Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

53 reviews

ladydeathnesta's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I feel like I’m cheating on Silver Flames because I don’t know if I like this one better.

I love them equally.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Dementia, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, War, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Police brutality, Ableism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Misogyny, Classism, Cursing, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Death, Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Colonisation, Body horror, Child abuse, Animal death, Body shaming, Dysphoria, Genocide, Grief, Bullying, Car accident, Murder, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Pandemic/Epidemic, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Animal cruelty, Blood, Drug use, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Deportation, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Self harm, Trafficking, Abandonment, and Addiction

infjkiki's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Confinement, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Cursing, Death, Gore, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Self harm, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Slavery, Classism, Drug use, Grief, Blood, Bullying, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Moderate: War, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Domestic abuse and Death of parent

lealovesbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide attempt, Blood, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Slavery

kylarenea_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Cursing, Classism, Death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Vomit, War, and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal cruelty

kshertz's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.75

Wow that was a journey! I’ve been wanting to read this forever but it’s so many pages! But it’s true that once you get into this world, all you want to do is read and keep going. I definitely got invested. In fact I’m much more invested in the side characters actually. I’ll just keep on reading these books! They’re excellent. I can’t give it 5 stars because there was no sex. What the heck?! I was bummmmmed. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Violence, War, Cursing, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, Slavery, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Addiction, Drug abuse, Gore, Abandonment, Classism, Death, and Grief

meredith_williams_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

At this point, anything SJM writes, I’ll read. She always delivers with a quick paced fantasy romance that includes fun characters, good world building, and interesting plot twists. The first installment of the Crescent City series was no exception. While the beginning felt a bit slow, the build up was necessary for the story. I loved the FMC, Bryce. She was strong, smart and sure of herself from the beginning. I also liked the setting of a futuristic fantasy world in which magic and technology mix in interesting ways. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Cursing, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Blood, Gun violence, and Drug use

Minor: Sexism and Fire/Fire injury

mattiedancer's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Writing: 4⭐️/5 

The writing is solid throughout the novel. At points, the writing really shined through, but I found it very hard to parse the novel at the beginning. In fact, the first fifty pages (give or take ten to twenty) felt almost unedited. The grammar and spelling were fine, but the info dumps on every other page lent a sort of unpolished feeling to the opening.

Characters: 4⭐️/5

I felt the characters often had their own identities, even as I noticed a few similarities here or there with characters in her other novels. I found myself liking, agreeing with, and understanding their motives and perspectives. A couple of times, I did feel like they acted incredibly out of character, but it didn’t necessarily take away from the fun of the novel.  

Plot: 4⭐️/5 

The plot was fun – even with a couple of holes that I wish had been finessed further. I enjoyed reading about the mystery and the romance plot once I got into the novel. Again, the information dump that was the first portion of the novel did take away from this enjoyment.

Who Should Read This Book? 

• Sarah J. Maas fans
• Fans of urban fantasy looking for a fun read with a hint of spice
• Readers who like romance-heavy novels that still have interesting plots

Content Warnings? 

• Sexual content, sexual harassment, death, injury, animal cruelty, drug use, alcohol use, death of a friend, murder, gore, blood, vomit, gun violence, sexism

Post-Reading Rating:  4⭐️/5

I enjoyed it enough to say I’ll read the next one for sure! 

Final Rating: 4⭐️/5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide attempt, Torture, Vomit, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Police brutality, Sexual content, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Self harm, Misogyny, and Slavery

btg's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

So first of all, this book is extremely well structured. I give my hat to Sarah J. Maas, I DID not know where she was going with this until 3/4 of the way through, but then she seriously sucked me in with the way the ending took all the threads she had seeded for the whole book and wrapped them up into her huge emotional action sequence of an ending. The character arcs are so absolutely well done and Bryce's in particular is enough to make you start sobbing. Maas obviously has masterful control of story elements as well as the written word; the whole piece from start to finish is just stunning. There's so many twists and turns to keep readers who don't want to know what's coming next engaged.


It is down to four stars for me due to the complexity of the world building; however, I will note that if you are a fan of anything like LoTR, you're going to the love this book and objectively from a writer's perspective the whole world is well conceptualized and deeply disturbing. Due to the sheer complexity of the world building though, Maas has to spend a lot of time dissecting world pieces and laying down complex story threads, which slows the pace of the novel significantly. I have ADHD; I regularly found myself getting confused with the amount of information getting covered and struggling to remember minor characters. If you hyperfixate on high fantasy you'll love it; I would just not rate it as an exceptionally executive function friendly book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Slavery, and Body horror

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, and Violence

Minor: Self harm

Slavery: institutionalized slavery is inherent in the world building. Multiple major and minor characters are enslaved throughout the book. Body horror:

a drug that heavily impacts the plot causes individuals to rip themselves apart, in a very disturbing and graphically described way

Grief: a major theme of the book and the trigger for the main character's character arc Violence: hoo boy. Think typical high budget R rated action film. There's a lot. Gun violence: a main character uses a gun

in the climax, guns and her skills with them are regularly mentioned throught the book to seed her ability to use one

Xe is using the gun in an extraordinary situation and towards aggressors. Suicide: A main character is stated to have attempted suicide before the book begins.

in the climax, she almost refuses to come back from the Drop from the same thought process, which would have resulted in her death

Mental illness/self harm: unsurprisingly from the above, the main character is heavily implied to be depressed which makes up the main conflict of her character arc Fire: a club that the main characters are in is bombed and described. All characters are ok and make it out with minimal injury. Drug use: the main character is described as a party girl and regularly uses fictional drugs onscreen for the first several chapters. She stops after the inciting incident, but her past is regularly referenced. A major portion of the plot is the search for an antidote to prevent fictional drug overdoses

which is very helpful when a main character is forced to take said drug against her will

. Muder:

a major character is murdered in the inciting incident along with several other people. The main driver of the plot is finding the murderer. A main character finds the bodies and the whole incident is described in detail on screen as well as referenced repeatedly. A minor character is also nearly killed by the antagonist in the climax of the book, but is saved at the last moment

There is a lot of fantastic racism in the book. While no mention of discrimination through skin color is made, the actual processes of both prejudice and institutionalized racism are described in depth as they related to the main character, who is discriminated against and underestimated for being half human

sooaery's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Drug use, Slavery, Classism, Cursing, Death, Gore, Grief, Murder, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Gun violence, Racism, Sexual content, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Torture, Confinement, Misogyny, and Vomit

Minor: Hate crime, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, Addiction, Fire/Fire injury, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, and Child abuse

essie__reads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

I screamed. I cried. I gasped. I fell in love with these characters and their relationships with one another. If there's one thing SJM can do it is portray loyal, loving friendships. This book had some heavy topics surrounding grief and loss (see CWs) but they were handled so well. The world building took me a bit to get into but then I was hooked after the first 100 pages haha. This might be one of my favorite SJM books now (having read all but CC2 at this point). It wasn't as romance heavy as the ACOTAR series but the flirting, banter and the beginning of relationships was all present (hopefully some of these will continue in CC2). There was still some smut present and this is definitely not a YA book. I thought the pacing of this book flowed smoother than ACOTAR or TOG making it easier to digest. The plot is basically a murder mystery and I didn't find any of the major plot points to be predictable. I highly recommend this book!! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Murder, Violence, and Slavery

Moderate: Drug use and Bullying

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, War, and Medical content