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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Super YA, the one potentially spicy scene was mild but mostly fade to black. Neat take on fae with them being fucking terrible creatures. I think the plot could have used some work I didn't like feeling like you didn't have all the information from any of the characters not even at the end. However I did like the Aislinn still ended up with Seth and Keenan and Donia got to be together.
Of all the supernatural, Shifter are my favorite, but a good faerie story can certianly temp me. Like the story this review is going to be short & sweet. Maybe.
The concept was well done, the writing strong. Melissa has given unbreaking characters which I feel in a Fae story is a must.
As mentioned above, sorta I felt this story was fast paced and had the potential to be a bit more indepth and potentially longer. Even though I enjoyed the journey, I absolutely hated the ending.
The concept was well done, the writing strong. Melissa has given unbreaking characters which I feel in a Fae story is a must.
As mentioned above, sorta I felt this story was fast paced and had the potential to be a bit more indepth and potentially longer. Even though I enjoyed the journey, I absolutely hated the ending.
Read over Thanksgiving. Once I "got" the faery story, I was involved, but that took a bit to follow. Great strong female protagonist.
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Some of the only books about the fair folk written by an American author that I can actually read without cringing (I’m looking at you Sarah J Maas). I also love how most of the characters are moody little emos!
I think it's only fair for me to start off this review by saying Wicked Lovely reminded me a lot of Holly Black's Modern Faerie Tales series. Urban YA fantasy with similar Fey lore and 'alternative' type characters. A absolutely loved Tithe when I read it back when I was actually a young adult (shhh...), so I feel like I viewed this book through a different lens than many readers and couldn't help but constantly compare them.
Overall, I enjoyed Wicked Lovely, but it wasn't my favourite Fey book. One of my favourite things about reading fey books is they way they are depicted as darkly beautiful and tantalizingly mysterious. However, viewing things through Aislinn's eyes, I didn't really experience this, as she was so wary and fearful of them. We get a hint of this in Beria, but she's a bit too outright evil for it to read work.
My favourite character was definitely Donia. She had been through so many terrible things, but remained so strong. I really can't imagine watching the man you love flirt with other girls for years and years. It would just be so horrible. Plus she had a sweet wolf sidekick.
Seth was almost the perfect love interest. But there was my problem. He was too perfect! I have trouble feeling a strong connection to characters who strike me as unrealistically perfect. I wanted to love Seth, I really did. But there's nothing fun about flawless.
Overall, Wicked Lovely was a bit marred for me (oh, accidental pun right there!) by my previous experience with Holly Black's similar works, but it was still an enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to continuing the series with Ink Exchange.
Overall, I enjoyed Wicked Lovely, but it wasn't my favourite Fey book. One of my favourite things about reading fey books is they way they are depicted as darkly beautiful and tantalizingly mysterious. However, viewing things through Aislinn's eyes, I didn't really experience this, as she was so wary and fearful of them. We get a hint of this in Beria, but she's a bit too outright evil for it to read work.
My favourite character was definitely Donia. She had been through so many terrible things, but remained so strong. I really can't imagine watching the man you love flirt with other girls for years and years. It would just be so horrible. Plus she had a sweet wolf sidekick.
Seth was almost the perfect love interest. But there was my problem. He was too perfect! I have trouble feeling a strong connection to characters who strike me as unrealistically perfect. I wanted to love Seth, I really did. But there's nothing fun about flawless.
Overall, Wicked Lovely was a bit marred for me (oh, accidental pun right there!) by my previous experience with Holly Black's similar works, but it was still an enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to continuing the series with Ink Exchange.
We might as well start out this wondrous review with me being completely honest…I totally picked up this series because of the covers. I mean come on, look at them…they’re GORGEOUS!
I know my mother taught me to never judge a book by its cover, but I think we can all agree that I could be doing worse things than buying a few books just because they look pretty. I’m a sucker for a cover I can get lost in, especially if the genre it falls into is Fantasy. *Sigh*…if only I lived in book world.
Aislinn has had a tough life growing up, mostly because she can see faerie creatures that nobody else can see. Well everyone besides her grandmother and her deceased mother. But the faeries that Aislinn sees on a daily basis aren’t the faeries that we all grew up visualizing, these faeries are terrible and mischievous creatures that love nothing more than to be cruel to each other and to humans. As Aislinn is forced to watch the faeries torment the unsuspecting humans around her, she also has the burden of pretending like she can’t see them at all. The risk of the faeries finding out that Aislinn has “the sight” is too great, and it can only lead to her death. But soon Aislinns’ efforts to stay hidden from the mythical world she sees starts to crumble when Keenan, the faerie Summer King, takes notice in her. For centuries the faeries have been trapped in cold by the Winter Queen, and Keenan has sought out his Summer Queen high and low in order to keep their world from becoming covered in ice. As Keenan makes himself visible to the humans in order to get to Aislinn, the perfectly careful world that Aislinn had created for herself starts to wither. She finds out that Keenan believes that she is the Summer Queen, but Aislinn wants nothing to do with the faeries. Not only is Aislinn afraid to live amongst the creatures she fought so hard to hide from all her life; but Keenan and Donia (the current Winter girl) explain that if the test does not work on Aislinn and she is not the Summer Queen, then she will be engulfed in frost and become the new Winter girl until the next girl comes along. Now Aislinn must decide if she can fight off the pull towards Keenan and resist the faeries, or if this is the path she is supposed to take.
