ARC Review : Bound to You

★★★☆☆

Thanks to Macmillan US for providing me with this copy of Bound to You, this hadn’t affected my review or rating in any way.

I was looking forward to reading this book, I really hoped it was going to be a five star because it started out very well and the pacing was perfect, but some things just didn’t work for me.

I still think the book was lots of fun, I enjoyed most of it and I’m sure many of you will love Bound to You.

Positive Things

• There was a lot of angst and (sexual) tension in this one, I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of angst and this book gave me a lot of it. And also lots of steamy moments. I’ve actually seen many people wonder if it’s okay to categorize this book as young adult since it has some more mature themes, but I think it’s okaay. It’s high time we stop thinking sex is such a scandalous thing (let’s make it clear : there are no graphic scenes, there are just some make-out sessions).
• The secondary characters were amazing, James’ pack was absolutely great, I liked them a lot, especially Tommy and Lucy. I would have loved to see more of them!
• I actually really liked the writing as it was very flowing and the story had a good pace, I’ve read it quite fast, it was enjoyable, but had a kind of a guilty-pleasure vibe for me.
• I related a lot to James, which was weird because he’s this misunderstood asshole – I usually hate this trope, but in this situation I understood him completely. The whole story is based on a mate-bond – werewolves feel the connection with their mate as soon as they meet them, it’s a magical kind of thing. Well, James was not liking this very much because he wanted to fall in love voluntary, without the magic part that makes him fall in love, and I thought that was pretty normal. I mean, if I were a werewolf and this mate bond thing happened to me, I would still have wanted to get to know my mate very well and fall in love with him on my accord before acting on my feelings that were magically caused.
• But that wasn’t what Megan, our main character, thought for more than a huge part of this book, which brings me to things I didn’t like…

Negative Things

• Megan was so immature, at times. I know it was supposed to be her character flaw because it was pointed out by other characters too, but it was too much sometimes. Whenever James and her had a conflict, she would run away in a very dramatic manner (too!) instead of sorting things out and it was annoying especially since she always complained about how bad James is at communicating.

• BUT I could totally forgive these things because James did some very idiotic things too, I just got very tired of how much Megan considered having a mate an absolute necessity. It was all she ever thought about – how to make James like her, how to stop him from hating her and so on – and when her best friend pointed out that she’s too desperate and should find a hobby, she spends some time with other people, but still can’t stop thinking about James.

• I’m glad that it was acknowledged in the end how superficial her view of the whole mate bond thing was because I always got the feeling that she was only infatuated with James and didn’t have any real feelings for him in the beginning even though she was very clingy and kept pestering James to have sex with her in order complete the mate bond.

All in all, Bound to You was an enjoyable read, I think it would be perfect for paranormal romance fans who prefer stories focused on characters and relationships instead of plot-focused stories.

Have you read Bound to You? What did you think about it?

If you haven’t, do you like books with werewolves/shape-shifters? What are some of your favourites?