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finnickdeservedbetter's reviews
199 reviews
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
4.0
This is my first review on here so please go easy on me. Where to start? How about why it isn't quite a 5 star for me? I'm going to be honest...it's mostly the weird "male/female" thing. When it was ACOTAR, or even TOG, it was somewhat normal. Fae are supposed to be more animalistic and primal and we call animals male and female. But it's just weird to use it to casually refer to people. Who says "Let the male speak"? It's "Let the man speak". It's just...weird and awkward. I don't know if I'm just noticing it more or what but it really bothered me. Besides that, there weren't any major flaws I can think of.
I like that she fleshed this love interest out a lot more than her previous series. We know more about his backstory and motivations which makes it easy to empathise with him and root with him. Who knows if he'll even end up with the protagonist in the end since Maas loves to just throw love interests around but I definitely wouldn't be mad if they were endgame.
I didn't expect to get so emotionally invested in this book. Unlike the her books where you might not be emotionally tied to the main character right away, I feel like you just can't help it. She goes through a lot of character development that we don't really see as well as a lot that we do see. She doesn't start out as the typical "I'm so badass, I could kill everyone here without breaking a sweat" which is a breath of fresh air for sure. She starts out as a party girl that doesn't really care about anything that has to mature suddenly. She isn't the most special and powerful that she knows of girl that can do anything and everything. She's still similar to Maas' two other protagonists in that she's the only one that save the day (are you really?) but she's not nearly as annoying. She feels like a relatively normal person besides the royalty heritage and the fact that she's way too good with a gun (even for a fantasy world) to be believable with understandable emotions and motivations.
I'm not going to lie, I definitely cried at the end (during as well but mostly at the end). It's unexpectedly heartbreaking but the closure is beautiful. The ending isn't perfect so you still feel frustrated but I think it's more realistic that way.
Overall, I enjoyed this book more than her other series which I do really like (despite their obvious flaws). It's more mature and not just because it's new adult instead of young adult. It's still very much a Sarah J Maas book and her writing style is the same but it feels like it has a bit more substance. I wouldn't recommend this if you really don't like her writing style at all but if you like her other series you should like this as well. I'm excited for the next book. I'm really interested in where Bryce goes from here.
I like that she fleshed this love interest out a lot more than her previous series. We know more about his backstory and motivations which makes it easy to empathise with him and root with him. Who knows if he'll even end up with the protagonist in the end since Maas loves to just throw love interests around but I definitely wouldn't be mad if they were endgame.
I didn't expect to get so emotionally invested in this book. Unlike the her books where you might not be emotionally tied to the main character right away, I feel like you just can't help it. She goes through a lot of character development that we don't really see as well as a lot that we do see. She doesn't start out as the typical "I'm so badass, I could kill everyone here without breaking a sweat" which is a breath of fresh air for sure. She starts out as a party girl that doesn't really care about anything that has to mature suddenly. She isn't the most special and powerful that she knows of girl that can do anything and everything. She's still similar to Maas' two other protagonists in that she's the only one that save the day (are you really?) but she's not nearly as annoying. She feels like a relatively normal person besides the royalty heritage and the fact that she's way too good with a gun (even for a fantasy world) to be believable with understandable emotions and motivations.
I'm not going to lie, I definitely cried at the end (during as well but mostly at the end). It's unexpectedly heartbreaking but the closure is beautiful. The ending isn't perfect so you still feel frustrated but I think it's more realistic that way.
Overall, I enjoyed this book more than her other series which I do really like (despite their obvious flaws). It's more mature and not just because it's new adult instead of young adult. It's still very much a Sarah J Maas book and her writing style is the same but it feels like it has a bit more substance. I wouldn't recommend this if you really don't like her writing style at all but if you like her other series you should like this as well. I'm excited for the next book. I'm really interested in where Bryce goes from here.