Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
Many of the battles in this book take place within the sphere of the mind due to the use of mind magic, where the weapons are emotions, memories and manipulation. There are flash back scenes of violence and blood, including deaths and attempted abduction. There is a scene involving public whipping.

As the synopsis mentions slaves exist in this book, and a human-like species called the kher are oppressed. They treated like animals, and upon death are brutally butchered for their horns which are used in armour and everyday items as protection against magic. If the kher try to stop this from happening they are arrested and beaten. They have to stand by and watch as their relative’s corpse is desecrated by a butcher.

There is also ableism in the book. Mages that use too much mind magic become lacunants, people who have lost their faculties and appear to have symptoms very similar to dementia. The mages do not look after their fallen brethren, they leave them to rot as beggars outside the gates of their castle.

I don’t think I have ever read a book that I enjoyed as much as The Collarbound while having no idea what the world of the book was about. Normally if a book has terrible world-building it’s a huge turn-off for me, and if that’s bad the rest of the book is usually just as bad. However, The Collarbound‘s plot was interesting enough to keep me intrigued, and the characters are absolutely brilliant. But if you asked me to tell you what the world itself was about I could not tell you.

The overall plot of The Collarbound is not anything special. It jumps between being so-so, to being pretty obvious and then quite good in places. The highlight of this book is in its characters and that is where Zahabi shines. Both Tatters and Isha are wonderful to read, and I’ll be looking out for book two because I want to continue their story. I just hope that Zahabi stops being so evasive with her storytelling and starts to give actual answers. One book scattered with hints and discussed theories aimed at gently pointing the reader in a direction is enough for me.

The magic of The Collarbound is another point in its favour. Unlike the usual elemental magic favoured by most fantasy authors, Zahabi has chosen mind magic, and it is a refreshing change of pace. Magical duels take place inside the mind where anyone can become anything they wish, where emotions and memories can be used as weapons. These scenes were wonderful to read and very well fleshed out.

In comparison, everything about the world the characters existed in was very wishy-washy, and it’s a shame because otherwise The Collarbound wouldn’t have been just an interesting novel, it could be a great one. There are these creatures called the lightborn that Tatters describes as a moving ray of light that the Temple worships as gods, yet no context is given as to why they are worshipped or what exactly the lightborns are. The lightborn appear to be very important, to the priests and the mages, yet nothing concrete is ever said about them. Likewise, there is a division between the priests and the mages, with them only coming together for a festival. Again, there is no explanation as to why the two organisations are so divided or when this division happened.

Then there are the kher people, and I’ll be honest, the lack of solid description and background offered about them confuses me the most. The kher are the subjugated people of The Collarbound, they are treated like animals and by that I mean quite literally (they butcher them like animals). They are considered less than human due to their appearance, which appears to be human-like with red skin and large curling horns protruding from the sides of their heads. The humans refer to them as cow people, whether this is due to the colour of their skin and their horns or other cow-like features I do not know because the descriptions are vague.

Zahabi uses the kher to interrogate themes of difference, race and the other in society. The kher have their own customs, and their own language which they rarely share with outsiders, not because they are unwilling to do so but because people don’t want to be associated with them. As the saying goes, people are afraid of what is different and in The Collarbound Zahabi drives the point home by imbuing the kher with a natural power that makes humans afraid of them. They are naturally immune to mind magic. Their horns are used as armour against magic, and there is a very disturbing scene in the book (see content warnings for details) that shows just how far people will go when there is nothing to stop them.

Despite these dark scenes, the kher are a community full of life and family. The scenes of their community were some of my favourite scenes, and unlike the rest of the world-building of The Collarbound, the kher community and related mythology was very well written. Yet there was explanation as to how the kher became to be subjugated by humans. It is very briefly mentioned, in relation to something else, that the kher used to be nomads, and that is the only background we get to the khers. How they came to be a ghetto community, separated from humans is never explained.

The Collarbound ends very abruptly. One moment two characters are having a conversation, I turned the page expecting something to happen and found myself at the end of the book. On GoodReads the synopsis states that The Collarbound has “lyrical, character-driven writing as found in” A Darker Shade of Magic, and I’m sorry to say that is very wishful thinking. While it does have characters as charismatic as V.E Schwab’s series, lyrical is a bit of a stretch and in my opinion the world-building needs a lot of work before it can truly be compared to the Shades of Magic series. What made Schwab’s series, so good was the connection between fantastic characters and mesmerising world-building. The whole concept of a society where the people with magic are the ones in power is something that is beginning to be a little overdone now and without something specific to make it memorable, it just feels like the same old record. Maybe that’s enough for some people; for me, it isn’t.

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DNF

50 pages - did not like the writing style at all - it was very confusing and I did not care about the characters or the story ( )

On the other side of the Shadowpass rebellion is brewing but at the city at the edge of the world the mages are certain of their power and that people will defer to them. Isha is human but her tattoos mark her out as different, resembling the tattoos of the Kher. There are gaps in her memory around these tattoos and the man who brought her to the city isn't telling. The nest is where the mages learn how to use their powers jostling for position and vying for power. One of those who teach is Tatters; he wears the golden collar of a slave but no-one is sure who his master is. He knows a lot, particularly about the rebellion; but he'd like to survive and not be forced into actions he doesn't want.
The Kher is another underclass in the town, bearing horns that curve into their heads and will eventually grow into their skulls and kill them; they are treated badly by many, even though they are largely immune to the mind-powers of the mages. All the trouble is building and Tatters and Isha will be in the middle of it all. ( )