A review by rinku
The Gifts That Bind Us by Caroline O'Donoghue

dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

The beginning of The Gifts That Bind Us was so great that I was ready to give it five stars but sadly, the focus of the main plot shifts later to the aspects that didn’t interest me so much and it becomes a bit too irritating for my taste. 

Lily is now back, and all our characters got some kind of magical power: Maeve can now read minds and emotions of other people, Fiona has healing powers, Roe can open doors, and Lily is able to control electricity. Weird things start to happen, and the friends have to find out what causes them before it’s too late. If I’m being honest, I was more invested in the coming-of-age-elements of the story since it’s the last year of school and Maeve is not totally sure what she wants to do after school and struggles with dealing with all the changes happening around her. 

What I still love about this novel is how fantasy elements get combined with social justice issues, like queer rights or classism, though I wish the Children and their influence on the town would’ve been thematized more. I’ve said it before, but this plot point still really reminds me of the Engelsfors series. This is probably coincidental but when comparing the two series, Engelsfors is just better in showing how a cult can slowly take over a whole town and manipulate it. Another similarity of both novels is that
the school is some kind of magically important place
. 

Towards the ending though, the story just got a bit weird, and I didn’t fully understand what was happening at the end. It was so obvious from the beginning that
Heather was evil. The story gets quite creepy towards the end which I liked but it’s so weird how Maeve suddenly owns the school
? 

What I appreciate about the characters is that they are a realistic portrayal of teenagers and that there’s a big focus on the friendship between them. At first, there’s jealously between them since Lily is back and mixes everything up between Maeve and Fiona. This creates a kind of tense dynamic between them. In the course of the story,
we see how Lily and Maeve get closer to each other again which was great
. What I appreciate about Maeve is that her feelings are quite relatable and that she messes up because she isn’t hundred percent a good person. Aaron is still an interesting character but I’m not sure what I should think about
his redemption arc. He was a great villain before, and I don’t know about the new villains
. I furthermore have to admit that I totally forgot that Lily and Roe are siblings since we barely see them interact as such. 

Besides some of the critique I had about The Gifts That Bind Us, I’m still curious how the story will end and if I will be happy about the ending. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings