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A review by kenfoxley
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
If you would have told me when I first started reading this that I would enjoy it, I would have thought you were nuts. I started listening to the audiobook when I discovered that I had it on Audible because I wanted to get a head start. My dad bought me the book but it wasn't going to be here for awhile. Everyone was raving about it, and with the second book coming out it was all I was hearing about from everyone.
I got this a long time ago, back when I was still really heavily into watching BookTubers and posting pretty heavily on Instagram. It was recommended by a friend, when that friendship got cut off, I forgot about it and didn't even remember it was in my Audible library. Several weeks ago, when I got back into bookstagram after my absence for some time, I started hearing about the second book coming out. My friend Emily posted about it and talked to me about it and I thought I would give it a chance. I started making a book wish list on Amazon and I added it to it, and got curious and looked on Audible and it told me I already owned it. This sent a surge of memories coming back to me, hearing about it for the first time, it being a Sarah J. Maas book when I've read her ACOTAR series, and I wanted to give it a chance.
I work from home on a computer all day, occasionally making phone calls, and to pass the time I either listen to YouTube videos in the background, or I listen to music. I downloaded the audiobook and started listening to it while I wasn't doing tasks at work. And as I started listening to it I grew extremely confused. I had no idea what was going on, it was extremely detailed and (in my opinion) a lot of unnecessary world-building pages right at the beginning. It only started to get more interesting when Danika and the Pack of Devils died and even though I was still confused, at least there was a plot now.
I kept listening and things kept getting thrown at me that made no sense. Who was Athalar? Who was Hunt? "Oh, they're the same person....What?" Last names kept getting thrown in the mix and then they'd be called their first name and I had no idea who that was, and then she'd switch it up and go back to their last name and I was royally confused. I didn't really start getting it until about 200 pages in and I really thought that was far too long without clarification.
I'm going to be truthful and say what a lot of people before me have said: I absolutely hated Bryce in the beginning. I thought she was a know-it-all, rude bitch who took people for granted. Her attitude bugged me, and the way she treated people bugged me even more. And I was so tired of everyone fawning over her and just talking about how great her ass was. But I will also be truthful in saying that I actually grew to love her as the book went on. I looked back at how she acted in the beginning and gave her the benefit of the doubt. She lost her best friend, her best friend was killed in their apartment, and after Danika's death everyone just seemed to fall away from her, everything fell away from her. Her love for dancing, her love for life, her other friends distanced themselves and she felt she was just expected to move on because it had been two years. But she couldn't move on. And I give her a little credit for acting the way she did, even though it bugged me. Something she loved more than life itself died and she hadn't been there to save her from it. I would be pretty cold and distant as well if it were me.
And then comes in Hunt Athalar. A fallen angel male, paying off his debt to Micah for the angel rebellion with the love of his life so many years ago. He is assigned to keep watch over Bryce while they work on a case together, a case to find out what got Danika and the Pack of Devils killed. It's your classic "we-just-work-together-and-you-happen-to-live-in-my-apartment-with-me-but-we're-not-fucking-we're-just-friends" trope. But you could tell there was something there. Even if neither of them wanted to admit it to the other. People said they saw no chemistry between them at all, I beg to differ. Each of them did things to protect the other without exclusively saying they cared for each other. That, in itself, to me is caring for each other.
A lot of people also said this book was far too long, that 800 pages could have been cut down into like 400-500 pages. I also disagree. For me, personally, I felt that this was a good length for how the plot thickened and how everything came nicely together towards the end. I never would have guessed that's who had done it. I remember reading it and my jaw hitting the floor with a thud because I literally had no idea. It came out of nowhere. And I think the length of the book does that on purpose. It leads you into thinking you have it right, throws some problems at you and makes you think you're on the right track, and BAM, there it is. I was actually shocked. And I usually find books pretty predictable because I've just read so many books over the years.
When I first went into this book I would have given it maybe 3 stars, it wasn't really capturing my attention and I didn't really see it possible that I'd even read the second book. But as I finished it, I was already reaching for the second book before I even started writing this review. I have my issues with Sarah J. Maas and the things I have learned about her over the last week or so, and that's not going to stop me from being critical of her writing or her in general. However, I do give this book 5/5 stars just simply for the writing style and how the plot developed and where it took me. The only thing I will be critical of SJM in this review is I hope going into House of Sky and Breath I don't have to read several hundred times of her saying the word "wholly" or "snarled" or "hissed." Because let me just say... it gets old. I remember reading ACOTAR and I think "wholly" was written on every single page throughout the entire book in every book of the series.