I was entertained, but... Cursebound is one of those books that has a lot of plot points, and yet simultaneously feels like nothing really happens. Any event that should have been more suspenseful - characters being poisoned, kidnapped, held prisoner - felt kind of blasé to me. I did really like the extra world-building, and the inclusion of Alder's character lore. Though, his mysterious backstory was incredibly obvious to me. This book sets up the third, and final, book well, but it fell to the classic curse of the second book. It tries too hard to set things up that it forgets to be its own book.