Faebound

I have to say, this book is completely magical and you get sucked right in! The world is so rich and the characters feel so real; this is fantasy done right. This is my first adult fantasy believe it or not, and I am incredibly grateful that this was my introduction to the genre.

Let's begin with the world-building because I was blown away with how it kept building up gradually throughout the story. It's even more interesting how we as readers know the world through what Yeeran, our protagonist knows to be truth. Throughout the book, the truths of the world that she was unaware of are slowly unraveled. Histories that her people, the elven people, have forgotten are being brought to light once more. Alongside with the world-building, the themes, discussions, and representation being woven into this story is absolutely incredible: disability rep, LGBTQIA+ rep, the realities of war and its effect on a group of people, being othered by society, and much much more. And what's even more important is how many conversations in this book relate back to ours, and I want to thank you, Saara El-Arifi for exercising much care with these discussions that you have woven into this fantastical story.

Now for the plot and its characters, I first need to say that I appreciate these characters not being in their teens and being much older. Yeeran, Lettle, and Rayan are the core of this story and it's quite beautiful how they interact with each other. The love that Yeeran and Lettle have for each other is so endearing; their sisterhood bond despite many things that may be left unsaid between them as they both have lived different lives. Where Yeeran is committed to her tribe, Lettle is dedicated to her divination. This domino effect of the plot is so satisfying, the set up in the beginning sets the story and its characters on a journey. The magic system in this book is fleshed out so well and it's easy to understand from the very beginning.

Now for the romance, I enjoyed the couples especially since queer love is featured multiple times throughout the book. There was a bit of an enemies to lovers pairing in this book that I will not spoil but I found the gradual dip to lovers to be a little too fast especially considering the situation that made them enemies in the first place but I digress it was cute and passionate nonetheless.

Let's make one thing super clear: this is how you do diversity in fantasy and I implore everyone to read this book and give it the attention it deserves.

Thank you NetGalley & Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Given how much I've enjoyed this author's other series - The Ending Fire - and am eagerly awaiting the final book in that series, I thought I would love this book but it was a huge disappointment for me.

There is a severe lack of world building in this book, so much that even by the mid-way point I still had no image of the world, the underground city, the Elves and the Fae, etc. I usually find that I can visualise the story even when world building is a little lacking but in this I was completely blind.

I also found the characters quite underdeveloped, at no point did I feel connected to them or have any feelings about them being in danger or their relationships growing. I was completely ambivalent to them which I think it worse than loving or hating them.

The plot was okay and was really the only thing which kept me going in the story, but it wasn't anything new in the genre and was fairly predictable.

Perhaps a personal issue for me, as I've read the author's books so closely together, is that I found a lot of the names in both series very similar, some of the side character names are nearly identical. It's just an odd choice when in a fantasy story you can literally make up anything, but perhaps I'm nitpicking.

Overall this one was a miss for me and I'm unlikely to continue in this series, but I am very excited for The Ending Fire to release later this year and will look for other books from this author.

well just another bad boring fae book where the fae are just hot humans. dear writers... PLEASE bring back WEIRD FAE!!! look them up!

the romance for everyone sucked ass.. it was just lust at first sight immediately.. then they are all talking wowwowow im in love with this person like?? no the fuck you aint you in love with his dick and her vagina stfu

the plot twists sucked ass rayan a half fae AND is king? seriously????