3.56 AVERAGE

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

Simply amazing! Could not put it down!

What I liked about this book:
-great, well fleshed out characters; neither the heroine nor the villain are black-and-white, one dimensional characters
-how the overall plot played out, with some unexpected twists that had me going, "Good one! I should have known!"
-the fairytale/mythology framework
-Rachelle's friendship with Amelie
-tried the audiobook as well...Elizabeth Knoweldon did a good job here too!
-I liked mostly everything about this book except...

What I didn't like about this book:
-I feel that Rachelle's sex scene was inconsistent with her character (especially afterward, when she dons the ruby, not in triumph over having experienced sex on her own terms, but in shame), though after you find out about a certain villain, it seems like it was used as a plot device to make the villain seem even more manipulative; I personally don't think it was a necessary part of the story, but that's just me
-I thought that Rachelle fell in love with another main character waaaay too quickly

It’s a cool concept with interesting plot points (the bloodbound and societies reactions to them) but it is a YA novel. Things are gone into great detail and a lot of incidents just seem to happen. Somehow nothing really happens at the same time. The love arc feels very rushed. There are moments that are really good in this book but they’re quickly swept away by something? The plot is good and the characters are decent but something is t fleshed out enough. I know I would’ve been obsessed with this book if I’d read it as a teen. The angst! Ah man this book got me with a trope I can’t resist and its rating will go up now! 
“He strode away like doubt and fear belonged in another world and had no power to touch him” in the end, I really enjoyed this book and it was a fun quick read with a lot of depth. 

This was a really nice read for me. I enjoyed the plot and the world building. It lost a star because I felt that the romance felt a bit forced at times and personally, I think the religion in the book could’ve been more explained.

Crimson Bound is a really interesting take on Little Red Riding Hood, and there are definitely a lot of parallels between Crimson Bound and the story of Little Red Riding Hood that we all know. After reading Cruel Beauty, I was really looking forward to Crimson Bound, which I liked almost as much as Cruel Beauty.

I thought the mystery of the bloodbound and the Devourer was really interesting, but it did get sort of confusing at the end. I definitely had to re-read parts of it to see if would make any more sense, and it sort of did, but not much. Something about the world and the mythology made me think of the His Fair Assassins trilogy by Robin LaFevers, so if you like that series, you might want to check out this book.

It's also pretty slow for a good chunk of the book, so it takes a while for anything interesting to happen, but I actually didn't mind the slow pace, because there is a really interesting world we see in the book, and I just wanted to absorb as much of as I could. There are a lot of hints and it seems really vague, so I might have to hunt down a more clear explanation of the mythology and everything with Zisa and Tyr to see if that will make it less confusing. I did really like the description of the Forest, which seemed more metaphysical than anything else.

I didn't particularly care for the love triangle, mostly because I didn't feel like there was anything between Rachelle and either love interest. I don't have any strong feelings towards Armand or Erec, but I really liked Rachelle and how she tried so hard to hold onto her humanity. It is a lot darker than I expected, even for a YA fantasy, but I really liked that about the book, even though it didn't have the same spark that Cruel Beauty did. There wasn't as action much as I thought there would be, given the summary, and while I didn't mind, I think that's why the book had a slower pace. And like I said earlier, I didn't mind the slower pace, but a little more action throughout the book would have been nice.

My Rating: 3 stars. I liked it, especially the world and the mythology, but I also wish the mythology was a little less confusing.

I liked it, but though it said that it was a retelling of Red Riding Hood, the only mention I noticed if it was the blood red cloak in the beginning. But again, still enjoyed it, a solid 4 stars!

Please imagine the sad trombone music of your choice playing in the background of this review.

I felt so disappointed by Crimson Bound. I loved Rosamund Hodge’s first novel, Cruel Beauty. It wasn’t an all-time favorite, but I did love it and rate it highly, so I thought for sure Crimson Bound and I would hit it off since it was supposed to be a book written in a similar style. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t help but to compare it to Cruel Beauty, but Crimson Bound never really took off for me.

