Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

70 reviews

anjasshelf'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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Confinement, Cursing, War, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Medical content, Vomit, Slavery, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Grief, Alcohol, Body horror, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, and Sexual content

Moderate: Death of parent, Misogyny, and Torture

emmerylynn'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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Like most, I found the beginning to be a struggle, but once Danika died…I couldn’t put it down. (Finally SJM uses death as a plot device!). Could have used more romance, but I was very satisfied with Bryce and Hunt’s relationship. The ending was sooo powerful, probably one of SJMs best endings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Violence

Moderate: Drug abuse and Alcohol

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

cady_sass's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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

4.5

4.5 ⭐️ rounded up 
To think I almost DNFed this after 50 pages!!! Which is why I deduct half a star. The first few chapters are really hard to read, they’re nonsensical, lazy world building and make almost zero sense to the point where I felt compelled to put it down. Some friends convinced me it was worth the push so I started over and pushed through part 1, at which point I absolutely *devoured* the rest of the book. I didn’t guess any of the twists, I fell in love with all the characters, my heart broke and pieced itself back together and broke over and over again. Loved this. ACOTAR who? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Racial slurs, Medical content, Vomit, Slavery, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual harassment, Torture, War, Blood, Classism, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Body horror, Child abuse, Sexual content, Sexism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Cursing, Death, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

vainnerj's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny tense fast-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

4.25

I truly enjoyed this book even if I feel like I only absorbed maybe 40% of the lore. The characters were unbelievably compelling and alive, and the worldbuilding drew me in, even when I wouldn't be able to relate it back to anyone. I say the book is amazing if you can handle not fully being able to wrap you mind around it all (at least not on the first read) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Death

Moderate: War, Suicidal thoughts, Death, 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

aimnorth's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I find the lore and the side characters far more interesting than the main character. I think the author missed a bit opportunity to name Bryce's addiction to help address why she's insufferable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Alcoholism, Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Body horror, and Gore

Minor: Xenophobia and Racism

sonygaystation's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Blood, Cursing, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, and Sexual content

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

cdoubet's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Sexism, Alcoholism, Blood, Classism, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, Vomit, and War

Minor: Abandonment

imcourtneymarie's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

2024 re-read: i take back everything i said the first read. The CC books are so so good and HOEAB is most definitely NOT boring. Idk how I ever felt that way! 

Original review: 
Honestly i was bored for a good chunk. Not bored-bored but I kept having to encourage myself knowing that SJM likes to make her books bottom heavy. The last 200 pages or so were worth it, but man is it a slog. I feel like we could have shaved off 200-250 pages and still told the same story and built the same world.

Speaking of world building, it’s a neat contrast from the usual “medieval-like” fantasy worlds a lot of fantasy takes place in. The modern aspects matched with interesting, unique character traits do buoy this book and potentially the series. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Blood, Classism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Slavery, Alcohol, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, and War