What We’re Reading

Wicked Lovely | Melissa Marr

Rating:

Aislinn has had the Sight all her life, and it’s always been something she’s feared. But when the glowing Keenan approaches her, in full glamour, in a place most faeries can’t enter, her fear achieves a whole new level. Overhearing the deathly-looking girl outside tell her to run while she can didn’t do much to help either, since she wasn’t supposed to be able to hear it anyway. When the fey start treading ground on her safe places, following her, showing up at school, at the train yard, leaving her no safe haven, she knows she can’t take it any more. Her Grams, always protective, is going to lock her in the house at the rate things are progressing, but she can’t hide the truth forever either. Still, she’s determined to try it her own way first.

While originally repulsed by Keenan when he first approached her, she was also inexplicably drawn to him, and it’s become clear he isn’t going to go away. Inside school or out, he’s a constant presence, and the effort to ignore him, not to touch him, is becoming too much. Time to change the rules a little. Try it a new way. Try playing friendly and find out what they want. So long as her Sight stays hidden, she can even spy for herself, eavesdropping on invisible faeries who assume they can’t be seen or heard.

Unable to go it alone, Aislinn has confided in Seth. Afraid she’d lose him, that he wouldn’t be able to believe her, she was much relieved when he took the news in stride. Still newly aware of this other world, Seth, her best friend (and more if she were to be honest with herself) is not entirely keen on her plan, but agrees to go along. So long as part of the plan is attempting to get him the Sight as well, so he can better assist.

Unfortunately, as well as Ash’s plan works, or seems to, it also changes everything. While pretending to give Keenan what he wants, she is giving him what he wants. From the moment she was chosen, her mortality began to slip away, and after a night of fey revelry and good, she can no longer pretend she doesn’t see it. How she’s becoming like him.

Desperate to find a way to undo it, Ash turns to Donia, the Winter Girl, hoping for an answer she knows doesn’t exist. And Donia can only confirm her worst fears. She has only two choices. Summer Girl, or Summer Queen. And she’s begun to feel it. She knows she’s her. So how to coexist? How to be what Keenan needs, and not lose everything she loves?

The stakes grow even more dire when the Winter Queen takes Seth captive. When Ash learns that her mother had also been chosen by Keenan, and rather than face the choice, made an even more drastic decision. A decision she knows won’t save her. All she can do is accept who she is, and make the best of it. Do what no girl before has. Meet Keenan half way. Bring her own demands to the table. As a job, Summer Queen seems feasible. Overwhelming, but potentially even fun.

This is a really interesting new twist on the Faery Tale, and I really enjoyed reading it, even with all the heart-wrenching, not knowing what would become of Aislinn and Seth when all was said and done. Highly recommended.

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The Wicked Lovely | Melissa Marr by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 8:27 am by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: faeries, fantasy, magic, secrets, ya fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.