Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

35 reviews

elledanie's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-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

5.0

Had to give 5⭐️ since it made me cry so much! Will be thinking about this one for a while…SJM does it again, a mastermind 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Self harm, Suicide attempt, Torture, Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Grief, Medical content, Animal death, Murder, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, War, Abandonment, Alcohol, Violence, Car accident, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Gun violence, Vomit, Addiction, Death of parent, Drug use, and Gore

sierra_smith_418's review

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Blood, and Self harm

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Slavery, Panic attacks/disorders, and Drug use

mattiedancer's review

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

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

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

princessrory's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Drug use, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Gore, Medical content, and Slavery

Moderate: War, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Confinement, Self harm, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, and Vomit

Minor: Eating disorder and Fire/Fire injury

boffinandthebooks's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny inspiring sad tense slow-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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Murder, Gore, Addiction, and Self harm

kingrosereads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-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

I did very much love this book. I ended up staying up all night to finish it before falling asleep 250 short of the end. It is longer than it needs to be but at the same time I like that the investigation is hard and confusion with a lot of dead ends. Like a real investigation.

I always knew Micah was shady and his death was HILARIOUS. I was completely shocked at Hunt’s betrayal. I always knew he’d rebel when he got the chance, but not like this.

This book puts you through the emotional ringer. I like Bryce a lot. I think she’s funny and a straight badass. I’ve seen other people says she’s a classic “I’m not like other girls”, but I don’t see that at all. I see a normal, young woman that likes to party. I don’t use drugs but I know lots of young people use it recreationally and it made Bryce more real to me.

There’s also the obvious consequences of her using drugs the night Danika dies. The revelations of Danika’s death and synth and the Horn were all over the place, but I think that’s the point.

The swearing was also like ridiculously on point. My friend and I swear just like this and just as much, so that was very relatable. This book made me laugh, made me cry, and made me happy. 
I think that Bryce’s grief and depression were also extremely relatable and written well. And it took a whole book for her to get to a better place. I also LOVE that she uses other people’s preconceived notions about her to her advantage. She’s also pretty sex positive, even though it’s clear she does use sex sometimes as a form of self-medication for her grief and as a way to combat the underlying feelings she has about being seen as a “lesser” being. Bryce is badass. She can fight, shoot, and wear all the girly girl stuff women get bashed about on the daily. I like her attitude and am excited to see where the story goes from here. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Murder, Slavery, Gun violence, Gore, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Suicide attempt, War, Death, Police brutality, Self harm, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Grief

Minor: Abandonment

whysoserious46'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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use

Minor: Self harm

localcat's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Grief, Violence, Alcohol, Drug use, and Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, and Self harm

Minor: Vomit, War, and Domestic abuse