Crimson Bound in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Feb 11, 2015 Molly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, borrowed, recommended, 4-stars, horror, new-adult, read-in-2015, read-harder-2015

This was weirdly dense, in terms of mythology, but it doesn't *read* dense, if that makes sense. It reminded me of both The Winner's Curse (and drove me into a reread!) and The Darkest Part of the Forest, which made it occur to me that this is basically a fairy (or faerie) book without actual fairies. I mean, what is the enchanted forest but a fairy land? And what are the forest creatures but fae or folk or whatever you want to call them?

This is a cross between Little Red Riding Hood (although This was weirdly dense, in terms of mythology, but it doesn't *read* dense, if that makes sense. It reminded me of both The Winner's Curse (and drove me into a reread!) and The Darkest Part of the Forest, which made it occur to me that this is basically a fairy (or faerie) book without actual fairies. I mean, what is the enchanted forest but a fairy land? And what are the forest creatures but fae or folk or whatever you want to call them?

This is a cross between Little Red Riding Hood (although an even darker version than the Grimm or Perault stories!) and a lesser known fairy tale called The Girl with no Hands. As Little Red retellings go, it is far, far better than Scarlet! As a teenager, Rachelle was drawn into a friendship with one of the Forestborn, who exist in this weird, almost parallel universe called the Great Forest, which exists alongside our world, and occasionally overlaps it. The forestborn cross into the "real" world to corrupt normal people and turn them into forestborn (or bound?) themselves. Once a forestborn marks you, you have 3 days to either commit a murder (which makes you blood-bound, until the Forest somehow calls you and you're a full forestborn...I'm unclear on the mechanics of that) or go insane and have to be put down yourself. Rachelle, with all the ego of a teenager, imagined herself immune to this sort of corruption, and continued meeting and talking to a forestborn. See, there's this God of the Forest, the Devourer, who was stopped by twins Zisa and Tyr (and their magical bone swords), but who isn't actually dead and will come back to swallow the sun and throw the world into darkness. Which is exactly what the forestborn want. In her zest to find the lost swords, Rachelle believes (again, there is no hubris quite like teenaged hubris) SHE can trick this dude into revealing the secret and stopping the Devourer. Long story short, not so much. She's marked, corrupted, and becomes a blood-bound.

Fast forward a few years and Rachelle is working for the King. She and another blood-bound named Erec are two elites in the King's service. Rachelle is called upon to serve as a bodyguard to Armand, the King's son (I forget now if he's the heir or the spare, or possibly just a favored bastard!). Armand is worshipped as a living saint because he claims to have faced a forestborn, been marked, but avoided corruption. He did , however, lose his hands in the process. Rachelle, understandably, has some pretty strong feelings about this. Armand basically proved that there WAS a way to beat the Forest, assuming his story is true. But as you may have guessed, he and Rachelle form an uneasy alliance and she draws him into her search for the swords.

I really loved this retelling. It was, for me, a more...palatable? version of a fairy story. I'm fine with fantasy and high fantasy and magic, but apparently something in my brain just balks at the concept of literal fairies (or perhaps it's the pretentiousness inherent in spelling it "faeries", which my phone's autocorrect is having a field day with!). Hodge is just so great at world building...there's something lush about this world (and the world in Cruel Beauty). As I said, the mythology is dense, but it didn't read that way. Granted, a lot of the plot points are predictable, (view spoiler) I feel like there's a difference, however, between frustratingly predictable, and predictable but still entertaining. This fell into the latter camp. ...more

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