3.5/5 a very good high fantasy! Had me on my toes and was very interesting. I did get a little lost in the world building/magic system but still enjoyed it

Thank you for the advance copy of Faebound! This is a truly beautiful written book. El-Arifi's world building is brilliant and refreshing within a very saturated Fantasy genre. I truly couldn't put this book down, and cannot wait for more. The characters are compelling and the romance enticing. I would highly, highly recommend!

This book will be great for some people but it didn’t mesh with me. I loved the animal companions, and the romance was cute. The mythological elements were cool and I liked how it was woven in while still being unique. The representation in this book was great. However, the world building was confusing, the plot was predictable, and the pace was off for me. The characters were hard to connect with, they made decisions that didn’t make sense. I would still recommend this book because there’s a lot to love about it, it just wasn’t for me personally. Thank you to Ballantine/Del Rey for providing an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Don't get me wrong, I will be reading this. If you know me - you know at some point I will, I mean come on standalone (I think?) elf sapphics? I think I was just overwhelmed with the length?

I think I may have went into this with too high of expectations--the hype for this book was immense! I cannot pinpoint what exactly I liked or disliked about this book, I just know I was bored most of the time. One thing I definitely enjoyed was the Obeahs and the bond they shared--similar to the bond between rider and dragon in Fourth Wing. If you enjoyed that, you may enjoy this book--especially if you have a higher tollerance before feeling bored of something. Over all a decent book--it just fell flat for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for providing me with an eARC of Faebound in exchange for my honest review!

As a fan of fae fantasy and romantasy, Faebound was fairly compelling for me, but I'm also left wishing it could have had a more creative and fleshed-out execution. I've read a ton of such books, so I'm quite familiar with all the tropes, the worldbuilding, the political games, the love stories, etc. I get to dive into plenty of such material in this book, which manages to create a convincing landscape that's populated by some gripping characters and their dynamics, particularly that which builds up between Yeeran and Furi. However, this narrative restrains itself to a formulaic mold that makes me wish it could have gone down a more innovative route and subverted some fantasy cliches. It's why I don't think this will stand out all that much compared to other fae fantasy books I've picked up.

That being said, I still enjoy Faebound enough to give it three out of five stars, and I'll keep an eye out for more of Saara El-Arifi's work in the future.

I was not sure what to expect after that intro and exile (scavenging bloated rotting corpses? 🤢), but I was quickly intrigued when they met the fae court. The soul bind to the animals is very unique to this book, and I loved the conversations between the pairs. I didn’t really understand all the politics and story telling about the gods, and there was a lot about the world building & relationships that fell short for me. The ending felt a little chaotic and confusing, but overall it was mostly enjoyable.

I received an advance review copy for free via Netgalley (THANK YOU) and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for a digital advanced copy of this e-book in exchange for my honest review.

This review contains Spoilers:

I really liked the world. The world building was 5/5 stars for me! I think the lore and magic system are very interesting. I like the integration of the different magic systems and the prophecy aspect. I love how seamlessly the queer aspects integrated into the story. It didn't feel forced or tokenized. I truly enjoyed the experience of reading a fantasy novel that had representation like that. I also enjoyed reading a Black/African Fantasy book. Being a cis female white reader, I appreciate expanding my consumption to voices and experiences that are not like my own and challenging my assumed cis/whiteness bias.

Unfortunately, I felt like the romance, which I assume was supposed to be slow burn, was lack luster and the climax (pun intended) was underwhelming. The slow burn romance for Yeeran and Furi also had that kind of Stockholm syndrome trope that is problematic to me. And I never really felt or understood why Yeeran and Furi fell in love. The resolution between Lettle and Rayan when they finally admitted to their love of each other felt rushed and anticlimactic as well. The 2nd half of the book just seemed kind of rushed and under-whelming. I also felt like it took me a long time to read this. I am a bit of a mood reader, but this did not draw me in as much as I expected it to.

I do love a good Beast-Non-Beast-Mind-Reading-Bond. Pila is so cute.

Who it's for: Readers who love world building; readers who want to experience Black/African fantasy, readers who want to see more queer representation in their book selection. beginner to intermediate fantasy readers.

Who it's not for: epic/high fantasy readers who want very intricate plot twists; readers who want a LOT of steamy scenes; readers not comfortable with queer characters.

3-3.5 I enjoyed this book! It was a fun read. I did feel like sometimes the characters were overly obtuse or reactive and the story could have been presented a little more delicately. I definitely preferred Yeren's POV over Lettle's, Lettle was a little harder to empathize with but I did see some character growth and am hoping for more in the coming books. Also, for both FMC's I wish it was a little less insta-love with their respective partners, but who knows whats next for them. Overall I enjoyed and would read further books in this series.

i thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. the journey of Yeren and Lettle through love, heartbreak, betrayal, and the realization that everything they knew wasn't 100% true. this book was written beautifully and i loved everything about it!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC I read of Faebound.

