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brandude94 's review for:
House of Earth and Blood
by Sarah J. Maas
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
My god this was a struggle to read, and now I have the hard task of writing a review for an 800 page book that could and should have been 500 pages at most.
To start, this book is so dense. I always thought I enjoyed fantasy nooks but this one has really put me off. Everything in the first 20% was so incredibly lore heavy, and so much information was thrown at the reader early on that I feel like I missed out on a lot of important information. I missed the section where one character was said to be a brother, an important plot point might I add, because so much of the rest of the chapter was overflowing with deep worldbuilding that it genuinely didn't register for me. And this was a major problem for me throughout. Why are we dedicating 8 pages of chapter talking about glittery unicorn toys in the closet? So much of this character development and world building felt unnecessary. Even now, at the end of the book, I couldn't confidently tell you what Vanir means. It took me just over 50% of the book to realise what FiRo meant. I continually forgot who Juniper was considering she was supposed to be important to the main character.
Just because there's lore, doesn't mean you need to explain it all. Let the readers piece some things together themselves.
In terms of characters, Hunt was the ONLY one I felt had any real development. His backstory was delved into enough to understand his actions once the narrative of the book started, and watching his grow from being cold and professional, to opening up a little, to that one scene where he's incredibly vulnerable for the first time, and the subsequent twists and developlments after that had me TRULY invested in his story. At point when I was happy to DNF this book, he actually brought me back to it, because he was a joy to read.
Bryce felt like nothing more than a narrative vehicle for the majority of this book, the only real trait I could tell you about her, and the only real driving force for anything she did (before the romance) was justice for her friend. If that's the only thing I can say about your main character through 50/60% of the book, I don't think she's been written spectacularly well. Although she redeemed herself to me towards the end, which is nice, and I actually grew more invested in her arc and her developing relationship. It's a shame it took so long to get there.
Controversially, Ruhn was such a nothing character. You could have cut most of his scenes and I don't think much would have changed in the narrative except for the ending 10%, but even then the ending revelations with Bryce only further showed how redundant he actually is.
I feel like this could have been good, and there were elements that really did get my heart racing, especially towards the 60/70% mark, when the main relationship really begins to flourish, and things start to go wrong. This is what I wish happened earlier. But these powerful moments were bogged down by excessive lore and too many characters that felt interchangeable. The writing was great, don't get me wrong; everything is described beautifully and so vividly but there is too much description constantly happening. Character details got lost. Important plot points got lost. And that in turn made me as the reader get lost. I had to message friends that have read this book to help me work out what I'd missed because there was no way I was going to re-read 200 pages just to figure it out.
Give me a Hunt Athalar origin book and I will be there, but other than that I have no real desire to continue this series, or delve into the authors other work.
To start, this book is so dense. I always thought I enjoyed fantasy nooks but this one has really put me off. Everything in the first 20% was so incredibly lore heavy, and so much information was thrown at the reader early on that I feel like I missed out on a lot of important information. I missed the section where one character was said to be a brother, an important plot point might I add, because so much of the rest of the chapter was overflowing with deep worldbuilding that it genuinely didn't register for me. And this was a major problem for me throughout. Why are we dedicating 8 pages of chapter talking about glittery unicorn toys in the closet? So much of this character development and world building felt unnecessary. Even now, at the end of the book, I couldn't confidently tell you what Vanir means. It took me just over 50% of the book to realise what FiRo meant. I continually forgot who Juniper was considering she was supposed to be important to the main character.
Just because there's lore, doesn't mean you need to explain it all. Let the readers piece some things together themselves.
In terms of characters, Hunt was the ONLY one I felt had any real development. His backstory was delved into enough to understand his actions once the narrative of the book started, and watching his grow from being cold and professional, to opening up a little, to that one scene where he's incredibly vulnerable for the first time, and the subsequent twists and developlments after that had me TRULY invested in his story. At point when I was happy to DNF this book, he actually brought me back to it, because he was a joy to read.
Bryce felt like nothing more than a narrative vehicle for the majority of this book, the only real trait I could tell you about her, and the only real driving force for anything she did (before the romance) was justice for her friend. If that's the only thing I can say about your main character through 50/60% of the book, I don't think she's been written spectacularly well. Although she redeemed herself to me towards the end, which is nice, and I actually grew more invested in her arc and her developing relationship. It's a shame it took so long to get there.
Controversially, Ruhn was such a nothing character. You could have cut most of his scenes and I don't think much would have changed in the narrative except for the ending 10%, but even then the ending revelations with Bryce only further showed how redundant he actually is.
I feel like this could have been good, and there were elements that really did get my heart racing, especially towards the 60/70% mark, when the main relationship really begins to flourish, and things start to go wrong. This is what I wish happened earlier. But these powerful moments were bogged down by excessive lore and too many characters that felt interchangeable. The writing was great, don't get me wrong; everything is described beautifully and so vividly but there is too much description constantly happening. Character details got lost. Important plot points got lost. And that in turn made me as the reader get lost. I had to message friends that have read this book to help me work out what I'd missed because there was no way I was going to re-read 200 pages just to figure it out.
Give me a Hunt Athalar origin book and I will be there, but other than that I have no real desire to continue this series, or delve into the authors other work.