#book com

Cursebound by Saara El-Arifi | Book 3 of 2025

I received an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Del Rey, Random House Worlds, and Inklore for providing me with copy.

While I did enjoy this book, and will be reading the third book when it comes out, I did have a few issues with it. Some of the pacing felt quite off, particularly the intimate scenes. There were three scenes, all relatively mild to me (think mostly fade to black/some on page); but each one felt ill timed. All three came after something big and distressing had happened, or was supposed to happen. I actually found myself trying to read them as quickly as possible so I could get back to the rest of the story. I also wish that it had been a longer book. Faebound was well over 300 pages, and this sat at just under 300 (at least on the eARC). I feel like there could have been a lot more explanation to certain things or things could have just been fleshed out a bit more. All of that being said, I am curious to see where book three takes us. Now, all of that aside, I did enjoy the story!

You begin by following Yeeran back to the Waning Tribe where she hopes to deliver news that will help the fae, elves, and the Forever War. She comes across our new, slightly mysterious, character, Alder, one of the Nomads (wandering elves) who may be who they've been looking for all along. Lettle and Golan end up topside, searching for secrets that may uncover the answers to the curse. Rayan and Furi try to search out the threat that has infiltrated the royal court, as well as a deep betrayal. Mind you, all of this is going on while trying to navigate their own romantic relationships, new places in court, and their relationship with the Lightless.

I personally really enjoy the queer normativity of this world. There's even a character guide in the back providing pronouns and little blurbs about each person.

In my opinion a lot of Indonesian Literature uses proper bahasa, rather than English books which are more laid back. Besides that I also think that some Indonesian Literature is easy to guess. I can easily guess the plot of the book by just reading a couple of pages of the book. I also find that most Indonesian Literatures are about romance, the classic love triangle or the long distance relationship kind. There’s not that many fantasy/dystopian, action type of books.

-Audra Munanto-

There have been a recent trend in Hollywood which is Book to Movie Adaptations. The current trend has been done before, but now directors are doing adaptations on more teenage friendly books such as, Divergent or The 5th Wave. This creates the trend of reading the books before the movies so that people can claim that they are "original fans". In my opinion this is a positive trend and it's something the movie industry indirectly supports and creates. Reading itself, fiction or non fiction is beneficial overall.

-Naura Aries-

Because in books there is two languages that contains lots of categories like history and knowledge books. So in books more english books than bahasa books.