Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge

TL;DR Little Red Riding Hood fighting the impending apocalypse

TBR #1555, added Mar 8 2016

finished 4/6/16

I really liked Cruel Beauty when I read it last May. Surprisingly, I hadn't added Crimson Bound to my TBR until a few weeks before I checked it out. I think that I wasn't as interested after finding out it was another standalone and not related to Cruel Beauty. Which is a little counter-intuitive looking back on it, because I don't like forced sequels. Cruel Beauty stood well on its own.

I feel like I have to admit that I'm still more partial to Cruel Beauty. My impression of it still pretty strong, and Crimson Bound didn't wow me as much.

Crimson Bound is still good though! The retelling aspect was much more subtle (really subtle, honestly, to the point that I forgot about it). It was unique and focused on entirely an entirely new world and cast of characters and I enjoyed learning about it. It stands completely separate from Cruel Beauty and I appreciated that.

(I really like the cover design of both books but I think that they should've been more unique compared to each other. The circular staircase motif suggests to me that the books are related to each other as part of the same series.)

I'm not completely behind how the bloodbound thing was implemented. The concept was cool but I don't think the boundaries / limitations were kept very well. The bloodbound didn't have very many physical limitations to their power (if at all; I don't remember), and the rules that were initially established at the beginning didn't stay until the end.

That said, most of my complaints stem from the last quarter-ish of the book. The speed of the story picked up significantly and it was hard for me to follow what was going on without having to stop and think about it. (This is probably also my fault because of how fast I read and try to process things. I'm impatient.) The bloodbound-related stuff was kept constant up until close to the climax.

I liked all the nuances of the characters' motivations. I think that was what impressed me most about the characters -- each of them had their own reasons and didn't exist simply to further Rachelle's story line. It felt natural in how they interacted instead of coming together to make the plot work.

TL;DR A lot of my feelings stem from unreasonably comparing Crimson Bound to Cruel Beauty and I'll admit that my opinion is biased. I still recommend Crimson Bound nonetheless.