What are books if not compendiums of secrets, truths about the world made physical? Such is the premise of THE BINDING by Bridget Collins, which takes place in a world where books are traumas bound by magic, preserved externally so that bound folks can walk through the world untroubled by unwanted memories of their past.

Young Emmett Farmer wants nothing to do with any of that. His family lives a simple life and sees books as dark magic. But when illness overcomes him, they send him to apprentice at a bindery to try and alleviate his symptoms. He falls into an easy rhythm with the old binder, Seredith, despite prevailing superstitions that she might be a witch. Presently, he encounters a young man called Lucian Darnay and his family, and something about his life twists sideways.

"I couldn't help but fall for Collins' well-written unreliable narrators, her eloquent magical prose, and the tender, fierce love story at the core of this novel."

If the premise sounds like it can get a little heavy-handed, I thought it did at times --- books as bound memories, spirited away from their owners. I understand Collins is addressing the undeniable truth that books are almost always, in some way, shape or form, precisely and unequivocally that, but the conceit feels part Harry Potter pensieve, part Dorian Gray. Especially when they begin talking of "copies," "fake books," known as...novels. The innovative form of the novel's parts is utterly necessary for the plot, but it also grated, because I tend to find that memory loss as a driver for plot (the reader knows something crucial that the narrator does not) can't work for very long without becoming frustrating, and I found that true in this story, forcing myself not to skim pages as I waited for characters to learn what I already knew so the plot could progress. Also, the concept of binding allowed for sexual violence and a form of conversion therapy, both of which read as sickeningly gratuitous and irritatingly predictable.

I know that all of this irked me because at its heart, THE BINDING is an elegant, lush, slow-burn romance --- and that's what I wanted from it! The romance is the driving force of the entire narrative, and it's both sensual and beautifully evoked. I didn't like that it had to be "forbidden." It's a fantasy world with magical memory loss, but everyone is just as homophobic as they are in the real world? Sigh. And I didn't love getting caught up in the morally messy intricacies of how men would use memory manipulation to repeatedly brutalize women while I was trying to watch this absolutely gorgeous love story unfold.

There are certainly other readers who may enjoy the premise and form more than I did. And ultimately, despite my discomfort at these elements, I couldn't help but fall for Collins' well-written unreliable narrators, her eloquent magical prose, and the tender, fierce love story at the core of this novel.