Reviews with content warning for Rape - Binding 13 - Alternative Cover

i have no words.
this is a 727399273 star for me.

shannon has been bullied all her life and grew up in an abusive household, with a violent, alcoholic father and a forgiving mother, the only person she is close with is her older brother joey. shannon’s mam decides to pull her out of school in the middle of third year and enrol her in a private school, putting the family into further debt.

shannon has 2 friends in her new school- Claire and Lizzie - who went to primary school with her.
on her first day she is hit on her head by a rugby ball resulting in her having a concussion. the culprit? irelands future rugby star, Johnny Kavanagh.
Johnny takes care of Shannon after her concussion and keeps an eye out for her in school.

even though they’ve only briefly met, they can’t get each other out of their heads.
johnny vows to protect shannon, but he can’t when her injuries show up daily and she won’t tell him who is giving her them.
shannon vows to protect johnny, but she can’t when he’s just had surgery that he’s still in pain from after it healed badly and he continues playing rugby regardless.

they end up seeing each other constantly. whether it’s shannon missing her bus and johnny driving her home, or shannon’s brother joey heading over to Johnny's house to drop off his phone.

they get very close very fast and have such good chemistry.

this book is just sos so sos so so good, and i just want all the characters to be happy and have some peace.

the found family is so good and i love the friendships between the characters so much.
found family:
shannon lynch
johnny kavanagh
gerard gibsie (likes claire)
claire
hughie (claire’s brother)
lizzie
pierce (lizzies boyfriend)

at the end johnny has a match in dublin and ends up passing out because of pain, he is brought to the hospital for emergency surgery. shannon sneaks out of the b&b where the school is staying with gibsie to visit johnny in hospital. when he is high on morphine he tells her he loves her and she admits her dad is hurting her.

when she gets home her dad beats her badly and it ends on a cliffhanger of joey forcing their mother to choose - her husband or her kids.

Content Warnings

calhox's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

If you aren't sobbing by the end, you're heartless.

Content Warnings

mimimac's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Binding 13 is completely outside of my usual comfort zone, I’d heard a lot about it on booktok/bookstagram but hadn’t gotten round to reading it yet, usually if I’m picking up a romance I go for a rom com vibe rather than this, but I ended up absolutely devouring this book!

I think it was the combo of nostalgia & addicting writing that did it for me really. Even though I did not grow up in Ireland or under the same circumstances as Shannon, there are universal teen girl experiences that this book really taps into & you can absolutely relate to.

The writing just flowed well despite that & the plot being fairly repetitive at times, I flew through the book basically without stopping.

With the end finishing on a massive cliffhanger I have obviously already picked up the sequel & I am just as obsessed with that!

Thank you to Little Brown Book Group/Piatkus and Netgalley for the opportunity to review this ARC.

Content Warnings

mck_katie's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

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chadreadsrom's review against another edition

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dark funny hopeful inspiring tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

emilyreads15's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

4.5⭐️ ~ My brain truly can’t comprehend what I just read. Like omg this story was crazy but I loved it so much. Gibsie is hands down my fav character but everyone is a close second. I was literally at the edge of my seat this entire time which is probably the only way I was able to get through the craziness of this 600 page book.

Let me just say that this is the slowest slowburn of all slowburns to ever exist. It took all my patience and I found myself yelling at the book a lot. Anyways what a cliffhanger. I need book 2 asap.

Giving this a 4.5 just bc it was such a long book for the very little amount of actual relationship time they had. But who cares because I loved it anyways and is a new sports romance fav of mine.

Now I need to decide if I want to but the kindle version of book 2 so I can have it now or get the physical copy that I really want even though it won’t come until Sunday.

If you have a high patience tolerance then read this book asap. Thank you so much to my bestie, Lex for recommending this to me.

Also please check TW before reading this book 🫶🏻

Content Warnings

rosereadsalot's review against another edition

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5.0

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