The Binding

The Binding (#830) is Young Adult author Bridget Collins' first fantasy novel for adults.  It will be the last book of hers I read, which is disappointing because the novel started out so well, with an interesting premise and writing so vivid the reader is immediately smack in the middle of the Dickensian world of her imagination.  And yet, for me, that promising ending petered out into just another hackneyed romance.  Yawn.

What if you had a secret you could not bear to live with?  A fatal accident you caused; a love affair that could never be; a child out of wedlock; all could be totally erased from your memory by visiting a book binder.  You tell your unwanted memories to the binder, and when you are through, he or she will construct a volume containing all of your story and your memories along with it.  A reputable binder will lock that volume safely away in a vault to be forgotten forever.  The problem is, not all binders abide by the code to protect their clients' memories, and a flourishing trade in illegal book sales exists for connoisseurs.  Bad things can happen if the volumes are disturbed.  It's no wonder that binders have a terrible reputation, and it is with the greatest of reluctance that Emmett Farmer's parents apprentice him to an ancient binder living in the marshes on her own.

Part I moves along briskly, introducing this mysterious world of book binding and the principal characters.  However, when the back stories begin to be revealed, Emmett is squarely in the middle of things with a ruined romance.  He and the object of his desire (the wealthy scion of a rich and powerful man) are both bound to forget what would bring shame and inconvenience to their families, so they are constantly missing each other in their remembrance phases.  By the time I got to the Part III, I was so disgusted by their cavalier and hurtful treatment of everyone else around them that I thoroughly disliked them both and concluded that Emmett Farmer and Julian Darnay deserved each other.  Too bad the binding didn't work out for both of them for everyone's sake!