these books. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast, including YouTube. We are Best Season the Books podcast everywhere. Also Instagram and Tik Tok. So, come check out and hang out with us. Oh, I do want to say this before we sign off for the day. We are Besties in the book club over on Fable. We have I think all of the SJM universe on Fable, don't we? Probably. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. That's ones that we'll keep up forever. Yeah, cuz we've got Crescent City. We've even got Catwoman on there. Okay. We have episodes about a lot of these books, too. Like separate episodes. But yeah, um Besties in Book Club over on Fable. It's a free book club app. A lot of the book clubs probably haven't had interaction since we were reading them, so it's been a while. But what you can do is you can go in and read everyone's spoiler-free comments and it will notify us if new comments come through. So, pretty cool. It's nice to do to be like, you know, if you go if you have a crazy part, who wa did anybody can make that connection? And then you can go in and see if other people are making that connection, too. Yeah. And a lot of them have a lot of comments by now. So, go check it out if you need someone to talk to. Yeah. As you do. Sounding board. Yep. For sure. Well, you guys, we'll see you next Tuesday. Bye bye.