Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Faebound

Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi

15 reviews

kathi_90'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: Complicated

Content Warnings

clovetra's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

i’m gonna be honest and say. i’m a dumbass. i got an ARC to the sequel and hadn’t read this. so. here i am. tail in between my legs because i am stupid. and um. i dont think i would’ve picked this up otherwise. but i am defo excited to read the sequel!

i’ll be honest and say there were A Lot of elements of this i did not like. the plot twists were set up well, but they all came back to back to back i felt like i was getting whiplash from how much tea was being spilt. which is insane because before all 75 different plot twists were revealed, there was no plot. no tension. half the story is just lettle and yeeran being little horndogs, and the other half was worldbuilding. i’m not mad at the worldbuilding, lowkey learning about the elven lands & the life of the fae was FUNNNN. but idk i kind of feel like the focus was instead of the romance when a beautiful plot exploring the lives of the fae was Right There. but otherwise nothing really happens. like it took until 35% deep in this book for anything interesting to happen, and like 70% for the climax, and then that was resolved in like 4 pages 🧍

also with the plot twists… this is going to sound so fucking mean but most of them felt like something i’d read in fanfiction. something someone would write about their self-insert. like it was giving “hi im Y/N and actually im an elf and a fae and im a human and actually i am the most beautiful luxurious person and i have so many lovers because i am perfect”. do you get me?

the characters… oh the characters. i’m going to be honest and say i really only liked pila. she is my baby girl. other than that i only really cared for yeeran’s story because i knew she was a sapphic baddie. other than that she was alright, and only really pila warmed me up even the slightest towards yeeran. lettle was intriguing, but her plot annoyed me most of the time, and the same goes for rayan. i liked lettle a bit more than rayan tho cuz she is a fellow disabled baddie. furi was interesting but she felt very surface level in her depth. and everyone else is irrelevant and/or uninteresting.

so what did i like about this book? i don’t really know. i did enjoy the romance and the world building. i liked how some of the plot twists were nicely set up, even if they were cringe imo.

i think this book had a lot of potential. i think i am just a hater because i couldn’t bond to any main character and plot elements kept breaking my immersion because i found them corny.

oh well, let’s hope i like the sequel more!

Content Warnings

louhitar's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark 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

This was an enjoyable read. Although I struggled with the first half I ended up being immersed and and flying through the second half. I grew to enjoy our characters and the world building.

This book had a take on fae that I ended up enjoying in contrast to a lot of books (and especially other "romantasy" books) that include them, and I really enjoyed the fact that the world included non-binary genders and was queer normative.

I wasn't greatly engaged with the plot until the end, however, and nearly dropped this book in the first half. Though I am glad I pulled through in the end.

Content Warnings

kirjakimalainen's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

ephemeralzen's review against another edition

3.25

lighthearted mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

the book was so mid tbh. the romance felt really forced and out of place because it seemed to just develop from nowhere; it seemed to be rather to fill a checkbox of a trope rather than to develop any meaningful connection between characters.
the writing was also… not great. still don’t really get the whole magic system or worldbuilding but i fr might just be stupid. the whole thing about the obeah and stuff?? don’t get it LMFAO. it also did bring in a lot of anachronisms (existence of leggings and a few other things) that i felt was really forced or out of place for a fantasy book; yes i know ‘suspend your disbelief’ but my immersion </3
that being said i am invested now because i am 100% rooting for these characters now ajd will buy the next book when it drops

Content Warnings

skyfluff's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

caseythereader's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-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

Thanks to Del Rey Books for the free copy of this book.

- Saara El-Arifi is so good at creating dark fantasy worlds that are full of both war and love. I also love how she seamlessly includes queer and disabled people throughout her stories.
- Yeeran and Lettle are a great pair of sisters, loving each other and also being annoyed as heck with each other because they don’t see eye to eye.
- Here’s the thing about FAEBOUND - I could see exactly where the plot was going at every turn and I loved reading it anyway. Everything was predictable, but I enjoyed by time in this world and am looking forward to the sequel.

Content Warnings

dododenise's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Very solid!
I really enjoyed the magic system and not something I’ve seen before.

The world building was also really interesting and I liked how you were fed the pieces bit by bit, so you could enjoy the story right from the start without the 100 pages of confusion you often get in high fantasy.
The book painted beautiful pictures of a beautiful world.

The characters weren’t the most likeable but I found them very interesting. I’m especially hoping for more character development for Yeeran in future books. Her military mindset is so deep in her and I’d love to see her let go of it more and more and see the problem of the war.

The romance elements of the story could have been better but wasn’t too bad. Especially the back and forth between Yeeran and Furi was a bit too much for my liking. But I can see myself liking them more as time goes on and they both go through more development.

Definitely going to continue the series!

Content Warnings

ellen_is_reading's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous emotional funny tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

nina_rae_131's review against another edition

2.0

medium-paced

Loveable characters: No

I chose this book for the "Judge a Book by its Cover" r/fantasy 2024 bingo square, and I'm afraid the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" applies to Faebound.
I found the world and magic system interesting. I wish we could have spent more time exploring those.
The characters annoyed me. Every time Lettle and Rayan interacted, I cringed. I felt like the romance between

Fury and Yeeran was unrealistic, like, girl, she murdered your brother!

I kept forgetting the characters were supposed to be in their thirties. Lettle especially felt like a teenager. It was also very predictable.

Content Warnings

More...