the pacing is slow and there isn't a very immediate sense of tension because the conflict constantly fluctuates. this is the sort of book where you just sit there and collect a lot of information before the revelations in the third act, and i wish the narrative would lean into that slow pace rather than attempt to make things more pressing than they are. by the third act, you do have a bit of a multi revelation showdown vine boom sound effect after vine boom sound effect. personally, i would have liked to be given more information as the narrative continued so we could feel tensions rise throughout the novel. (for girlies who have read it, basically, we needed a rayan pov). instead, they seem artificially constructed, both the tension preceding the revelations and the revelations themselves (to the audience). dramatic irony could have slayed mayhaps.

i also am not a huge fan of the romance. it feels a little sudden for both of the main characters, personally speaking. i'm very picky with my romance though. i also wish we see a larger scope of the world (not really in breadth, but in depth)

while the actual events of the plot seem stagnant, the steady drip of information about the world and magic system is compelling and kept me turning the page. i cannot stress enough how much i wish we got more of it. some of the conflicts resolved at the end of the book are a bit of a letdown and some had me gagged, but truly this is giving "first in a series" so it is more about the setup of future events than the events in this book themselves. which is fine by me.

i do enjoy following the characters. yeeran and lettle are my girls. you can't help but wish for them to succeed, and their courage and ambition are the driving force of the novel by far. i can't say too much without spoiling the book, but them and their immediate relationships are great. they do seem young for their age, but i'm guessing that since elves live to be like 150, then they're actually younger developmentally than a human would be? if that makes sense. i hope it does.

The first 30% of this book was hard for me to get through. It was a decent enough book but it was a little hard to connect to the characters and it was hard to visualize how things were described.

Once that 30% mark hit and the main plot started emerging I devoured the rest of the book.

Over all I have this book 4 stars because it was a good read but the world building and character building took a little too long for my liking.

Bummed because I so badly wanted to love this felt very bored at times and had a hard time connecting to the main characters. Felt heavier on the political fantasy side than romantasy which was not what it was marketed as. I will say I love an animal companion trope and loved Pila so for that reason alone I am increasing my rating by a star lol. I would be more inclined to read the next in the series if we see Rayan’s POV over Lettle’s.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc!

I wanted to love this so much. It was different from a lot of fantasy I’ve read over the past year, and there was great representation in the characters. But I just didn’t connect with any of them. They were near or in their 30s but behaved and read as much younger. The lore was lacking for me, with no clear villain still at 50% through. I found it really hard to get into, Thanks to Net Galley for an ARC copy!

This book was so good. Back to the world of thr fae and I love it. These characters are fantastic. I love the strong female characters. This was fast paced to me and a lot of deaths too.

I really enjoyed this!! It was an immersive story that drew me from the first few pages. The writing was fast paced and I flew through this story in less than 2 days. I can’t wait until the next one! Thank you to Random House for providing an arc of this book. My review is posted on good reads and will remain up indefinitely

When this book started I was loving it! Completely interested and really wanting to see where it went. But after about 10 chapters I found myself just loosing interest. I liked the characters especially pila, however it just wasn’t enough for me. I did dnf at about 50%. However I did purchase the hardback and am going to try again at a later date.

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi is is my favorite book of the year thus far. The intriguing magic system, character development, plot points and lush world building and descriptions blew my mind. Saara El-Arifi is now an auto buy author for me after reading this book and loving it and also loving her back list books. Color me impressed with this brilliant author. Thank you for this own voices fae book. I just purchased a special edition hardcover I loved it so much.

I really enjoyed this book. I struggled at first it felt very slow in the beginning even with the first battle. However as I kept pushing it got much much better. I like the different twists in this story and how the author created the classes and or races in this book. Most books Fae and Elves are the same so to separate the two in to different groups was unique. I did guess who one of the prisoners were right off the bat but that didn’t take away from the storyline at all. It was just a matter of waiting for it to be confirmed. I will definitely be waiting for book two as Yeerans journey continues.. I fully recommend this book!

3.5 ⭐ I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. I definitely enjoyed the story, as I'm a major sucker for authors who create their own mythology.

There were times that the story felt a bit slow. I have a lot of patience for that when the author is doing character scaffolding and world building. But I can see how the slower pace of this book might be bothersome to other readers.

The characters were interesting. When I first started the book I thought I was reading about folks in their early twenties. The overall book reads very YA as opposed to New Adult, so imagine my shock when I found out over halfway through the book that the FMC's younger sister was 28. I had been forgiving of her childish behavior because I assumed she was much younger. That new fact definitely changed my opinion of the character and the book as a whole.

