That feeling when you finish a book that has just become your favorite and you will be recommending this to every second person now, is unlike anything else.
Hi everyone! Today I am going to be sharing with you all my thoughts on The Buried and the Bound by Rochelle Hassan, an incredible debut and first book in a trilogy that has all the wholesome vibes, but with high stakes and twisted witches and magical creatures.
Before I get into the review and all that fun stuff, I'd like to give a shout-out to Kai @Reader Voracious and his amazing post "4 Reasons to Read The Buried and the Bound" that immediately convinced me to pick up this story because the way he talks about this book is so convincing and he is just great at writing reviews.
Table of Contents:
Book Info
Author- Rochelle Hasaan
Publisher- Roaring Book Press
Publishing date- January 24, 2023
Genre- YA Fantasy, Contemporary
Content Warnings- blood & injury depiction, death, loss of parents
Rep- Bi MC, Gay MC, first-generation Lebanese American
Synopsis
A contemporary fantasy YA debut from Rochelle Hassan about monsters, magic, and wicked fae, perfect for fans of The Darkest Part of the Forest and The Hazel Wood.
As the only hedgewitch in Blackthorn, Massachusetts—an uncommonly magical place—Aziza El-Amin has bargained with wood nymphs, rescued palm-sized fairies from house cats, and banished flesh-eating shadows from the local park. But when a dark entity awakens in the forest outside of town, eroding the invisible boundary between the human world and fairyland, run-of-the-mill fae mischief turns into outright aggression, and the danger—to herself and others—becomes too great for her to handle alone.
Leo Merritt is no stranger to magical catastrophes. On his sixteenth birthday, a dormant curse kicked in and ripped away all his memories of his true love. A miserable year has passed since then. He's road-tripped up and down the East Coast looking for a way to get his memories back and hit one dead end after another. He doesn't even know his true love's name, but he feels the absence in his life, and it's haunting.
Desperate for answers, he makes a pact with Aziza: he’ll provide much-needed backup on her nightly patrols, and in exchange, she’ll help him break the curse.
When the creature in the woods sets its sights on them, their survival depends on the aid of a mysterious young necromancer they’re not certain they can trust. But they’ll have to work together to eradicate the new threat and take back their hometown... even if it forces them to uncover deeply buried secrets and make devastating sacrifices.
My Review
Alright besties, let's get to talking about this fantastic book.
First of all, let me tell you all that this book was perfect. Flawless I tell you. There is not a single thing that I could complain about- not the characters or the writing or the pacing or the plot. This book was delightful, a little dark and angsty, but overall a really fun read.
It's a great combination of mystery and fantasy. We follow this girl Aziza, who is a hedgewitch living in the small town of Blackthorn with her grandfather. And the special thing about this town is that the forest in this town is right at the boundary between our world and the supernatural/fairytale world of fae and spirits and all kinds of creatures.
Aziza loves her little town and her specific magic skill helps her maintain that boundary and act as a sort of caretaker for the town by sending back any lost creatures that may have wandered to the human world through the boundary and keeping the place safe.
the characters
Aziza is a fierce, stubborn young girl who is brave and passionate about what she loves. She is a little prickly, she puts the grumpy in grumpy x sunshine. She likes to work by herself and doesn't like making friends or working in a team. She is practical, a little mistrustful of people, and isn't afraid of making hard or dangerous decisions. A blend of traits that I never thought could go together. I love her so so much.
It is a multi-perspective story (which I couldn't be happier about), so there are two other main characters, namely Leo and Tristan. The chapters are quite equally divided amongst the three characters.
"When other children were learning to speak to their elders with respect, Aziza was learning the etiquette of human-fae interaction: how to be both polite and firm at once, how to make bargains without leaving a loophole for the crafty ones to exploit, what could be given away and what should never be."
And now to the "sunshine" part of the grump x sunshine (hint: it's not a romance between these two)
Leo is no regular teenage boy going to school. Because his family is cursed by a vengeful faerie. Albeit hilarious on the surface, the curse promised tot to erase all memories of Leo's true love from his memory. We follow him as his paths cross with Aziza and he asks her help in removing this curse from his family so that he can finally find out whose absence he's been grieving all these years.
Leo is also incredible. There's literally no way anybody could dislike him honestly, even if you don't like the book. He's earnest and kind and a little bit reckless and relatable. He's the one who thaws all the frozen walls Aziza has up against letting someone help her, and he makes her smile and makes us sad with all the grief and heartache he has bottled up inside him.
And you know that every friend group needs that dark, brooding guy who's actually a softie inside. That's why we have Tristan, you guys!
Tristan is a bit of a complicated character because at first, we see him involved with this strange dark witch called the Hag and responsible for all the disappearances happening around the town. But he has reasons of his own, and his situation is quite depressing actually. The whole time you're rooting for him and just waiting for that moment when they find out and everything solves itself. The emotional crescendo to where all the build-up and angst has been leading towards. If you've read the book, you know what I mean. The anticipation of that moment is tantalizing.
And granted we don't get that in this book, there is the inevitable promise of getting it the next one.
the writing
Hassan's writing style is beautiful and lyrical and gives the story fairytale-esque vibes. There are long descriptions or info-dumps, and even though we follow Aziza- a character who knows a lot about the world already, Leo's perspective, plus the fact that the way the information is delivered to the reader is very organic manner.
I don't want to talk too much about the plot because I think the synopsis says it well enough, and it is 10/10, flawless in my book. And I think this is one of those books that pays well enough to read the synopsis and be aware of the set-up of the book.
"[A]t the heart of the fair, under a mountain of tinsel and fake pine needles, was a pocket of darkness. When people walked too close, their shadows met the base of the tree and briefly merged with that dark place [...] Shadows were vectors for certain things. Get two shadows to touch, and you had a bridge."
"It might not be tonight. It might not even be tomorrow. But, sooner or later, they would go stumbling into the woods and never return."
If you love necromancers and cottage-core aesthetics, wicked fae, and angsty teenagers in love and found family and magic, The Buried and the Bound is a story made for you. It may sound familiar, but it is a quiet, bold story with great pacing and action.
Kirkus Reviews describes it as "With gorgeous prose and rich worldbuilding, this gripping dark fantasy slowly unfolds its tale of broken hearts, family secrets, and self-empowerment as it follows its three appealing, well-rounded narrators and a variety of interesting secondary characters". And I honestly think that's such an apt description. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Time to chat!
That's it for today, everyone! I really hope you all liked this post and yes pls you all NEED to read The Buried and the Bound. I'll be going on about this for a while.
But until then, find me on all my socials (Instagram- @aamnaiswriting_) and Twitter (@AamnaRehman6) and I'll chat with you all in my next post.
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