Reviews with content warning for Body horror - House of Sky and Breath

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas

18 reviews

amartin48's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

I honestly had more moments during this book than the first of being annoyed with characters and their poor life choices. It seemed messy and I felt Maas wrote the plot twists in this book rather predictably.

That being said, I REALLY loved the world and lore expansion in this book. And I’m a huge fan of crossover series! This book left me satisfied with our FMC/MMC relationship, hopeful for new relationships, and SO excited to revisit old favorites.

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boyname's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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kshertz's review

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emotional mysterious tense slow-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

I’m definitely hooked on these characters. The love stories mostly. But it’s a whole world built that now needs to be brought down. I’m enjoying all these very different people bringing it down. Personally a big fan of Ruhn but hate where his storyline went and Hypoxias too. But of course I’m hooked and will keep reading. Wondering how it’s all going to come together

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infjkiki's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious 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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jcrawford31's review

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adventurous dark 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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frantically's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense 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

4.0

Growing up is learning that it's okay to rate SJM books less than 5 stars.

Okay, so this book was long and so full of plot and I'm sure I've already forgotten all of it but let's try this:

THE CHARACTERS:

I absolutely loved the cast in this sequel and while the first book was very much a "Bryce and Hunt" novel, this time the big amount of characters we got introduced to in the first book all got their moments to shine and either already had good storylines or we got hints to exciting ones in the future (Ithan, I'm looking at you).

In my opinion, this is the first time SJM has managed to write true morally grey characters (and not just misunderstood bad boys), mainly with Corman and Tharion, who make wild choices, whose purpose isn't solely to make this a better world. Same goes for so many of the female characters, my favourites being Lidia and Celestina. They have their own difficult past and present situations to work with and can't just accept anything that Bryce plans for them.

Bryce really isn't a perfect angel either — she makes really dumb choices in this book but they're also very human choices. She's just getting into this whole Chosen One thing and she really struggles with it and its consequences at times. But as I said, her choices are all understandable (to some degree), you can tell that she only means the best but sometimes we all fuck up and that's portrayed really well here.

Shoutout to Hunt here, who's always portrayed as this big alphahole, but man actually thinks from time to time and questions what Bryce and him are doing. Men in this fantasy thinking over their relationship? In this economy? More likely than you think.

Going against all expectations (mainly my own), I've chosen to break my streak of my favourite character in SJM books always being the bisexual blonde cousin. I really tried to love Cormac as much as I love Mor and Aedion but 1.) I don't love him that much (or at all) and 2.) Ruhn. That's all. But I have hopes of at least keeping the bisexual streak going, we've still got books left, after all.

THE PLOT:

Unpopular opinion but making the human rebellion with very understandable goals and wishes out to be the bad guys alongside the Asteri (who are just straight up villains) is a really dumb idea.

I already didn't understand why we were against this rebellion in the first book because, yes, a lot of our cast is non-human but Bryce at least is half-human and has human parents, and, as a fellow human, I find it hard to get invested in a plot that makes the oppressed humans out to be the bad ones.

Especially Pippa is such a cheap, two-dimensional character and I really had to suspend my beliefs and focus on the actually enjoyable parts of the book (mainly the characters) to accept all these plot points.

We do have some nice world building and it is something completely different to what SJM has done before and it's a nice mix of sci-fi and fantasy plots. We get a bit of a crossover with another series of hers and loads of hints towards ACOTAR and TOG and it was so fun reading those!

I'm thrilled to see how those more fantasy-ish plotlines will develop, so even if I didn't really like the rebellion plot, there were still other nice storylines.

THE REP:

I can't even be bothered with the SJM antis anymore because I know they'll complain no matter what she puts into her books or not. There's so much LGBT+ rep in this and also a lot of those couples have one or two characters that are POC. It isn't made into a big deal, there aren't any cringe coming out scenes, it's honestly so refreshing and nice to see and we finally get our sapphic witches rep. So please, just give her a chance, she's really come a long way since TOG and there's no reason to still keep hating on her when we're not criticising other authors of the era like Kiera Cass.

CONCL:

I rarely read long-ass fantasy novels anymore but I'm so glad I continued reading this series! It was way easier to get into it than it was with the first book and I really enjoyed the novel.

Of course, the last chapter was amazing (post-credit scene vibes) and I hope it won't take me another three years to get to the next book.

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cady_sass's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

I need some time to process this. Holy shit. I’ve never read 700 pages so fast in my life. I have so many questions. My heart, in pieces. My brain, on the wall. My soul, well…
5 stars. Can’t wait for the next one. SJM if you fumble this as hard as ACOSF I will never recover.

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