Reviews - Cursebound | The StoryGraph

1.12k reviews for:

Cursebound

Saara El-Arifi

3.94 AVERAGE

thelibraryofklee's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

tomerater's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

robbio87's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging funny mysterious sad 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

boatsbooks's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous mysterious 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: No

valefranze's review against another edition

3.25

adventurous emotional sad fast-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: Yes

I am aware that in my review of Faebound I was being very optimistic. I really like the setting of this trilogy, so I truly hoped for a significant improvement. Needless to say, the things I hoped would change stayed the exact same.
The characters stayed flat and unlikable. Character development is paramount in fantasy writing, I just don’t get how these characters don’t seem to grow or change with all they go through. I don’t expect a deep analysis of their psyche, but I’d appreciate them changing their mind or questioning themselves sometimes.
The love stories are still not believable. It’s just people finding each other attractive and they have sex. The crazy part is that I feel like the author writes better love stories when there’s men involved, there’s more depth to the relationships then. The wlw couple shouldn’t even be together.
Lastly, there was too much foreshadowing and too many hints. This does not go for all the plot twists, but I realized

Adler was part human

at the beginning of the book and the characters only at the end. It was a little anticlimactic.
These are all things I had noticed in the first book already. I still enjoyed both books because of the setting and plot. I must note that it didn’t advance much in this book, although the cliffhanger at the end really sparked my curiosity. I hope the last book won’t be too rushed, can’t wait to see what happens next!

Content Warnings