This first installment in the Wicked Lovely Series really drew me in and got me hooked QUICK! I fall in love quickly with YA/Fantasy stories, but sometimes it can be hard to keep me enthralled since I have read so many of them. The author, Melissa Marr, did just that. Her style of writing for Wicked Lovely was amazing and incredibly descriptive. She completely touched my senses and it felt like she was literally drawing the world in my head with her words, it was fantastic! For some reason there aren’t a lot of Fantasy style books that really hit the nail on the descriptive factor for me, which is surprisingly considering what genre it is. I really felt as if I was walking with Aislinn down the street while these faeries were following her and doing terrible things to people around her. I could sympathize with her and understand her fears for these creatures that she tried so hard to ignore.
I think a great thing about this series is that the author decided to make the faeries mischievous and on the border of plain evil, rather than those happy little creatures we see when we think of them. It gave the idea of faeries a completely different outlook and really stretched the mythical plain for me. The dynamics of the characters are also really interesting and a tad out of the box. Aislinn proves to be a strong character right away because she shows the reader how much she has to go through on a daily basis just to look sane to everyone around her. Keenan, the Summer King, seems like a ruthless character with an egotistical problem. I was pleased to see our female lead push him away so many times and fight him off. What makes this story a bit more interesting is the character of Seth. Seth lives in an iron train car on his own, which proves to be very beneficial to Aislinn as an escape because faeries don’t like iron. Seth is a protective character for Aislinn, and a male in her life that she is attracted to but hasn’t made it known. Obviously the whole “love triangle” think starts to come into play, but the author makes a twist of it once the book is over. Trust me, it’s not a regular love triangle, so don’t let it turn you away from this series if that isn’t your sort of thing.
Donia, the Winter girl, is probably my favorite character in this series so far. Each girl that Keenan finds must take the ultimate test to see if she is truly the Summer Queen, if they are not, then the girl is turned into the Winter girl which entails her feeling the pain of the cold and frost unlike the Winter Queen who can control it. Donia is obviously in love with Keenan but cannot be with him because of the cold that runs through her, and because she is not the Summer Queen. Her character portrays a strong female character that can stand equally next to Keenan, and I like her because she doesn’t back down from him even though her love for him hurts her.
Simply put, I am really loving this series so far. I will say that I started book 2 in the series, Ink Exchange, right after I finished Wicked lovely. I am a couple chapters in, but have kind of put it aside while I read other books. Why? Well because Aislinn isn’t narrating the story now, it’s following another character. Call me negative, but I kind of like to keep my series going with the same character telling it. Hopefully I can throw myself back into the story and enjoy it, but we shall see.
I know my mother taught me to never judge a book by its cover, but I think we can all agree that I could be doing worse things than buying a few books just because they look pretty. I’m a sucker for a cover I can get lost in, especially if the genre it falls into is Fantasy. *Sigh*…if only I lived in book world.
Aislinn has had a tough life growing up, mostly because she can see faerie creatures that nobody else can see. Well everyone besides her grandmother and her deceased mother. But the faeries that Aislinn sees on a daily basis aren’t the faeries that we all grew up visualizing, these faeries are terrible and mischievous creatures that love nothing more than to be cruel to each other and to humans. As Aislinn is forced to watch the faeries torment the unsuspecting humans around her, she also has the burden of pretending like she can’t see them at all. The risk of the faeries finding out that Aislinn has “the sight” is too great, and it can only lead to her death. But soon Aislinns’ efforts to stay hidden from the mythical world she sees starts to crumble when Keenan, the faerie Summer King, takes notice in her. For centuries the faeries have been trapped in cold by the Winter Queen, and Keenan has sought out his Summer Queen high and low in order to keep their world from becoming covered in ice. As Keenan makes himself visible to the humans in order to get to Aislinn, the perfectly careful world that Aislinn had created for herself starts to wither. She finds out that Keenan believes that she is the Summer Queen, but Aislinn wants nothing to do with the faeries. Not only is Aislinn afraid to live amongst the creatures she fought so hard to hide from all her life; but Keenan and Donia (the current Winter girl) explain that if the test does not work on Aislinn and she is not the Summer Queen, then she will be engulfed in frost and become the new Winter girl until the next girl comes along. Now Aislinn must decide if she can fight off the pull towards Keenan and resist the faeries, or if this is the path she is supposed to take.
