Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

61 reviews

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

laurenraya's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The first 4-5 chapters are pretty slow and filled with narrative setting. For someone who likes to open a book right to the action, just start around chapter 5 or 6 and you'll enjoy it better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Slavery, Death, Blood, Grief, Murder, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Suicidal thoughts

partawesome's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Death, Grief, Sexual content, Murder, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Violence

ewitsemma's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Racism, Mental illness, Murder, War, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Addiction, Blood, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, and Slavery

Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, Drug abuse, and Colonisation

gabi_w21's review against another edition

This was my second SJM book (the first being yet another self-insert fantasy, Throne of Glass) and I doubt I'll actually ever attempt another book by her. This book was bloated with unnecessary info dumps at inappropriate moments, characters constantly being objectified (a MOC being a slave? In 2022? Really?), mind-melting illogical logic, and a cast of infuriating characters that made me want to bash my head in. Oh, and way to tell on yourself, Sarah, by saying that the oppressed class are awful people for not wanting to be oppressed anymore. 

Bryce is your stereotypical party girl who whines about being half-Fae and being discriminated against (even though we never see it; it seemed to me the only real discrimination she faced was whatever self-hate bullshit she spewed) who refuses therapy and whines about her best friend being dead. She seems to be living the high life, as far as I can tell. I think she actually refused therapy so she can pull the “wah, my best friend is dead!” card. She also is supposedly super smart even though we don't see it. She's one of the most infuriating characters I've ever read. She claims she doesn't like “alphaholes” like her dad but that's the only type of guy she even remotely entertains. Oh, and she's a hypocrite—when her ex-boyfriend Reed (Reid?) is on his phone it's an issue but she can be on her phone. 

Hunt is an angel enslaved due to his part of a revolt. He's constantly sexualizing Bryce (every instance of them together, he makes a mental comment about her figure) and is SJM's generic brooding, tortured, racially ambigious love interest who treats the FMC like shit. He growls, glowers, threatens people, grins threateningly, and mopes around about his dead girlfriend's twin sister showing up. He's pushy, bossy, and obsessed with seeing Bryce as a sexual object. 

Everyone in this book sucks. Nobody is likeable except maybe the Sphyx cat thing and Lehaborah (I think?) There's gratuitous swearing, drug use, blood, and alcohol, like that's what makes adult fiction adult. God, if I could burn this book from my memory, I wouldn't even hesitate. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Cursing, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Xenophobia, Alcohol, Death, Gore, Grief, Murder, Sexism, and Violence

Minor: Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, and Suicidal thoughts

princessrory's review against another edition

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

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

anselm's review

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Even if you're not a fan of Sarah J. Maas you will love this. The focus on friendship and grief was excellently done. And none of the plot twists will you guess but they work perfectly in the story. In the middle it did loose my interest for a bit, but it quickly captured it again. I know Sarah J. Maas is renowned for sexual content but as an ace I would say it was barely present and did not take away from the story at all. My only criticism is that every description seems to reference how good looking the character is even in random situations.

As much as I loved the ending I would love for Sarah J. Maas to attempt to write an underdog protagonist at some point because I think she could do it well and I'm tired of every protagonist being secretly powerful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Suicide attempt, War, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Torture, Addiction, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

ninamitsuki's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Torture, Violence, and War

hagerheyyy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Cursing, Grief, Mental illness, Blood, Classism, Death, Suicide attempt, Violence, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Murder, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, and War