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.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Del Rey for access to an eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

All that Yeeran has ever wanted was to protect her sister and the rest of her people from their enemies in the other Elven tribes and to one day help win the Forever War. But when her chance to make a real difference comes around and a horrible mistake leads to Yeeran's exile from her home in the Elven Lands and separated from everyone she loves most, including her younger sister Lettle, she knows that she has to find a way to earn forgiveness from her tribe's chief and to reclaim her place among her people. Lettle, however, having foreseen a potentially horrible fate for her sister, chooses to strike out to find Yeeran. And just when they have been reunited, calamity strikes. Yeeran, Lettle, and their by now mutual friend Rayan are taken captive by the Fae who their people have long since thought dead and gone from their world and taken back beneath the ground to the Fae's homeland.

Old prejudices and hatred bubble up to the surface, and soon, the trio are wrapped up in the depths of Fae politics and culture, desperately trying to find a way to escape and return home. But all may not be as it seems...for the Elves or the Fae.

This book was *incredible*. Really, that's the only thing I can think to say about it as a whole, so I'm going to try and break it down a little bit more. The worldbuilding and magic system of Faebound are fascinating and so, so well thought out. The way that Saara El-Arifi even wrote out a creation myth for this beautiful world she'd created was so fun and such an amazing way to set the scene of the story you're starting into at the beginning of the book. The characters are all well written and have a series of flaws to go along with their positive traits that make them seem so much more real than they might have otherwise, and goodness gracious, the *tension* between the different Elven tribes and later the Elves and the Fae was so intense I was genuinely stressed a few times. Also, the *romances*. They were impeccable. I loved every second of love I got to read on the page, and having both a beautifully written enemies-to-lovers sapphic ship and an equally amazing annoyances-to-lovers ship as the 'side' romantic plot offered up a little bit of something for anyone to enjoy. I was frothing at the mouth for both of them, personally, and I am now frothing at the mouth, continuously, as I wait for the second book to come out. Five stars all the way.

I had heard so many great things about El-Arifi’s Ending Fire Trilogy so I had been very much anticipating, Faebound a fantasy with fae lore and creatures. Faebound took me awhile to get into, but it still held my attention and I was so excited to learn about this world and the creatures, and the characters. I can’t wait to see where the characters story leads in the next novel. I definitely recommend this if you want a fantasy with a diverse cast and an engaging plot.

The story was captivating, it had excellent world-building where you could envision what was happening, but it was not overwhelming. I loved the characters.

An elven warrior gets exiled from her military position only to discover a hidden world of fae.

I had a hard time getting into the story, even with the faster pacing. I think the main issue was that I couldn't connect with the sisters, their feelings didn't always come through the writing so the events of the book just didn't have as much of an impact.

Really interesting magic and Fae Lore! I did like the sister bond and how it drove their actions. There were many players in the story and the politics was very interesting. I was shocked a couple times from the book and that was fun! I'm intrigued and would like to know how the story will play out! The underline romance had my eyebrow up! I did enjoy it and I was very surprise how much there was going to be romance moments. A good debut novel into a new series.

The narrator was good for the audiobook but I did not like the voice for the younger sister. It made her a little annoying.

I really enjoyed the world building and magic system that Saara El-Arif created in Faebound.
My favorite part were the magical creatures called obeah and the magesight. Yeeran and Lettle are the main protagonists who are in their late 20s/ early 30s but they do come off as younger and somewhat immature. There were some pacing issues towards the last 25% where things happened really fast. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I look forward to reading more by Saara El-Arifi.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eArc in exchange for an honest review!