Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
Author : Melissa Marr
Genre : Fantasy
Published Date : June 12th 2007
Publisher : HarperCollins
Pages : 328
Pages : 328
Rating : ✿✿✿✿✿
From Goodreads :
Rule #3: Don't stare at invisible faeries.
Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in the mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty - especially if they learn of her Sight - and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens.
Rule #2: Don't speak to invisible faeries.
Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer.
Rule #1: Don't ever attract their attention.
But it's too late. Keenan is the Summer King, who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost — regardless of her plans or desires.
Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything.
Faery intrigue, mortal love, and the clash of ancient rules and modern expectations swirl together in Melissa Marr's stunning twenty-first-century faery tale.
Get a Copy : [AMAZON] | [BARNES&NOBLE] | [INDIEBOUND] | [THE BOOK DEPOSITORY]
Review
When I first saw this book on my local bookstore, it actually took me three (or maybe four) look before I decided to buy it. Sure the cover was pretty, but at that time, I was still pretty new on reading YA.
And when I saw the blurb and read faery, let's guess what popped to my head? Tinkerbell. And other pretty-ish kind of fairy. I feel like murdering the me back then when I think about it, really. Although this book was not amazingly mind-blowing, I think it was quite decent for a first book, that made me buy the next book almost instantly. Want to know why? Read on!
“You. I've spent my life waiting for you."
—Keenan
Wicked Lovely told us about the not-so-ordinary everyday life of Aislinn, who was gifted with the sight to see the unseen : Faery. When people believed that faery was all beauty, Aislinn knew the truth. That faery was ruthless, powerful, and dangerous. Living her entire live following the Rule, Aislinn managed to keep herself safe and unnoticed by the faery. But when none of her Rule applied any longer, how far would she willing to go to protect what was dear to her?
The plotting and pacing of this book was quite good for me, focusing on some different things which have it's own stake.
The third person PoV also added more wonder to this book, because it made the story flowed well, even when it jumped between Aislinn's problem, Keenan's, and Donia's.
The tension building was great as well. As the story progressed, the problem became more serious, and nearing the end of the book, they all have a dire situation at hand, which made us reader really curious and anxious. It's just like we couldn't flipped the page fast enough.
As for the character, even though some of their personality was not really likable, I love the fact that Melissa Marr gave (almost) each of her main character a critical role to play, and all of them was equally important and complement each other.
Aislinn as our main character, was actually quite interesting. It's lovely to see how much self-control she got, and that she was smart to look calm and composed so that the fey wouldn't suspect her. I was usually (Scratch that. Am always) irritated when I read a girl MC who could do nothing except screaming when she was scared and just waited for help to come. Like, come on, stand up for yourself once in a while, would you? With Aislinn, however, that's not the case at all. As a main character, she was quite strong and dependable enough, and I especially love how she could deal with things her own way.
Then, our other main character, Keenan. Oh my, I could write and ramble about him all day long, just to state how awfully annoying he was. Yeah, that annoying. Oh, and he crossed his own word too, how charming. One second he was like "I wouldn't do something against her will" and the next, he did the things he said he wouldn't. Oh Keenan, didn't you just deserved a punch or maybe two?
I actually didn't get his characteristic at all. When I read the book, it seemed like Marr tried to perceive his character as nice yet would do anything for his kingdom. The concept? I totally get it. But the execution? Now that's a different thing.
Whenever I read about him, I couldn't help but thinking "Jerkjerkjerk" whenever he made an appearance. He played with Donia, he played with Aislinn, he played with everybody. And well, long story short, it was somewhat totally impossible for me to like him, even for a little bit.
Seth, however swoony and nice he might have seemed, for me he was just not strong enough. Sure he was nice, and maybe—according to Aislinn—was decently hot and handsome. Great, awesome. But that's just it. He was standing on the nice and supportive border, and for me, his character failed to present me with any depth. Like he was just there to simply help Aislinn. And yeah, he's just that 'Meh' character and wasn't memorable at all.
Donia, Keenan's true love as well as his obstacle, was the one I found truly interesting. Her character was strong and solid, and she just stood out whenever she made an appearance. I also love to read how her heart and her logic constantly clashed with each other, and made her fully three-dimensional.
One thing I didn't really like from this book was its side character. Although the main character was good, the side character was nothing more than a fleeting image and description, and didn't have any characteristic at all. It was hard portraying them, and for me, was even more harder to believe them.
And, Seth-Aislinn-Keenan triangular romance was just, oh my God. No matter how much I love Aislinn and her characteristic, her indecision really frustrated me. And when the choice was like, so goddamn obvious, I really just want to scream "What are you even considering?". Between the self-proclaimed handsome (and literally glowing) jerk and the 'Meh' man who was always there for you, ha, of course I'll consider being with the jerk and then back to the 'Meh'. Just for the sake of love triangle. Gee.
Overall, this book was quite promising as a first book of the series. It gave us enough information to make us curious and dig for more, yet it didn't spoil all the fun on the first book. If you love reading a faery book, or if you would like to try that certain mythical creature and read something fey-ish for the first time, this book could be a great choice : If you could overlook the annoying Keenan and the annoying triangular romance. Well, just beware.
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3 comments
I enjoyed Wicked Lovely too, and you're right, that cover is gorgeous. I bet you would like Holly Black's Tithe even more than this one. That's what I kept thinking as I was reading your review. It's a bit darker than Wicked Lovely but still YA.
ReplyDeleteI think I also gave this book three stars. The series gets better, in my opinion. I loved the last. I agree about the love triangle, who she ends up with is so obvious yet the author continues to string us along. Great review!
ReplyDeleteAlise @ Readers In Wonderland
The US cover is pretty decent for me but the Indonesian cover looks better IMO. (Such a rare case for me.) The characters sound somewhat annoying and I hate it when authors put a love triangle randomly for the sake of a love triangle. Can they think of another way of making the romance much more interesting and original?
ReplyDeleteI think this one would fall to the "meh" category for me too. Lovely review!! :3
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