Title: House of Earth and Blood
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Crescent City #1
Initial review:
Based on first 60 pages: epic worldbuilding, inferior lead
I would like to thank Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury USA, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free excerpt of the first 60 pages (70 including front matter) in exchange for an honest review.
I’m so fucking pissed right now.
First reason I’m pissed—I should have known better than to read an excerpt. Especially of a Maas book. They knew just where to cut us off, those heathens. Now I’m ravenous for more but can’t read the rest of the book for three weeks. I preordered it the moment I finished the excerpt. I haven’t bought a book in months because I’m broke as hell, but by god, I’m getting this one. I just won’t eat for a couple days, I guess.
(Indulgent rant: I would wait for the audiobook, but it’s only available from Audible, who doesn’t share with libraries, the greedy sons of fucking bitches, so that’s not an option for me. Reason #2 I’m pissed. (I swear to god, if the future ACOTAR audiobooks are exclusive to Audible, I’m going to rain holy fucking hell over the earth. Be a-fucking-fraid. I don’t know what Audible pays these authors for exclusive audio rights; there are only so many firstborn children. The sheer greed and selfishness just about makes my head explode.))
The third reason I’m pissed is more jealousy than anger. It’s not fair that Maas can write this well. Just not bloody fair.
I actually wasn’t planning on reading this new series. I loved ACOTAR, wanted to marry it and have its children. I liked TOG quite a lot, though not as much as ACOTAR. But the blurb for this book simply did not interest me, and I couldn’t afford to buy it for collection purposes, so I was prepared to let it pass by and wait for ACOTAR #4.
Then I was offered a chance to read the first 60 pages, and I caved.
I didn’t like it at first. The first 20 pages is a tidal wave of worldbuilding that crashes over you, utterly overwhelming and disorienting. No way will I ever be able to keep track of all the tiny, irrelevant details thrown at me. You need a set of frickin encyclopedias to go with Maas’ books. Also, Maas has changed her MO a bit, using more of a modern setting than a medieval one. I find that disorienting as well and don’t care for it, though I’ll probably get used to it the more I read. But despite feeling so turned off, I pressed on, committed to reviewing it.
And the characters began to grow on me. Endearing, three-dimensional characters are my kryptonite.
I don’t have a lot of respect for the lead, Bryce, just yet. Well, back up—to begin with, while I know Bryce is a name often used ambiguously, in my life I’ve only known boys named Bryce, so it took me a little while to get used to it referring to a female. For the first couple of chapters I had to keep reminding myself Danika wasn’t the lead, because the name Danika, in my opinion, is stronger and distinctly feminine. It didn’t help that the character Danika had a stronger personality, too, was more powerful and more important, so she easily outshined Bryce. Just another reason the beginning was so disorienting for me.
But the reason I don’t respect Bryce much is because she’s exactly the kind of person I typically disdain—a party animal with little self-respect or maturity who likes to go to clubs, get black-out drunk and so high she suffers the effects for days. On a week night, when she has to work in the morning. She thinks it’s fun, a sentiment I will never in all my life understand.
But I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt because there were glimpses of intelligence and vulnerability. I mean, she reads romance novels. I can only assume that this is part of her arc, going from a rather reckless party girl to someone more mature and responsible, and she’ll evolve into a fantastic heroine I can respect. Hopefully. I guess I’ll find out in three weeks.
Now, behold the power of Maas—despite disliking the lead, despite feeling overwhelmed, despite being tempted to quit, I was sucked in. I can only credit the characters, because I didn’t start enjoying the story until the Pack of Devils was introduced. I really enjoyed their group dynamic, which was similar to the dynamic of the Court of Dreams, which is in large part why I loved ACOTAR so much. You can feel the unconditional love and respect for one another under all the teasing banter and playful insults. I barely knew the Pack of Devils, but I already adored them.
And when they were horribly, brutally, gut-wrenchingly slain, I was reduced to a puddle of tears and grief. And rage.
And NO, that’s not a spoiler. It’s in the blurb. “—until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone.” Plus, bold, arrogant statements early on such as “…they’d done everything together. Just the two of them, as it always would be” were like blowing raspberries at the playground bully. Begging for a world of hurt.
So them’s my thoughts. Nutshell: the epic worldbuilding is remarkable, though that doesn’t mean I appreciate it, and I hope the lead will earn my respect going forward.
Oh, one nitpick—why on earth do they have a fire sprite guarding a library of old, priceless books? There has to be a reason that makes sense, because Maas isn’t stupid.
Overall review:
Meh
SPOILERS
Confession time: I finished reading this three weeks ago but gave so few shits about it that I set it aside and totally forgot I was supposed to update my review. My bad!
In the end, it wasn’t an terrible book, but neither was it fantastic. The last hundred pages were fucking awesome, but most of the book plodded along, hampered by exposition and fluff. I got so bored waiting and waiting for something to happen, for the mystery to move along. I really don’t think the book needed to be 800 pages long.
I’m still not sure I liked Bryce. I sympathized with her, absolutely, but something about her just annoyed me. I liked Hunt more than I liked her, but that’s not saying much. Ruhn was interesting, along with Flynn and Declan—though, like Bryce, I’d have liked them a lot more if they weren’t party animals when off duty. To be fair, Bryce quit drugs and alcohol after Danika died, but she didn’t completely quit the party scene, hooking up with strangers in bathrooms and whatnot.
The other supporting characters were okay, too. Hunt’s angel friends, Bryce’s parents, her friends. Syrinx the chimera grew on me, and Lehabah— Oh god. Lehabah. Lehabah. She was easily my favorite character, so of course she died. And my second favorite, honestly, was Aidas—there was just something magnetic about his enigmatic self. And he reminded me of Rhysand somehow, so yeah, I definitely liked him. Jesiba and Fury also fascinated me.
The plot—was complicated. The fact that the mystery boiled down to a dangerous drug—it was so cliche and unoriginal that it was pretty disappointing. Also, it got confusing when Bryce and Hunt started to believe theories, then found out they were completely wrong and were pretty much back at square one. They ran through several theories and false explanations, and by the time the truth was finally revealed, it was anticlimactic.
I really didn’t care for the modern urban setting. And the worldbuilding was epic, as I said originally, but to a fault; there was so, so much irrelevant detail that I tuned most of it out.
So overall, my opinion didn’t change much from my initial impression. I will say, though, that I liked it well enough to want to see what happens next. I’m not super eager for it, though.