It ends not exactly on a cliffhanger. Things are wrapped up enough that you could read this and be done, but it's definitely left open for a second book. Not sure I'll read books that follow, but this was entertaining.

Thanks to Netgalley and Del Rey for the eARC.

I really enjoyed this. The authors writing style us beautiful and I love the setup for the next books! I found the character relationships to move rather fast, but I also read the book very fast. Overall I will be recommending this book. 3.5/5 stars, rounding up for goodreads.

one of my new favorite fantasy books!! I can’t wait for the next installment. Saara El-Arifi has such a distinct voice and is definitely one I will be reading more from in the future. I loved it!

'Faebound's Afro-Arab inspired and queernormative world of fae and elves is one that was easy to get lost in. The setting Saara El-Arifi crafts here is lush, and it's where the book shines the brightest. Mosima, alight with twinkling crystal and blooming nature, is rich with a lore that was quite intriguing! And I love the obeah. Pila especially was an endearing comic relief that I savored.

However, I found that the characters and the writing just didn't grab and hold my attention in the way that I seek. Lacklustre characters blurred together for lack of distinctive personalities. I didn't feel attached to either of the romance plotlines, and the enemies-to-lovers read more like toxic instalove. Often the character's opinions on things seemed to flip on a dime without believable cause. The stakes weren't ever convincingly raised, and many conflicts felt a bit flimsy.

This was still a welcome addition to my bookshelf though. I look forward to both continuing the series and recommending this to fans of romantasy!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC.

Where to begin with my praise for this book?? The world building!!! ELABORATE AND FABULOUS. I was obsessed with the obeah & the competing origin myths for elves, humans & fae. And the character growth!!! I was so interested in the way each character was forced to re-examine their prejudices and their relationship to violence after living through a lifetime of war. Lettle was my favorite character, always unapologetically herself. Lettle DGAF! And I am also a sucker for a good prophecy.

Also omgggg when I realized the writer of GODKILLER is friends with the writer of FAEBOUND I swooned a little at the perfection of this fantasy writer friend pairing.

Thank you so much to the publisher for letting me read this riveting fantasy novel. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series!

4.5

I really enjoyed this. I felt the world building and magic system was great. I enjoyed the plot and where the story was going as well. What stop this from being a full 5 stars was there were some parts that lagged for me and I felt the relationship between Yeeran and Furi good have been a bit further developed. However, I am super excited to read the rest in this series.

2.5 stars. I wanted to like this, I truly did. Sadly, I couldn't care less about a single character, their relationships, or what happens to them. It wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't interesting to me. I felt like the characters were largely unlikable and the plot was lacking anything to keep my interest. It was just a generic "ok" book for me.

I wanted to love this book, especially after seeing the stunning Fairyloot edition. I really liked several of the characters and the overarching plot. However, the sapphic romance was especially underdeveloped, which I found very disappointing. Also, several major plot points were easily predicted, and I'm not usually good at that sort of thing. I haven't decided if I'll continue in the trilogy.

When I started Faebound, I was a little worried it was going to be too high fantasy for me. They dove straight in with the elves and the fae and the obeahs. I was a smidge intimidated. I got sucked into the story pretty quickly. Two sisters, a colonel in an elven army and a diviner, find themselves trapped among the fae, who the elves believed to be long extinct. The sisters and their elven companions are not welcome among the fae and struggle to find their places.

If you like fantasy, I think you will enjoy this new series. There is some romance in the story, but I think it was pretty subtle. I could see there being more in future books.

The author did an amazing job revealing information in a way that made me feel stupid for not realizing it sooner. There were two big plot points that got me. And I loved it. My biggest complaint is that I have to wait for the next book to be published. I am excited to see where the series goes in the future!

Faebound takes us on quite a journey through an incredibly well developed world where Elves live and humans and Faeries used to reside. The world is incredibly well built through both the story itself and segments of the creation story being told at the begging of each of the sections of the book.

Overall an amazing read! incredibly well written and truly draws you into the world. Lots of twists and turns keep you engaged throughout the book. The descriptions makes everything incredibly vivid and easy to imagine around you.

There were a few moments that left me a bit confused by the authors choices, but those moments were overshadowed by how interesting and thought provoking the rest of the book is.

The world building and folklore is astounding here. I wish there had been less erotica in the book. Fading to black would have worked better for me. It didn’t add to the story at all and there was too much to it.
I didn’t really connect to the characters at all. I think they felt very young even though they were supposed to be older.
Things didn’t get interesting until the MCs entered the Fae lands. But there was so much angst and unhappiness. It just didn’t propel the story for me. However the end was glorious. I did expect a different kind of far and elf story so this will work for others. I guess I hoped for a more traditional fantasy although the magical elements especially the obeah animals were phenomenal.