Book #133 of 2019:
The Binding by Bridget Collins
There’s a decent gay love story somewhere in here, but overall this is a real mess of a novel. The entire arc of the first third is just an ignorant protagonist gradually becoming more informed about the magic of the setting, which is frustrating since it can be summarized in a single sentence: people’s memories can be removed and put into books. Nothing else of much importance happens, and this section ends with the long-telegraphed reveal that he himself has been bound in this way.
There follows the missing history, a slow-to-build pastoral romance that mostly consists of our farmboy hero feeling angry and confused and resentful until he finally recognizes that he’s attracted to his wealthy neighbor. (As with the book-binding, this is a matter that is clear to readers well before it dawns on the character.) Once the two lovers are open with each other they have a few sweet moments before the mind wipe, and when we return to the present it’s to switch perspectives and follow the other boy to see what happens next. But this last part of the narrative only continues the stumbling and fumbling plot, never really giving us any significant developments at all.
It’s a disappointing read, accentuated by poor fantasy worldbuilding. I think the work is supposed to be set in something like 19th-century England, but author Bridget Collins provides little detail about how this reality differs from our own, even though the strict association of books with witchcraft should presumably have impacted the timeline. The quality of the writing and the general concept both show clear potential, but other than some nice individual passages, I haven’t gotten a lot out of the experience.
[Content warning for homophobia, rape, child abuse, violence to animals, and suicide.]
★★☆☆☆
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