“A House of Sky and Breath” by Sarah J. Maas
Maas uses a modern fantastical backdrop to explore grief and healing in an unjust world
By: Erica Bouska
After two hard years in which grief has become an unfortunate companion to many people, “House of Earth and Blood” is a welcome take on dealing with tragedy. The first book in Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City series takes place in a parallel world where the only difference is a species of magical beings called Vanir, which encompasses everything from angels to necromancers. But behind the flashy altered reality and the murder mystery that drives the plot is an exploration of survivor’s guilt and the slow, never-finished path toward healing.
The novel starts in tragedy, following half-human, half-fae Bryce Quinlan, a 23-year-old partier with a dead-end job. After losing people close to her, the novel jumps ahead two years, showing Bryce at the same job and sporting the same bravado she started with.
But she’s distinctly different. Besides her daily run and work, she barely leaves her apartment, and she’s lost the charm and ease she carried when she was younger. There’s an obvious weight constricting her life, but she ignores it, carrying on a monotonous routine.
Enter Hunt Athalar, an angel enslaved to Crescent City’s ruler after a rebellion that cost him everything, from his freedom to the love of his life. His elongated lifespan has only made his grief harden into aloofness, his life as the ruler’s personal assassin just a countdown between jobs.
When attacks similar to the ones that killed Bryce’s loved ones start happening again, she and Hunt are ordered to figure it out. Using Hunt’s reputation and Bryce’s fearlessness, they open doors officials could never crack. Their journey sends them to the city’s underbelly and to Bryce’s half-brother, Ruhn, who’s looking for a stolen Fae relic.
Besides cultivating a depraved but fascinating family dynamic for Bryce, Maas reveals Bryce’s, Hunt’s, and Ruhn’s characters and struggles piece by piece. She introduces each one as a stereotype—college partier, stoic fighter, spoiled stoner—and slowly raises the curtain to take apart each of their layers. Aided by Maas’s cleverly worded foreshadowing and allusions, the book bends in unexpected ways but without cheap gimmicks or random surprises.
The intention in every word is what really makes the book worth reading. Offhanded comments and glances are revelational by the end of the novel, but the true mastery comes from the way Maas handles the trauma each character goes through.
“It sucks,” Bryce says at one point. “They expect me to forget. But I can’t… The world moved on. Like she never existed.”
The pain and guilt Bryce feels move the plot along rather than slowing it down. Without it, the book would never finish. But because of her grief and the steps she takes toward healing, the story gains deeper meaning through explanations of her rules around abstinence and her unwillingness to let anybody in. And the guilt cannot be stressed enough. Typically a bow-to-no-one woman, the cracks we see more and more of as the novel progresses let us know how deeply she’s crushed knowing she’s alive when her closest friends aren’t.
But the exploration into her grief and into Hunt’s and Ruhn’s demons doesn’t feel like a tragic tailspin. It’s somehow hopeful. Besides showing how reconnecting with people can encourage healing, the book acknowledges and demonstrates that grief is not a single path with clear signage.
While the murder mystery and the search for the relic lead them deeper than they ever wanted, the world around them is tormented by a deadly war and an unopposed dictatorship. But it isn’t overbearing. Maas reminds us that there are awful things occurring, but they almost feel unimportant in the grand scheme of the novel. Far more important is the characters learning to handle life as it is and grow because of its unfairness.
However, Maas doesn’t sweep them under the rug. Bryce perseveres despite the sneered insult of “half-breed,” Hunt still believes in his rebellion despite where it landed him, and they both rage at a class system designed to hold down struggling people. The ideas might not be as important to the plot of this book but are a critical reflection of resisting injustice no matter the circumstances.
The series’s second novel, “House of Sky and Breath,” arrives this week, and underlying the excitement for a continuation of the characters’ stories, Maas has alluded to a deeper exploration of the unjust system. A burgeoning battle between Bryce, Hunt, Ruhn, and the dictators known as the Asteri is brewing, and as Maas’s fifteenth book, readers can expect another thrill ride that leads where you least expect it.
In Maas’s other series, Throne of Glass and A Court of Rose and Thorns, she faced controversy because of the lack of and killing off of people of color and people in the LGBTQIA+ community. “House of Earth and Blood” is a slight refresher, with natural diversity that doesn’t feel like an easy fix meant to staunch critics and non-straight characters who have a healthy relationship. There is always room for growth, but the Crescent City series is a good step forward that Maas seems eager to expand on.
“House of Earth and Blood” is an examination and exploration of grieving and growing through tragedies and injustices. Maas’s cleverly structured novel takes the reader on a journey where the plot is less important than the symbols behind it and where “through love, all is possible.”