House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas is hard to describe without giving huge spoilers that happen like 4% of the book in. I will try to say things without spoiling anything. I am not going to lie after the really big thing that happens at the start of the book I was locked and loaded. I was ready for absolutely nothing for about 400 pages. The romance was not great. The friendships were fine but could be much better at that middle part of the book. I understand that a lot of what happened with Bryce was because of that big event but half of this book could have been shorter. I'm not saying not to read the book because the last like 200 pages are absolutely phenomenal but I just wish that the middle nonsense was shorter. We did build a lot of world but I could have done with less of the lore and more action. 

Now let's talk about why this has 4 stars and not 2. I freaking loved the last 10% of this book so much that it made me jump from 2 stars to 4 stars. I know it is a Sarah J. Maas book and that the best is towards the end but I was so bored that I had forgotten that. I thought that the way all the relationships made sense and the way the characters got to what they needed to do was badass. I was so shocked by some of the choices the author made but they were meant to happen. I just felt delighted by the end. Not enough to make it a five star read.

How do I think this book compares to the rest of the SJMCU (Sarah J. Maas Cinematic Universe)? Well I think that it is not as good as Throne of Glass yet, but it is leaps and bounds better than ACOTAR. To be fair, I only truly loved the third book in the ACOTAR series and hold a special place for ToG so do with that information what you will. I am definitely looking forward to the rest of this series because so far it can only go up from here.