Disclaimer: I received this e-arc and finished copy from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: The Buried and The Bound

Author: Rochelle Hassan

Book Series: The Buried and The Bound Book 1

Rating: 4/5

Diversity: Lebanese MC, Gay MC, Bisexual MC, MM Romance

Recommended For...: young adult readers, fantasy, LGBT, witches, paranormal, fae, magic

Publication Date: January 24, 2023

Genre: YA Fantasy

Age Relevance: 15+ (gore, violence, death, parental death, homelessness, animal attack, ejection from household on basis of sexual orientation, necromancy, kidnapping)

Explanation of Above: There is some slight blood gore, violence, and death in the book. There is parental death mentioned. There are mentions of being ejected from a household because of coming out as LGBT and homelessness that results. There is an animal attack scene with a dog. There is some necromancy in this book. There is a kidnapping scene.

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Pages: 384

Synopsis: 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, 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.

Review: For the most part I liked this read! I wouldn’t go so far as to call it cottagecore fantasy, like some people describe it, but it read like a solid fantasy. The world building was great, the character development was well done, and the pacing felt on point. The book incorporates a multi-POV narrative to tell the story of three unrelated people who come together to break the curse on one of the members who is cursed to never remember their true love. The book has multiple action scenes, but is an easy enough fantasy for younger YA readers and beginning fantasy readers. The book also includes signing in it, which I thought was awesome.

The only issue I had with the book is that I feel like this is one of those books you need to read the blurb before you start reading the book. I was completely confused for the first 20-30 minutes of reading this book, but I also had an arc of it on e-book so that might have been my problem instead. Either way, just be weary of the beginning but hang in there, it gets so much better.

Verdict: It was good! Highly recommend!!