This was a very delightful read. I fell in love with the world very quickly and that is what had me so intrigued and continuing to read throughout. I really loved the three different groups of people we had in this book: Elves, Fae, and Humans. Though we only hear about the humans, they sounded interesting too, but I actually really liked that the book only had Elves and Fae as characters. I think I've read too many books about fae were the main character is a weak human and it gets overdone after awhile, so this was a breath of fresh air in that regard. The lore behind the world was interesting and I especially liked all the prophecies since they were like little puzzles I put together as I read. The plot was also interesting to me and the ending has me really excited to see what will happen in the next book.

We have two POV characters in the book and I liked them both, although there were certainly times when they annoyed me a bit. Lettle for example was always so quick to anger over nothing that it got a little frustrating. She also had like no tact. She did however get smarter by the end so that was nice to see. I think her divination was really cool so I really would love to see some more character growth from her in book 2. If so I think I would really end up loving her. Yeeran was less annoying to me and I also found her really interesting, even if I wish she had similar views to her sister sometimes (mostly about war and also her belittle divination was annoying). I do wish the characters were a little smarter though. There were so many little breadcrumbs of foreshadowing that gave away all of the major "twists" and I picked up on them all but it would take the characters so long to figure it out. There is literally a time in the book where Yeeran thinks to herself: "How had she not realized until now?" Like girl, that's what I kept asking myself about you all the entire book. But even with the little annoyances, I overall liked the characters and enjoyed reading from their POVs. This is actually one of the few books where I didn't have a preferred POV character, so that was really nice.

The romance however fell pretty flat for me. It happened really fast (at least the feelings part, not necessarily the "getting together" part) and without any build up. I liked the two couples and wanted them to be together, but I didn't really see why they liked each other because it wasn't shown. So this aspect was disappointing and if it had been done better this definitely would have been a five star read for me.

But while the romance was lacking, this world really just scratched an itch in my brain and I loved it and wanted to keep reading anyway. So ultimately, I am really glad I read this and I am excited for book 2. I also haven't read the author's other series but since that one isn't a romantasy just a fantasy, I'm really excited for it now since that seems to be where the author excels.

I don't think this book is for me. Saara El-Arifi is undoubtedly a talented writer -- some of her sentences will stay with me for a long time -- but besides that and the general premise, I wasn't all that engaged by the story, unfortunately.

I really enjoyed this book. It has such an interesting world with such amazing lore. We learned some of the lore in this one, but there is still so much to learn and I can't wait to find out more. I loved the characters and thought that they were well developed. I do wish the pacing was a bit more even throughout the novel. There were some parts in the beginning that was very slow and that's what kept it from being a full five star read, but overall I really enjoyed

This book took a bit to develop and find its feet for me—the beginning is interesting enough with a good inciting incident. But some pacing issues with the romance in the beginning and the overall conflict was slow. There were many predictable plot lines (e.g. the prophecies, which usually elude me, were pretty obvious to me). But I really like the world this story builds. As with other novels by this author, I’m waiting to see how this unfolds—if this is anything like her other series, it should develop into a more complex narrative and I’m here for it!

Summary: an elven warrior and her sister must navigate through the far court. Twists and turns abound.

First off, lovely cover. It was a decent story. I liked Yeeran as a military soldier. It’s not often you get a strong woman as a main character.
But it wasn’t the new fantasy world I wanted to get lost in. It didn’t flow, I didn’t feel any particular connection to the characters, and parts just seemed thrown in.

This actually lived up to the recent hype I had seen around it! Not that I expected something terrible but this was pleasantly surprising. I really liked the main character Yeeran and her sister Lettle. The author did a fantastic job at world building and character development, it had me absolutely sucked in. I loved learning about the elven tribes and all the background lore. I think this really helped you relate to the characters and while they each had flaws, their personalities certainly made up for it! I really enjoyed this one!

I really wanted to like this book but I had an incredibly hard time getting into it. I kept picking it up and dropping it and eventually DNFed it. I really did like the diversity of the book but I didn’t really like the writing style. I did not find myself liking any of the characters. Reading it just felt very distant and almost clinical. I had a hard time picturing the world and felt like this moved too slow and then too quickly. I also found myself frustrated with the characters and how it seemed like Lettle switched moods so quickly for no reason and she came across as rude to me a lot. I did get frustrated with the Obeah sounding like they were so highly regarded but then also just casually hunted to extinction. I may try to read it again in the future. But for now it’s just not working for me.

I have heard so many good things about this author’s other fantasy series, so I was excited to jump in on the ground floor of this new one, but I was left feeling a little disappointed. It was a very strange experience — I wanted to keep reading to find out more, but when I was reading, I was taken out of the story by clunky writing and lack of characterization. It felt very simplistic, but at the same time, I really enjoyed the story and the beautiful world building. So yeah — torn on what my final thoughts are.

I absolutely adored this book. The characters, the romance, the world building, the magic?? I loved all of it. I really enjoy Saara El-Arifi's writing and will continue to read everything she puts out. This is what fantasy is about to me. Diverse and queer normative worlds with people fighting against oppression. Just everything about it was so wonderful.

I was so excited to read this book and the concept is there, but overall it just fell flat. The world building is extremely interesting. But I also struggled to finish it.