Book Review: ‘Faebound’ by Saara El-Arifi

Faebound is the first book in the high fantasy series of the same name by Saara El-Arifi.

In this world humans and fae are extinct – leaving only the elves. Split into four tribes, the elves have been warring for centuries. The story follows Yeeran, a colonel in the army of the Waning tribe. After a mission goes terribly wrong, she is sent into exile. Her sister Lettle, a seer, and Rayan, her second-in-command, voluntarily join her. Yeeran is determined to find a way to reverse her exile. However trio discover that, as the book title suggests, the fae are not as dead as everyone thought.

I’d heard a lot of good things about Faebound but unfortunately this may have been an instance of my expectations being set too high as I ended up having mixed feelings about the book.

The story starts slowly. In a 372 page book, it took 100 pages to get past the part of the plot outlined in the blurb. Thankfully once the three protagonists reach the fae lands the story’s pace noticeably speeds up. I definitely enjoyed the latter two-thirds of the novel over its opening.

A strong positive for Faebound is it characters. Despite my issues with the novel I nevertheless cared about the characters throughout – especially the main trio. The various relationships within the novel (whether family, friendship or romantic) all felt very believable. Taking Yeeran, Lettle, and Rayan as an example: each character had moments of positivity, periods where they struggled and lost hope, and times where they were determined to change their fortunes. Equally the trio had chapters when they supported each other and sections where they became frustrated and argued with each other. This range of emotions led to a book populated with well-rounded characters.

My main problem with the book was that it featured a lot of obvious plot twists. To be fair, there was a couple of unexpected moments but the majority of the mysteries felt very straightforward. For example, I was able to work out both the meaning of Lettle’s prophecies and the secret identity of one of the supporting characters as soon as they were introduced. Because I was able to work out a lot of the big plot moments in advance, it meant that the dramatic reveals sadly felt disappointing rather than exciting.

On balance, Faebound is a good book overall. It has believable characters and strong world building – with the history and backstory of this world being my favourite element of the novel. However, for me, the book was unfortunately let down by its easy to guess plot twists which meant the story didn’t hold many surprises for me.

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