This first installment in the Wicked Lovely Series really drew me in and got me hooked QUICK! I fall in love quickly with YA/Fantasy stories, but sometimes it can be hard to keep me enthralled since I have read so many of them. The author, Melissa Marr, did just that. Her style of writing for Wicked Lovely was amazing and incredibly descriptive. She completely touched my senses and it felt like she was literally drawing the world in my head with her words, it was fantastic! For some reason there aren’t a lot of Fantasy style books that really hit the nail on the descriptive factor for me, which is surprisingly considering what genre it is. I really felt as if I was walking with Aislinn down the street while these faeries were following her and doing terrible things to people around her. I could sympathize with her and understand her fears for these creatures that she tried so hard to ignore.
I think a great thing about this series is that the author decided to make the faeries mischievous and on the border of plain evil, rather than those happy little creatures we see when we think of them. It gave the idea of faeries a completely different outlook and really stretched the mythical plain for me. The dynamics of the characters are also really interesting and a tad out of the box. Aislinn proves to be a strong character right away because she shows the reader how much she has to go through on a daily basis just to look sane to everyone around her. Keenan, the Summer King, seems like a ruthless character with an egotistical problem. I was pleased to see our female lead push him away so many times and fight him off. What makes this story a bit more interesting is the character of Seth. Seth lives in an iron train car on his own, which proves to be very beneficial to Aislinn as an escape because faeries don’t like iron. Seth is a protective character for Aislinn, and a male in her life that she is attracted to but hasn’t made it known. Obviously the whole “love triangle” think starts to come into play, but the author makes a twist of it once the book is over. Trust me, it’s not a regular love triangle, so don’t let it turn you away from this series if that isn’t your sort of thing.
Donia, the Winter girl, is probably my favorite character in this series so far. Each girl that Keenan finds must take the ultimate test to see if she is truly the Summer Queen, if they are not, then the girl is turned into the Winter girl which entails her feeling the pain of the cold and frost unlike the Winter Queen who can control it. Donia is obviously in love with Keenan but cannot be with him because of the cold that runs through her, and because she is not the Summer Queen. Her character portrays a strong female character that can stand equally next to Keenan, and I like her because she doesn’t back down from him even though her love for him hurts her.
Simply put, I am really loving this series so far. I will say that I started book 2 in the series, Ink Exchange, right after I finished Wicked lovely. I am a couple chapters in, but have kind of put it aside while I read other books. Why? Well because Aislinn isn’t narrating the story now, it’s following another character. Call me negative, but I kind of like to keep my series going with the same character telling it. Hopefully I can throw myself back into the story and enjoy it, but we shall see.
A cute YA. I think I'll give the series to my little sister.
I'm honestly surprised I enjoyed this book so much. I suspected I would (I'm a bit of a sucker for faerie novels), but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I'm not going to lie; the cover is what dragged me in, and then the promise of 'faerie romance', but this book is a lot more than girl-meets-faerie-boy, girl-and-faerie-boy-fall-in-love.
Maybe it's the fact that Aislinn doesn't fall in love with Keenan. Maybe it's the fact that Keenan is really an arrogant jerk. Maybe it's the fact that Seth and Aislinn stay together at the end. Or maybe it's the different Courts, or the fact that faeries are pretty freaking ugly and scary. Or perhaps it's the fact that Donia looks like a corpse. Or maybe it's the fact that Marr writes about oral sex.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the fact that Marr writes about oral sex.
This book is advertised as being for 13+. While I was reading it, I picked up pretty early that although faeries as a whole typically is a genre for pre-teens, the subject matter in the books goes far beyond that. Aislinn and Seth are rough around the edges, and a lot of the book deals with piercings, tattoos, suggested drug use, and ultimately sex. While the first two aren't necessarily adult only, and teens (and quite commonly, unfortunately, pre-teens) know about the latter two, Marr's frank approach about them is ultimately for middle to late teens.
This is more of an adult approach to faerie tales. No, it's not an adult book, but it's definitely in that direction. A better rating would be 15 or 16+. And that's what makes it so enjoyable.
Maybe it's the fact that Aislinn doesn't fall in love with Keenan. Maybe it's the fact that Keenan is really an arrogant jerk. Maybe it's the fact that Seth and Aislinn stay together at the end. Or maybe it's the different Courts, or the fact that faeries are pretty freaking ugly and scary. Or perhaps it's the fact that Donia looks like a corpse. Or maybe it's the fact that Marr writes about oral sex.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the fact that Marr writes about oral sex.
This book is advertised as being for 13+. While I was reading it, I picked up pretty early that although faeries as a whole typically is a genre for pre-teens, the subject matter in the books goes far beyond that. Aislinn and Seth are rough around the edges, and a lot of the book deals with piercings, tattoos, suggested drug use, and ultimately sex. While the first two aren't necessarily adult only, and teens (and quite commonly, unfortunately, pre-teens) know about the latter two, Marr's frank approach about them is ultimately for middle to late teens.
This is more of an adult approach to faerie tales. No, it's not an adult book, but it's definitely in that direction. A better rating would be 15 or 16+. And that's what makes it so enjoyable.
If this is what the fey takeover of teen lit is going to be like, I'll take it. :) Dark, edgy, goth, and a Twilightish love triangle. I love that the girl's the one with powers, although her one true love is a little too-good-to-be-real. But I like that. :)
