The House of Earth and Blood

Sarah J. Maas

Honestly, I had no idea where to start with this review. Going into this book, I was able to avoid all the spoilers, so I had no idea what to expect beyond the annotation. But now I can say that I didn’t see this coming.

I loved that we got to see what happened before the death of Bryce’s friends because the following events made much more sense. Reading about the trauma that she had to endure and also seeing the aftermath of that incident was incredible. It made it that more real.

However, I didn’t like either one of the main characters. The personas they were putting on were so annoying, and we didn’t get to see their real selves until after half of the book. I guess seeing the actual character made me like the second half much more.

What surprised me was the fact that I enjoyed “playing detectives”. I usually am not a big fan of murder mysteries and investigative drama, but I liked how the author portrayed it.

The world-building was magnificent. It was a nice change to read urban fantasy, which is not what Maas usually writes but, to be honest, I kinda saw it coming.

At first, I wanted to give this only four stars, but the end left me mind-blown, and for that, I added the last star. Overall it had a slower start, but the ending made up for it. I can only recommend this book.