Reviews

The First Binding by R.R. Virdi

hplokker01's review

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

lyrafay12's review

adventurous challenging mysterious slow-paced

2.5

fadingapple's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.5

4.5/5 stars

This was magical, absolutely amazing. Was it probably a little too long? Maybe, but there wasn't any fluff - it was long and dense and had a ton of content, but there wasn't much of a word wasted. Every part of magical and every story important. So much happens and it was all wonderful. 

The writing quality was amazing - my attention was captured from the first moment and the story never let it go. Every character had a distinct voice was it was clear that Virdi knew what he wanted to say and had his voice going in. The worldbuilding was beautiful, the characters amazing, and the plot captivating. 

This is one for the major fantasy lovers - it's got everything we love in a long, well-written fantasy with all the depth and detail we could ask for. 

cheezh8er's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-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

5.0

mrs_de_winter13's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No

3.5

samrushingbooks's review against another edition

5.0

Definitely the best book I've read in 2023 so far, and it's going to be difficult to beat for the rest of my reads this year.

sapphiremarie's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

kdeutsch's review

adventurous challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

bezarue's review against another edition

adventurous challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The first 300 pages of this book took me over three months to read. This was the slowest start to a book I have ever attempted, and if it wasn't part of a readathon I would have DNF'd. It did pick up a lot after that, and managed to be a fairly engaging story, but that first 300 pages killed me dead. And I didn't even feel like the beginning did a good job of setting up the world either- like I felt all the world building came mostly afterwards to be honest. It needed a glossary because there were 950 characters and two timelines which I don't really think was employed to best effect, and I quite often lost a grasp on who was who. It also just had so much misogyny baked in, but in a way where it clearly thought it had created a fairly equal fantasy society? Like I don't think was intentional. And why did every single female that Ari met apart from Aram be so desperately in love with him? I didn't believe the relationship in the present between him and Eloine, plus all the other reviews say it's plagiarism so like yeah no thank you 

elsecallerreads's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-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

4.0

This was a really enjoyable read. Its very slow but the world building makes it worth it. I will admit it shares a lot of similarities with Name of the Wind but I personally don't care for name of the wind and I thought this was much better done. 
I have hopes that the next book will be slightly faster paced as this book had to spend a lot of time setting up the world. I especially loved that even though it had a framing story, both timelines were equally engaging.