The Binding

THE BINDING

Written by Bridget Collins

Published by William Morrow, April 16, 2019

My star rating – 2.5 stars

THE SYNOPSIS:

Imagine you could erase grief.
Imagine you could remove pain.
Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret.
Forever.

Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice among their small community but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

For as long as he can recall, Emmett has been drawn to books, even though they are strictly forbidden. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to hand-craft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, a binder can help. If there’s something you need to erase, they can assist. Within the pages of the books they create, secrets are concealed and the past is locked away. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, rows upon rows of books are meticulously stored.

But while Seredith is an artisan, there are others of their kind, avaricious and amoral tradesman who use their talents for dark ends—and just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: one of the books has his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten. Find it on Goodreads

MY REVIEW:

I wanted SO BADLY to love this book. I actually predicted, based on the synopsis, that it would have been 5 stars! Unfortunately, I think that this was a case of my expectations being larger than the book itself.

I loved the premise of this book! The idea of being able to take your heartache, grief, pain, and secrets, and bind them in a book to be forgotten…. sounds amazing and promising, right? I wanted to know how this was possible. I wanted all the details of how these memories were pulled from a person and put onto the pages. I wanted to know how these “binders” were chosen. I wanted to hear all of the heartbreaking and horrible stories that these people wanted to forget, and how their lives changed afterwards. These were all of the things that I expected and hoped for going into this book…. and it just never happened. That’s a lie I guess. All of these topics were touched upon, but they were never a focus of the book which is what I really wanted from this.

This book wasn’t really about the magic, or about the binding. It was more of a love story and an in depth look at the young apprentices life. That’s not a bad thing! This book wasn’t bad either! It just wasn’t close to what I hoped for or expected. I expected this to be more magical and fantastical, and it just wasn’t.

Enough with the negatives for a minute – let’s get to the positives! The characters were great! There was so much emotion behind all of them. Their lives were difficult and they were all living under this dark umbrella of expectation from their families and society. I really enjoyed reading about their struggles and their feelings, and watching them on their journey of discovery.

Another thing that I absolutely LOVED was the romance! In fact, this was one of my favourite slow burning romances! There were a few moments where I would have actually started clapping in enjoyment if I wasn’t holding the book lol. I called the romance from the beginning, and I really hoped that it would happen later on in the book. I heard another reviewer calling this “a-ha” moment as “queer baiting”, and that’s the perfect description. I hoped that I was right and it was worth the wait!

I really did enjoy her writing. It flowed smoothly, was descriptive without being over flowery, and was really easy to fall into. But in the end, the pace was too slow and just wasn’t what I was expecting. After reading the first 80 pages I just knew that this book wasn’t for me. It all boils down to my expectations going into this book. I KNOW that there are going to be people that will fall head over heels for this! It really is a good story with good characters and a great romance. I just wasn’t the right audience for this one.

Until next time, happy reading!