Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Faebound

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi

47 reviews

distilledreads's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

I love the world Saara El-Arifi has created in Faebound with the dynamic of fae, elves, and (once upon a time) humans. It is a queernormative fantasy, which I am absolutely adoring at the moment. There are F/F, F/M, and M/M relationships mentioned on page as well as nonbinary characters. Again, I just loved the world El-Arifi created and the mythology of creation with the three gods each representing a different race and bestowing a “power.”

Strangely, despite falling in love with the world, I can’t pinpoint if there is a single character that I love as much. I enjoyed the characters, but I didn’t quite fall in love with any of them. Also, while I love the queer rep, none of the romantic partnerships had me in a chokehold, not even the enemies-to-lovers one. I will take a moment to appreciate El-Arifi’s depiction of siblings though. Even though our sibling protagonists are older (early-30s and late-20s), they still bicker like children. It is a dynamic I’ve seen with my own siblings at times, where we can revert back to the same arguments we had at 8 and 12, even though we are now much older.

As well, at times the foreshadowing in Faebound felt quite heavy. For every twist and turn, the groundwork has been put in place already on the page, so there were no surprise twists for me, but that didn’t make me like the book any less. Overall, the premise and world-building sunk its teeth into me with Faebound and I am eagerly anticipating the next installment.

Content Warnings

florecita_lectora's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-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? Yes

3.25

Content Warnings

nina_rae_131's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

Loveable characters? No

2.0

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

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

Go to review page

I was very disappointed with the lack of character depth. The two main (intended, I assume, since I didn’t finish the book) romances felt shallow and insta-lovey. Not to mention any antagonistic character had a cartoon-like villainy.
I loved the premise of this world, the magic and the animal companion aspect, but ultimately I just wasn’t enjoying it enough to continue.

Content Warnings

thoughtsontomes's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I preferred this authors other series to this and don’t think it will stick in my mind long enough to continue when the next installment comes out.

Content Warnings

brotestantethic's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

4.5

This is a great read. For a fantasy novel, the writing and storyline are really accesible while still being complicated. The magic system is expansive and fascinating. The characters are as lovable as they are diversely different. Love interests play out in an interesting way, with satisfying results. Plot twists are abundant, perhaps too fast and abundant at the very end, but despite myself I found myself gasping at them. This scratched my romantasy itch!

Content Warnings

pointeshoebookworm's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous lighthearted 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

4.0

I absolutely loved this book. The world building was breathtaking. The characters, weren't perfect, but definitely loveable and have plenty of room to grow.

The insta-love, just wasn't doing much for me, on either end. And at times, the writing felt a bit underwhelming, particularly when Yeeran was speaking with Pila.

But ultimately, I truly am excited for the sequel announcement and the following announcement from fairyloot.

Content Warnings

pceldridge's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious fast-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? Yes

2.0

I was sucked in by TikTok reviews and a beautiful cover. The story was almost good, but overall, this book just didn’t succeed. I found the writing to be clunky, and it lacked effective world building. I wish the author had utilised the strategy of building the world through story telling or education. I was also very uncomfortable with the frequent descriptions of animal cruelty and abuse for the elves benefit, including graphic descriptions of organs and literal skinning of animals.

The “romance” aspect of this book also fell flat, with big emotional jumps and a lack of development between the characters. This is absolutely not a groundbreaking adult fantasy book, the love scenes were cringey and forced, and the relationships did not develop naturally in any way. They felt very forced and expected, with no chemistry or magic to be found. Every character was one-dimensional, reactive, and without any good common sense and communication to be found.

I listened to this on audio, which also detracted from the book. Bahni Turpin is a great narrator, but her style did not fit this book at all, and made the main characters seem immature and whiney. If you plan to read this book, I recommend reading it on digital or paper.

Content Warnings

julalbert56's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.5

How how how does this book only have 3.7 on goodreads??? I had a blast, the world, the characters, the romance…. It was so good. The only reason for 4.5 and not 5 stars is that the conflict only really started to escalate at the very end. So I’m very excited for the sequel!

Content Warnings

linnybear's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious 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? Yes

2.0

If someone told me it’s a debut I’d believe them 💀 Completely subjectively speaking, it’s not a well written book, in any possible way. The author definitely fell into a trap of excessive tropification of romantasy and in my opinion it negatively affected the story making it incredibly cliché and predictable. You DO NOT give the reader ‘one bedroom trope’ in chapter 9 while barely establishing any kind of romantic relationship between characters, you DO NOT introduce the new enemy to make the mc swoon over the curves of their body a minute later making the reader go ‘ah so we have enemy to lovers’ (despite said mc apparently still loving her ex partner!). These can be your favorite tropes and I’m not here to judge that but the tropes also exist for a reason and they have their own place and time. This is something that over time made me irritated and yet it doesn’t get better as you progress through the story.

Talking about the storyline, it is so predictable almost from the start and the clues are constantly given away by the author in a form of prophecies. No matter the situation the stakes felt very low making it unengaging and instead we are forced to focus on characters’ internal struggles and romantic affairs, yet… This book has possibly the worst developed (or rather undeveloped) relationships I’ve ever encountered which is somewhat connected to incredibly flat, almost robotic characters. There is no logic in their actions, there is no thought (given their ages and previous positions in the elven society it’s absolutely bizarre), there is no depth, or growth, or complexity. Instead we are left with lots of angst, lust and cringy dialogue. Possibly the biggest red flag in all of this was the normalization of dishonesty, infidelity and abuse making some, if not all, relationships (including those between family members) really toxic as these issues are never properly addressed and resolved.

The only positive aspect of this series so far would be the world building. Don’t get me wrong, it is still severely lacking but I found some of the ideas (like the existence of three races made by three different gods or the fae curse) really interesting and worth expanding. I wish it was enough for me to read the book two once it’s out but I don’t think it’s truly worth my time.

Content Warnings

More...