Reviews with content warning for Torture - Casa de Tierra y Sangre

Not what I was expecting, but not too mad at it. It felt like there was always so much to keep track of, so many places, types of beings, rules, characters etc that sometimes the plot felt a little lost in it all.
A little predictable, but not horrible.
Prepare to read the word "fuck" 400 times (not exaggerating).
The first book in a new world always feels a bit information heavy. The characters, especially side characters, are great.

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poisonviolet's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense

5.0

YES YES YES! Reading this felt like watching Agents of SHIELD or another Marvel show but in the realm of fantasy (Yes I know Marvel is technically fantasy/science fiction), scratch that, this was a Marvel universe made by Sarah J Maas. Two of my favorite things here people!

To the root of it, this is a story of a young woman dealing with the grief of a close friend during a vulnerable time of life. The best parts of this book were part 3 and 4. The first two parts were good and still managed to keep me hooked, its just the world building had to be done and honestly, props to her for doing it in such a short amount of time. If I were trying to write out the intricate and expansive world that this takes place in, I would be yapping for the length of the entire series just trying to make myself understand the rules of the world. Anyways, parts 3 and 4 were the moments I couldn’t put the book down. The angst and hurt/comfort were just incredible.

To sum it up in even less words…. a girl, her cat, and her dead best friend are unstoppable. A sentence I find myself relating to on the rare occasion I have an ounce of confidence in my bones. ANYWAYS, this book was very good. Sarah J Maas knows how to punch me in the gut and somehow make it so I’m the one thanking her for doing so. I am both terrified and excited to read the second book.

Blah blah blah, thanks for reading my yapping

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carlyjoann's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I had a hard time getting into this one, it took two attempts to read it but I am so glad I stuck with it. I throughly enjoyed this book. this world, and these characters. The modern fantasy was definitely weird at first but I came to really like it. I’m not usually into mystery type books but I really liked that aspect of this book. The twists, turns, and surprises made it a page turner. I am excited to read the next book in the series and to get to know these characters even more.

Bryce was not my favorite for a lot of the book but she grew on me so much that I really like her now. Her grief was very well written. Her growth and enduring love for her friends was beautiful to read.
There were some things I was iffy on plot wise but they all got resolved pretty well by the end. The back and forth of thinking Danika was bad and good, not knowing who to trust, made it more suspenseful.

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zgreyz's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

the writing style is super wordy. sometimes entire paragraphs are just one big run on sentence which was messing with me. and the constant male-female dichotomy language is annoying to me.
the first 10-20 pages is so packed with character intros and world building that it was very overwhelming but once i got through that it did get interesting. i like the overall story. i like the main characters sometimes but i have my issues with them too.
a couple of the big twists were predictable to me, predicted about 100 pages prior to but they were still good.
i’m not personally into the “love conquers all” and “everything happens for a reason” mentalities that come up quite a few times either. Regardless of my personal issues with it though, it was still a pretty entertaining book.

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