I picked this book up because of the cover, read it because of its synopses and stayed because I fell in love with the characters and because when something stressful happened they would say “Jesus, fuck…” and I find that ridiculously relatable ( )

A dandy dark fantasy with plenty of supernatural critters, three teens bound together by their efforts to defeat an utterly evil hag and secrets that affect all three. I'll be very interested to see what happens in the sequel. ( )

The Buried and the Bound is a YA fantasy about Aziza, a teenage hedgewitch, and her newfound friend Leo, whose family has been cursed for an unknown reason. When a hag goes after Aziza - and, by extension, Leo - through her conduit, a teen named Tristan, they make unlikely allies and team up to rid the city of Blackthorn from the hag's dark magic.

There is a lot to like about this book. I sometimes feel like characters can get lost in all the goings-on of fantasy fiction, but this story definitely feels like it is character-driven instead of plot-driven. Even so, that doesn't mean that the plot drags - far from it, as there is a lot of ground covered in relatively few pages. Hassan manages to almost perfectly balance these two factors, and the result is a lush story that the reader can really sink their teeth into, regardless of where their interests lie.

I believe this is the first in a series; this first book certainly does set things up well for additional installments, and not all the loose ends are tied up by the end - in a good way! I'll definitely be a reader of the next in the series, and look forward to returning to this world and these characters in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Roaring Brook Press for providing a copy for review. ( )