This New Fantasy Novel Is For Readers Who Love The Genre

Sarah J. Maas’s House of Earth and Blood isn’t for everyone, but it most certainly is for me

Fantasy was what made me fall in love with books. I didn’t learn to read until I was seven, but after that I was off to the races: I’d read while eating breakfast, while walking to school, I’d read under the table in class. Though I didn’t only read fantasy, it’s what I loved best. When you’re an anxious, traumatized kid looking for a way out of your life and your head, there’s little that does the trick better than a fantastical world in which animals talk, dragons exist, and people can solve their problems with newfound gifts for magic.

Sarah J. Maas’s upcoming adult debut, House of Earth and Blood, was a spectacular reminder of why I love to read, fantasy in particular. It doesn’t take the genre to new heights, it doesn’t transform it into something “greater” or “more literary.” These things are nice — a literary fantasy novel is no better than one that belongs solidly within the genre. It’s just another facet of a book, like how much dialogue it has, or if it has multiple points-of-view.

So maybe House of Earth and Blood isn’t a good novel for someone who doesn’t love fantasy. For those who do, though, it’s the best I’ve read since Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House (a book that does try to shape fantasy into…