Review: House of Earth and Blood

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a sh*t-kicking roller-coaster ride that was.

Let's be honest: SJM moved to 'adult' fantasy so she could have free reign with the smut she wanted to write. But the woman does write hella good fantasy.

Excuse me while I wrap my head around this 800 pages.

I LOVED the world. I love that it's so rich in detail but also fantasy and possibility. Every beastie and creature that's ever been whispered about seems to have made it into this book. Fae, angels, shapeshifters, vampires (vampyrs), merfolk, demons ... they're ALL here. It's like she couldn't decide which fantasy folk to focus on, then that kid from the taco ad popped up and she decided to just throw them all in. I LIKE. I LIKE VERY MUCH.

The magic is kind of toned down? So lots of them have it, but they're also using phones and watching trash tv on the couch. It was a weird blend but I was digging it! I liked that we weren't dealing with all-powerful beings throwing their power around all the time, and that they weren't living in thatched huts and hunting their meals.

The characters were a lot of fun. Danika was a bestie straight up, along with Connor. Then Lehebah and Syrinx were a dynamic duo that I couldn't get enough of. They melted my heart. I did once again prefer the sassy side characters to our two brooding leads, but it was still hard not to love Bryce and Hunt. (I'm mad about the names though, is that petty? They didn't seem to suit these two at all. I legit read Bryce at 600-odd pages in and was like, 'wait. Which dude is Bryce again?')

Ruhn and his two buddies were solid faves, and I'm secretly hoping the sequel focuses on them because they are FUN. Sure, there's some daddy issues, but overall they are where the party is at and that's where I want to be. They also have much cooler names.

There were also just a lot of random cool folks that made smaller appearances that I definitely want more of. Aidas was really cool, even if I did keep picturing him in the sneakers with the three stripes. My mind works in mysterious ways. *shrugs*

Plot? It's a doozy. It runs all over town and leaves you with a lot of mysteries to solve. The initial heartbreak is right there in the blurb but it still packs a punch, and then we have to deal with the fallout. THEN there's the 'it's time to solve a case' phase blended in with the 'getting to know each other' phase which is pretty fun. Then the issues as they get to know each other more and the case gets more complicated. I mean, it really is an emotional roller-coaster. It's hard not to get invested.

Love (and sex) is a massive part of this story, but were we expecting anything different from SJM? She loves the kinky stuff. We've all read A Court of Mist and Fury, right? It's kind of less here but with more detail. The amount of times 'cock' appears in this book is ridiculous. I am not into the kinky stuff at all. So even though I was expecting it, I rolled my eyes a lot. Because she loves writing the kinky stuff, we get A LOT of extra content on the power of love, and the connection, and how important having someone is, etc etc. If you toned down the love story this book would be half the size. That would have been a 5-star for me for sure. But this much romance just isn't my thing at all so wading through so much of it, even if they are an endearing couple, was just a bit overboard for me.

I like the flirting, though. Flirting is fun.

Aside from the kinky stuff, my biggest gripe with SJM has been the mystery of the missing question marks and you will spot this gripe in almost all of my reviews of her last four or five books. I get that it's a style device but it occurs far more often than it should and it still bothers me SO MUCH. Yes I am petty. Anyhoo, she did better here but we're still missing at least five or so question marks. Please return them, SJM. I miss them.

Can I go into detailed gushing now?!

(view spoiler)[Okay look, Danika and the pack being taken out like that ... that broke my heart. I was so mad at Bryce for having all those drugs in her system. Not that she could have done anything but I just felt so sick over the whole thing. Way to stab my heart into tiny pieces nice and early, SJM.

Almost the entire time I was waiting for Bryce to check the goddamn supply closet. The fact that the closet was never even mentioned really bothered me. I kept expecting something vital to be in there ie the horn. Also when they found the pic of the demon being stabbed I assumed it meant only the right sword could do it and that sword was Danika's sword and, oh, where was her sword again? IN THE SUPPLY CLOSET. But alas, all my sleuthing and expectation was in vain.

I had so many guesses and assumptions and only, like, half of them were right. I figured Micah was pretty suss early on so it bothered me they couldn't see he was meddling? 'Bad press' my ass. I figured Sabine wasn't guilty, but she's still a stone cold b*tch. Danika being a bad person was never gonna fly with me, so I saw through that, though I did guess she'd taken the horn. It's location was a complete mystery to me the entire time, though. I had so much staked on it being in the damn closet. XD Hunt doing the dirty on Bryce blew me away completely. I did NOT see that coming.

I'm not a huge fan of the ending, because I hate the whole, 'I'm just a nobody with no powers' to 'BAM! I'm practically invincible because I've secretly been the chosen one all along' crap. I much preferred her being essentially ordinary with some mad sniper skills. Much more fun that way. But of course it might bruise Hunt's ego if she was more powerful than him, so let's give him back all of his superpowers, too. So they are the ultimate powerful power couple. *eyeroll* It was a pretty epic, chaotic ending considering how light on fight scenes the rest of the book was.

Also I definitely wanted more shifters. (hide spoiler)]

Overall, it was a pretty epic fantasy action adventure with some fun characters and a complicated mystery to solve. The love and kinkiness is pretty heavy-handed but the couple is hard not to love so either you get really into it or your eye-rolls are still good-natured.

I feel like there was a lot of resemblance to Aelin/Rowan from the Throne of Glass series, what with all the swaggering and grinning and growling etc. but the world here is the real win. With this many fantasy elements it's hard not to get sucked into it, even if it does take a while to figure it all out.

It's definitely a slog at 800 pages, but it's a wild ride that will keep you entertained the whole time. If you loved the aCoTaR series this may not be as regularly kinky as you want it, but if you loved the earlier ToG books (Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows) this should definitely hit the spot. The fantasy is the main draw here, with the classic SJM smut and swearing trademark.

Pretty keen to see where the rest of the series will take us!

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