House of Earth and Blood : Crescent City #1 by Sarah J. Maas - Book Review (no spoilers)

This amazing modern fantasy series is one of Maas' most recent books. Every page is packed with the Fae (who star in most of her books) lots of magic, mystery, suspense and action. Maybe this book review is a little biased since I love Sarah J. Maas so much, but I can assure you, I will try to speak the truth and nothing but the truth (hopefully).

For those of you who haven't heard of this book, I'll warn you, it's supposed to be an adult book, rated 18+ by almost everyone (expect me).

I loved loved loved this book so much. Although it was a big fat book of more than 700 pages, once I finished I was still thirsting for more. Despite this being only the first book in her series, it has a proper ending, and someone who is not looking for an entire series they'll have to read, this book can do the trick.

Now it's not like I'm saying this book doesn't contain bad language and swear words on almost every page, or extremely detailed "bedroom scenes" and a protagonist (Bryce Quinlan) who does drinks and drugs and parties in bars everyday, (because believe me, this is all the first few pages contain), but I'm saying that almost-adults and most young teens could handle it too.

I found the swearing extremely unnecessary, something Maas had just added to make her otherwise YA book an adult. The book could have much better without it, and since she used only a limited number of curse words, it made the book sound very repetitive and basically everything Bryce met having the same swear-word adjective.

The story was great, most of the good characters were likable (Bryce more after her best friends died and her drug addiction ended), and of course the story-building and writing style was amazing, since it was a Sarah J. Maas.

Another slightly annoying thing was how there were so many other nice characters in the book that the author could have developed but she chose to concentrate on Bryce and Hunt's thoughts about each other and the "tension" between them or other stuff that wasn't very necessary. Now I don't even remember the names of any of the side characters except that there was a tiny flying fire, a dog, a merman, Bryce's boss, Bryce's brother, his friends and a big fish living in a tank. See? So many characters to write about who could've made the story more interesting, especially during the slow beginning.

If you are reading this book right now, or are planning to read this book in the future, I will urge you to not give up on it after reading the first few (hundred) pages because the story changes drastically (for the better) as it proceeds, you'll get used to the swear words (which will gradually decrease in number too), and both Bryce and Hunt Athalar will start seeming like better people than they did in the beginning.

Any other bad characteristics of the book that I may have found while reading it, I don't remember anymore, because as the story developed, I could only think of how much I loved it and how I wanted to read more, more and more. The author is great at keeping people hooked to her work and wanting to read the next chapter or the next book without even having to end the previous one on a cliff-hanger, which I find really nice (especially because the second book of Crescent City hasn't been released yet and I would've gone half-mad with rage if I'd had to leave such a nice story without a proper ending for another year or so).

Before starting this book, you should definitely consider if you want to read something rated eighteen plus by the author and basically every publication or review company out there, but if you think you can manage, I can guarantee you'll have loads of fun and an enjoyable journey you won't regret.