Despite some of the complications, the plot of Crimson Bound was really quite simple. Rachelle was turned into a bloodbound three years before the start of the novel, a creature stronger and more deadly than a human. To turn into a bloodbound after being marked by a forestborn, you have to take a human life. In Rachelle’s case, her aunt. Now she’s looking for a sword that can stop the Devour, a terrifying creature that comes from the forest. Basically, the story is: find the sword, kill the creature.

It’s not that Crimson Bound is badly written. I love the way Hodge weaves her fantasy worlds, and there were places in the novel where I was enchanted by the story, but unfortunately they were few and far in-between. It was clear that Hodge put a lot of thought into her world-building, but I did think it was a little lacking. It wasn’t bad, exactly, but there was just something a little off about it. I did like the addition of the world’s own mythology and how heavily it played into the story.

The biggest issue I had with Crimson Bound, however, was the romance. It was just. . . infuriating is the word that comes to mind. Yes, there is a love triangle. I’ve said it before, but love triangles don’t always bother me. They’re overdone, but I can roll with them at times. But this love triangle? I hated it.

The love triangle plays a big part in the plot, so I’ll try to describe my issues with while still being as vague as possible. For one thing, it was clear from the start which way it was going to go down. I read some reviews that said Crimson Bound had a lot of plot twists, but I never felt that way. I thought all the plot points were clear fairly early on, and the love triangle was no different.

It also didn’t inspire any sort of emotion in me beside rage. The two male characters in the love triangle are Erec, a fellow bloodbound, and Armand, the king’s illegitimate son who has lost his hands in an encounter with a forestborn and is held up to be a saint. Armand was a really interesting character, and probably my favorite. His characterization was impressive and the plot points relating to his arc was probably the only thing that really surprised me. That being said, while I liked Armand as a character, his interactions with Rachelle as far as the love triangle goes were fairly lackluster and by-the-book. It felt like Erec was supposed to be the “dark and perhaps evil character you’re still supposed to root for”, but he just made me rage instead, even though I know Rosamund Hodge can write this type of character since she did in Cruel Beauty.

And yes, the love triangle took up a big part of the book. When Rachelle wasn’t in search of the sword to kill the Devourer or pitying herself, she tended to be in some sort of love triangle interaction. The bright spot in character relationships was the friendship between Rachelle and Amélie, a woman Rachelle met in her service as the king’s bloodbound. That friendship was wonderful and I wanted scene after scene of them interacting.

As for Rachelle herself, I had mixed thoughts. I am a character-driven reader first and foremost, so it’s really tough for me to get into a book when I’m not invested in a character. I don’t have to like them, but I have to be interested. Rachelle had sparks of interesting moments(particularly towards the end), but her character just as often fell flat for me. At the beginning of the book, her characterization pretty much seems to be “I did this awful thing for survival and I don’t regret killing but I hate myself for it all”. That’s always the hardest type of character for me to swallow. I don’t have a whole lot of patience for characters who are often self-pitying. If the lead characters are going to be dark and deadly, I want them to own it.

The last thing I wanted to point out was the religious themes woven into Crimson Bound. It was an interesting addition and I liked the way it played into the way the characters thought about their world, but it also felt too much like religion in our world. In some ways, it reminded me of the religion in The Girl of Fire and Thorns, but I thought it was woven into the story better there. In Crimson Bound, the religion sits on the surface of the world but doesn’t really ground itself in it the same way religions actually do. There was just something strange about it to me, whether it was the phrases used straight from the Christian bible or the way the mass was described as being conducted.
dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This starts with a twist on Little Red Riding Hood, but that is just the beginning. I found the writing a bit uneven, sometimes carrying me along and other times feeling like it was dragging a bit. Some details felt out of place. At times it felt a little heavy handed. Still, I do enjoy a fractured fairy tale, especially when it is a darker re-telling, and this one certainly is dark.

Rip roaring ending, but took so long to get there

I made the mistake, I guess, or reading Uprooted first, and this put this book in sharp contrast. The story is well told, but there is that romatic triangle I get so tired of. Just get on with the story, and leave the love stuff out.