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

2.0

"Through love, all is possible."

House of Earth and Blood is the first book in Sarah J Maas most recent series, Crescent City.

Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life, working hard all day and partying all night, until a demon murdered her closest friends. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start again, Bryce find herself at the heart of the investigation & willing to do whatever it takes to avenge her friends.

Hunt Athalar is a notorious fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredibly strength have been set to one purpose – assassinate his boss’s enemies. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal; help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.

“That's the point of it, Bryce. Of life. To live, to love, knowing that it might all vanish tomorrow. It makes everything that much more precious.”

This was my second attempt to read House of Earth and Blood, and while I made it further into it this time (I decided to give the audio book a try thinking listening to it could help my lack of motivation), unfortunately I’m DNF-ing it again at around the 40% mark.

I know a lot of reviews that came out just after it released said that it seemed like Sarah J Maas thought that writing adult fiction meant just including lots of swearing and drug use, and that is a very accurate descriptor of the style of this book. Which is a shame because her other books weren’t exactly YA and I don’t think she needed to change much in terms of of her writing style for House of Earth and Blood to be categorised and considered Adult. The inclusion of the swearing and drug use seemed very forced & out of place and I really believe Maas ‘over corrected’ attempting to differentiate the style of Crescent City from her previous books, similar to a child actor picking an in your face adult roll when they’re old enough and want to show everyone they’re not still that little kid they’ve watched for years.

I found Danika and The Pack of Devils to be the most interesting characters a pity since they were killed off in the first couple of chapters, making loose almost all interest in the book.

I really didn’t like Bryce, I found her very annoying, particularly with her constant griping about “alpha-holes” and her flippant party girl act (I understand she was acting that way on purpose to throw people off and underestimate her but the way it was written was annoying as hell to read) just seemed too extreme and irritating.

Hunt, on the other hand seemed very flat and just not well developed. I couldn’t really seem to pinpoint his personality because he would regularly act, or think, or say things that seemed to contradict the way we were supposed to see him. These apparently out of character moments seemed to be only for the purpose of comic relief & humour between he and Bryce which just made the moments feel forced and the humour fall flat.

House of Earth and Blood dragged on for so long I had pretty much lost interest in finding out who was responsible for stealing the horn and killing Danika & the pack. I wasn’t even half way through and barely anything had really happened, and just knowing I still had 16hrs to go just seemed to obliterate my motivation and honestly the only reason I had persevered that long was because I had enjoyed Sarah J Maas’ other books and was hoping House of Earth and Blood just had a slow start but would hook me eventually like Throne of Glass did.

I had been seriously considering giving up on the book when I decided to google to see if Danika had really died or if she stayed dead. I figured that since she was my favourite character, maybe knowing if she made a reappearance would give me something to look forward to and I’d stick it out some more.

Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately because it saved me wasting my time to finish) the first result on google was for Danika’s wiki page and the snippet google supplied included who was responsible for her death. I’d already been considering googling the entire ending so this seemed like a sign and I clicked through and read the rest.

I will say that I was shocked to find out who was responsible and am disappointed that the book was so drawn out and dry, because the main plot was promising and that twist would have made for a great payoff if the book had been shorter and/or more engaging. Instead, trying to get to that payoff (and with the way the book was going there seemed to be no guarantee there would be a payoff at all) felt almost like a chore.

I did consider continuing with it after I read the spoiler, just to find out the resolutions for any of the side plots, but really couldn’t be bothered and am overall happy/relieved that I accidentally spoiled myself and I didn’t waste another 16hrs slogging through an unappealing and boring novel.

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