Book Two: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
reading: 12:15-1:25, 1:55-3:00 (2 hours 15 minutes), 328 pages
writing: 3:10-4:05 pm (55 minutes)
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. HarperTeen, 2007 (978-0-06-121465-3) $16.99
In the world of Faery, Keenan the Summer King has been looking for his Summer Queen for centuries, and the balance of power between Summer King and Winter Queen has become dangerously out of kilter. The last mortal girl to attempt the trial to become Queen, Donia, failed; now she is the Winter Girl, doomed to live frozen and serve as an awful warning until another girl braves the trial for love of Keenan. Keenan's latest choice is high school student Aislinn, and simply by choosing her, he begins the process of turning her from mortal to faery. But there are two important things Keenan doesn't know about Aislinn. She is already in love with someone else, her friend Seth. And she already sees faeries.
Trained by her grandmother since childhood to appear completely unaware of the fey that only they can see, Aislinn knows very well that she has somehow attracted some dangerous attention. And with Seth's help, she begins what seems like an increasingly futile struggle to fight the allure and power of the faeries, and escape what may be her destiny.
The ordinary and the fantastic come together gracefully in this mesmerizing story, with writing that's evocative without being overly lush. Marr skillfully creates the "wicked lovely" alluring differentness of the fey, without making them (most of them) so ammoral that we can't care about them. And the resolution of the story is just stunning, on several levels: without getting into spoilers, it speaks volumes about the power of girls/women to make their own choices even within a framework that seems not to allow choice at all.
There were a few points that bothered me. How on earth can Aislinn, with her background, not know better than to eat or drink faery food? And Seth is perhaps a little too perfect: excitingly pierced and tattooed yet conveniently independently wealthy, an air of danger and bad reputation, but endlessly patient, loving and undertsanding with the right girl--truly the stuff of romantic fantasies. But then, this is a romantic fantasy. And a very, very good one. * (14 & up)
Other blog reviews:
Bookshelves of Doom
writing: 3:10-4:05 pm (55 minutes)
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. HarperTeen, 2007 (978-0-06-121465-3) $16.99
In the world of Faery, Keenan the Summer King has been looking for his Summer Queen for centuries, and the balance of power between Summer King and Winter Queen has become dangerously out of kilter. The last mortal girl to attempt the trial to become Queen, Donia, failed; now she is the Winter Girl, doomed to live frozen and serve as an awful warning until another girl braves the trial for love of Keenan. Keenan's latest choice is high school student Aislinn, and simply by choosing her, he begins the process of turning her from mortal to faery. But there are two important things Keenan doesn't know about Aislinn. She is already in love with someone else, her friend Seth. And she already sees faeries.
Trained by her grandmother since childhood to appear completely unaware of the fey that only they can see, Aislinn knows very well that she has somehow attracted some dangerous attention. And with Seth's help, she begins what seems like an increasingly futile struggle to fight the allure and power of the faeries, and escape what may be her destiny.
The ordinary and the fantastic come together gracefully in this mesmerizing story, with writing that's evocative without being overly lush. Marr skillfully creates the "wicked lovely" alluring differentness of the fey, without making them (most of them) so ammoral that we can't care about them. And the resolution of the story is just stunning, on several levels: without getting into spoilers, it speaks volumes about the power of girls/women to make their own choices even within a framework that seems not to allow choice at all.
There were a few points that bothered me. How on earth can Aislinn, with her background, not know better than to eat or drink faery food? And Seth is perhaps a little too perfect: excitingly pierced and tattooed yet conveniently independently wealthy, an air of danger and bad reputation, but endlessly patient, loving and undertsanding with the right girl--truly the stuff of romantic fantasies. But then, this is a romantic fantasy. And a very, very good one. * (14 & up)
Other blog reviews:
Bookshelves of Doom
Labels: book challenge, reviews, YA fantasy, YA fiction
posted by web at 1:33 PM
2Bligs:
This one flies off the shelf with the teens at our library. We just got its sequel Ink Exchange in, and I'm looking forward to reading it.
I'm not a bit surprised. Hope our library gets the sequel soon.
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