Review | Bound by Kira Saito

Title: Bound by Kira Saito
Series: Arelia LaRue #1
Genre: YA - Paranormal/Fantasy
Publication: November 1st 2011 by Smashwords
Format: e-Book
Source: Bewitching Book Tours
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: Sixteen year old Arelia LaRue lives in New Orleans where the music is loud, voodoo queens inhabit every street corner, and the ghosts are alive and well. Despite her surroundings, all she wants is to help her Grand-mere Bea pay the rent and save up for college.

When her best friend Sabrina convinces her to take a well-paying summer job at the infamous Darkwood plantation, owned by the wealthy LaPlante family, Arelia agrees.

However, at Darkwood strange things start to happen, and gorgeous Lucus LaPlante insists that he needs her help. Soon, the powers that Arelia has been denying all her life, come out to play and she discovers mysteries about herself that she could have never imagined.

Thoughts: I am sad to say that I was left disappointed after finishing Bound and really expected more from this book. What piqued my interest was the summary, which I thought would be fascinating to read about because it promised voodoo queens, paranormal aspects, and romance. The cover also grabbed my attention because of the colors and the mysterious look it has.

The biggest problem I had were the characters because wasn't able to connected with any of them. They had little to no depth, the dialogue between them was forced, and the relationships didn't seem concrete. Arelia had been hearing spirits her whole life and even responded to them sometimes, yet she refused to believe she had any sort of powers, which made no sense, but I was willing to let pass. Her relationship with Sabrina is ridiculous though, not only because Sabrina is such a hate-able character (she's a snob, mean, selfish, and conceited) that I could not stand, but also because their relationship wasn't built from anything.

I was expecting some romance too, and while there were a few sort of intense scenes between Arelia and Lucas, nothing really happened between them that made it interesting. Lucas is a gentleman and all, but didn't have anything going for him except some good looks. The only reason it seemed like Arelia was interested in him was because Sabrina gave him so much attention. The other characters in the book, although included quite a bit, didn't really capture my attention either even though Arelia spent some time with a few of them.

Not much really happens throughout the book, other than a few mysterious things here and there. Arelia is still new to the whole voodoo thing and when the story finally start to pick up, it is towards the end which abruptly finishes off the book. I know the author intentionally left us off on a cliffhanger, but I felt that a lot more could have been added to the story and I felt cheated in the end.

While Bound was not terrible, I felt it could have used a considerable amount more of editing. I probably won't continue the series after all because of the lack of connection with the characters. I wish I would've liked it enough to want to know what happens next, but unfortunately, Bound was barely an okay read for me.