Binding is the ancient art of locking away ones memories be it by asking for it to be so or if someone else wants you to forget. But what happens when Emmet, a young farmers hand receives a letter to say he is to become a Binders apprentice? He meets someone who maybe at one point in time knew him better than he knows himself. Emmet one day discovers a book with his name on it and wanting to know why it is there, decided he must find out why. If you destroy a book with someone’s memories in them then the person regains their lost thoughts. This book is an unconventional love story with a twist I didn’t see coming! The characters are well thought out and the world that is described is a lush realistic one. I finished this book in 2 days. Need I say more?believe the hype of this gorgeous book. It’s a keeper. And on a side not the book itself is beautifully crafted!

I hadn't heard of this book until a colleague of mine was talking about it, and she brought me the ARC done for me to have a look. Even the copy she gave me was a beautiful and eye-catching design, but the moment I read the premise of course I was intrigued. I read some of it at work, brought it home and inhaled the thing in two days because I loved it so much. The binding world itself is something I had never encountered before. Basically, book binding in this world is erasing peoples' memories. If you want to forget something, just go to a book binder and you can forget everything, and that memory will be bound into a physical book, which are kept and stored away. However, some are sold off to be read by others who enjoy reading sordid secrets, some are kept and collected like little sordid relics for the corrupted. So of course, book binders are seen with fear and contempt. I have never come across a premise like this and it's incredibly fascinating. Not only that, but the characters, and the story, heck even the love story and I am not the biggest fan of love stories, had me invested from the beginning, so that when I had to finish the last page I was at a loss, but also satisfied in a way only a good book can do. Does that mean it's perfect? Well... every book has it's weak points. I did find that the first part was a little slow, but it had a lot of exposition to get through while trying to deliver it in an entertaining way, so I wasn't too turned off. If you're struggling, but don't want to give up, the next two parts do improve. I also never got a good sense of the setting. I had a Victorian kind of feeling from it, but I wasn't sure if it's in our world, or an alternative Victorian setting. I'm not sure. One thing that surprised me was that I had no idea this was about a LGBT romance. Not that I'm against it, but there was no mention of it in the synopsis or in any of the buzz surrounding this, so when things started to develop, I did raise an eyebrow, because I wasn't expecting it. Did it bother me? Nope, because I really enjoyed reading their romance, their little interactions that had me rooting for them. I even had to go back to the beginning so I could read their first meeting with a new set of eyes and getting choked up. So I don't know if they wanted the 'reveal' to be a huge plot twist, or something to catch out the reader, but I feel like people will take notice of the book more if they mentioned it, because if a colleague of mine hadn't recommended it to me I would've glanced over it and not take much notice, which would be a mistake because this is a very good book. LGBT rep is important in fiction and there's so little of it, I think people would be missing out on it. Does that mean a fantasy book should only market itself as LGBT to gain notice? No, of course not. A good book is a good book and this is one of them, but people want to read characters that they can identify with. If the book wanted to make it a big plot twist or reveal, than I kind of get why it was left out of the synopsis, but then again why does one's sexuality have to be treated as such? Maybe I'm being too nitpicky, and I'm the only one who cares about this, but I would hate for anyone to miss out on this story because they thought it was just another generic YA fantasy book. Speaking of YA, I wouldn't recommend this to the younger YA audience. There are definitely some adult themes to this that wouldn't be appropriate. There are are some trigger warning here: mentioned rapes, sex, discussions of infanticide and incest, and attempted suicide. It also deals with the forced bindings of multiple girls to forget their rape trauma which was difficult to stomach at time. So overall, I highly recommend this book. It's a new idea woven with fantastic writing and well defined characters, one that will stick with you even after you read the last word.

One after in my favorite watestones the manageress made a recommendation of this book, and I loved it, finished it in 2 days, twists and turns couldn't put it down.

I was in a reading funk, before this book. And actually, I'm in a reading funk after it now too, because nothing else has yet been quite as good. It never quite goes where you expect it to, and is all the better for being unpredictable without it ever seeming forced. Collins' writing is lyrical and the world she has built is my favourite kind - almost familiar, but not quite. A brilliant novel. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of reading it.

The binding is an amazing book. I kept getting lost in it, from the beginning to the end I found it really difficult to put down. When I finally got to the end I found myself wanting to read it all over again, which is a feeling I rarely ever get from a book.