Did you enjoy this book?

[Kinsey]

This is a place for discussing our December book, Crimson Bound! Did you love it or hate it? What did you like most about it? What parts of the story do you think the author could've improved on?

Please be aware that this is meant to be a discussion for those who have already finished the book, so there may be spoilers!

[Anna]

TBH I'm already struggling to separate this and Kingdom of Ash and Briars in my mind.
I feel like neither had much of an impact on me and I'm a little tired of that. I want something to blow my mind the way The knife of Never Letting Go did.
Something that makes me NEED to pick the book back up again.

Crimson Bound was in all ways average in my opinion. It had an annoying main female who, yes, could technically hold her own in a fight, but that wasn't really shown in the writing. And though not everyone's strong suit is action scenes, her romance was also awful, as was the world building (where was it again?) and the plot direction.
Her friend was a complete non-event, and I find that exceptionally frustrating.
Why is it so hard for authors to have two capable, useful females in a story?
Even ones that try for strong female leads can only manage one! Yet we have a complete plethora of male choice with hundreds of different "types" for all the love triangles.
Where are all the awesome women!?

I think Crimson Bound might have gotten the brunt of my building frustration at the genre, but I do think it was completely forgettable and gave messages that I completely disagreed with. It set itself up with so much potential to blow my mind and give incredible, pointed statements against societal views and learning to love yourself despite them.
It also had such an opportunity to highlight religious Zealotry. The book had a witch-hunt vibe going and I was really down for that, especially when you see that Rachelle does more good with her ill-gotten power than the normal "non-sinners" ever do, and they still hated her on principle, but in the end, she never got her epiphany and that was the nail in the coffin for me.

[Kinsey]

I think the main problem that I have with Crimson Bound is the knowledge that I'll probably forget having read it in about six months or so...

I thought Rachelle was an interesting and flawed protag, but the novel focused so much on the fire-and-brimstone doomed soul aspect of her condition that the self-flagellation got to be tiring. Granted, she had to murder her Auntie and I think that would negatively affect anyone, but when self-hatred is the main character trait of your protag? It gets to be a bit much.

The love triangle...ugh. Can we all just agree that that trope needs to be killed with fire? Armand was so boring that the insta-love between him and Rachelle made absolutely no sense. I think I honestly would've liked the dude more if he HAD been possessed by the Devourer and Rachelle would've been forced to kill him. Now, I'm not saying Erec is any better, but at least he was memorable. I actually really loved that he was (secretly) Rachelle's forestborn?? I think that's the only plot twist of the book where I actually gasped with delight, although his borderline-abusive behavior made me wish Rachelle *could've* killed him (it's probably a bad sign when you want the female protag to kill her two love interests, isn't it?).

Honestly, the only think I really loved about this book was the Great Forest/forestborn/Devourer storyline. It reminded me of Uprooted! However, the fact that Rachelle "defeats" such a great antagonist by basically crocheting him to death? Was disappointed, to say the least...

[Anna]

Lol, the power of YARN! It was completely ridiculous.

Yeah, this book was so forgettable that your explanation has me like "Oh riiiiight. I forgot about that"
The insta-love was honestly cringe-worthy and I totally agree, Erec was awful, absolutely awful, but I still liked him better than Armand, purely for the fact that he was the only one with any character.

Were you upset that she didn't ever really turn her self-hatred around and feel like she deserved to live?
Or did she?
I kind of zoned out at the end...

[Kinsey]

Anna wrote: "Lol, the power of YARN! It was completely ridiculous.

Yeah, this book was so forgettable that your explanation has me like "Oh riiiiight. I forgot about that"
The insta-love was honestly cringe-wo..."

I honestly have very mixed feelings about the book's ending. On one hand, I kind of like the idea of the Forest still being there just on the edges of Rachelle's vision, but without the poisonous influence of the Devourer. On the other hand, I think that Rachelle's return to humanity and (seemingly) absolution of guilt or responsibility for her actions was kind of a cop out. I felt like it negated the whole "grey morality" theme that ran through the novel. Like, oh it's okay she killed people and was "cursed" because now she's human again and is in love with the half-brother of the new king? It was kind of a doozy to go from over 400 pages of her self-recrimination and then in the last 15 or so pages she's happy...

[Anna]

Yeah, and just because she was human, wouldn't mean she was absolved of all the stuff she did.
Like, her grandma 'forgiving' her is one thing, but she has so much internal hatred to work through, and so many people who already knew what she was and hated her for that, that alone would take her Years of recovery.
I wish her forgiveness would have come from herself really. Like that she would have decided to stop hating herself for something she couldn't really control, or did out of mercy.