Reviews with content warning for Violence - Faebound

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi

104 reviews

snowship's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

izzyweird's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

pikkumarja's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Oi, miten positiivisesti yllätyin ensimmäisestä romantasiakirjastani! Faebound on melko fantasiapainotteinen kirja, jossa hyödynnetään ghanalaista ja sudanilaista mytologiaa ja kertomuksia. Kirjassa on keijuja ja haltioita, ja myös ihmisten aiempaan olemassaoloon viitataan.

Faebound on täynnä suhteita: on romantiikkaa, juonittelua, pettymyksiä ja petoksia, himoa, ystävyyttä ja perhesuhteita. Kaikki suhteet ovat monimutkaisia ja hahmotkin pääasiallisesti moniulotteisia. Välillä kieli tuntui vähän naiivilta ja obeahit keittiöfilosofeilta.

Suosittelen silti. Helposti lähestyttävä ja sujuva luettava!

Content Warnings

valefranze's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I really appreciated the world building and setting of this book, from the religious and political system to the different cultures. It's the first time I read a book where the characters are able to forge a telepathic bond with animals, I thought it was beautiful. It's also the first time I read a book that made me feel that being queer is truly OK. It was a comforting and soothing read for me. Also, I don't usually like POVs, but here it worked out pretty well!

With this being said, I do have some critiques. The characterization was weak, especially when it comes to the main character, Yeeran, which is kind of absurd. She seems very confused about her motivations and feelings throughout the whole book. I was waiting for her to develop a real and cohesive personality. Sometimes I thought her character was about to develop, but then she relapsed right away and went back to her old mental script, which isn't too clear either. Like the co-protagonist, Lettle, she keeps taking very impulsive and incoherent decisions until the very end. I understand that the author was focusing on the aesthetics and visual representation for this book, but I wish the characters didn't just have a good design, but also layers.
For these same reasons, the love stories weren't very believable. I honestly thought that the straight lead couple had a better relationship that the lesbian main couple. And that's probably only because Rayan's intentions felt like the most genuine, which, again, doesn't make sense, since this book is marketed as a wlw romantasy. There's not much romance either. The relationship between Yeeran and

Furi

felt superficial. It's a badly written enemies-to-lovers. Their relationship shifts so suddenly and seems to be built on nothing but continuous exposure to be honest. Yeeran is obviously attracted to

Furi

, but doesn't focus much on her other qualities. Maybe because she doesn't know her yet? Maybe because not even the reader knows what

Furi's

good qualities are yet?

Furi

, on the other hand, doesn't trust Yeeran at all, but still throws herself at her for no clear reason. I want to believe they aren't supposed to be in love yet, because there's still two books left and it feels like both of them just pick and choose their lovers based off of their appearance and/or status. Usually, the main couple does not fall in love in the first book of a trilogy for a reason.

Luckily for me, I didn't pick up this book for the romance, so I really enjoyed it in the end. I can't wait to see what happens next. I sincerely trust that the characterization will get better and that maybe the personalities will evolve, now that the author has laid down the fundations for a strong worldbuilding.

Content Warnings

neleusb's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

this book came out middle of the road for me. the writing took me a while to adjust to, i found it pretty curt 90% of the time and the other 10% was exceedingly flowery metaphors and such- which fit the setting but was a weird dissonance. i was always confused by character choices. from yeeran’s initial break from orders all the way to

lettle and rayan keeping secrets from each other despite their insta love?

. it made attachment to the characters hard for me. the romance? meh. for one yeeran

it was WEIRD to have hers and furi’s relationship be so toxic and mirror that with her chieftain (which was also fucked up but that never got properly addressed), plus their sex scene came out of NOWHERE. literally no scene transition

and with lettle

the insta love with the prophecy of death was intriguing but by the time they got together and started revealing their secrets it was MAD frustrating that she kept that future under wraps

that being said- LOVED the setting. the mythos introducing each part of the book was sick, plus the actual locations and magic system were super interesting. the twists at the end did catch me off guard in a fun way. also the audiobook had a weird editing error at one point that took me OUT lol. im interested to see where the sequel goes considering the prejudice in mosima

and rayan the half elf half fae on the throne alongside furi who is allergic to being helpful

Content Warnings

mmccombs's review against another edition

2.0

adventurous medium-paced

Fantastic concept, pretty much awful execution. The magic system and world building was super imaginative and unique, I thought the foundation of this story was so promising. But the writing was flat, the characters lacked depth, and the pacing was strange. The whole book felt like an info dump (basically fae explaining things to the elves and therefore us for what felt like forever) or multiple tropes strung together tenuously. I thought we moved on from the Eleven world way too fast, Yeeran and Lettle and Rayan were not nearly fleshed out enough to have the ending feel satisfying. And this was touted as like the sapphic romantasy book and the main romance (that was actually fleshed out fully) was straight, and the lesbian characters were like… just banging but also immediately in love but also hated each other? Idk they were not really engaging, and that was a big reason for deciding to read this book in the first place. The ending was rushed and seemed to resolve too neatly. And the audio narration was grating!!! I really hoped to like this but… kind of a waste of time!

Content Warnings