A review by mfsquared
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.5

I came to this book after finishing the ACOTAR series, so I'll open by saying it was somewhat jarring to go from there to here given how different the worlds are; that being said, it didn't take long for this world to completely reel me in! The similarities/analogs with certain powers and characters in ACOTAR was a little distracting at times, but I came to really enjoy this book and its characters for themselves. The tone to me felt very gritty, fantasy crime/mystery-novel, which was fun and different (and also very dark). The twists and turns were really well executed and kept me guessing, and I loved the care paid to the power of love in relationships that are *not* romantic. Those were the ones that really got to me here, especially between Bryce and Danika, Bryce and Ruhn, and Bryce and Lehabah. As usual, there were far too many "golden-skinned" characters and mainly white MCs, which seems to be a real weakness of Maas's books, as is her LGBTQ rep, although there was some in this book.
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