Review Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

THE DETAILS:
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 336
Release Date: 11/09/2008
I bought it.
Published by Harper Collins
1st book in the series

THE BLURB:

Rule #3: Don′t stare at invisible faeries.

Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in the mortal world, and would blind her if they knew of her Sight.

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 and 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...

Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working any more, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything.

MY THOUGHTS:
Melissa Marr's "Wicked Lovely" is a modern take on the faerie world. Set in the city, These invisible fey roam and interfere in the lives of mere mortals who can't see them. Unlike other fantasy novels the characters don't travel to another world or realm. The magic is all around them, but only some of them can see it.

I really liked Marr's approach to writing about fey. She didn't write about the typical Shirley barber type fey that children are brought up on, but more by Brian Froud style fey. The fey described are definitely more wicked and individualistic. They are beautiful in their strangeness, lovely in their wickedness, Hence the title.

I thought that it was very cool that only Aislinn and her Grams could see the faeries. There are a few times when you wonder if she is insane and I love that in a book. It also made Aislinn special because she could see all these other things that nobody else could. The sight also made the character seem more mental because she was constantly trying to block out what she saw and was constantly agitated by the fey.

I really liked the characters- as foolish as some of them were- because they were honest, made mistakes and doubted themselves like regular human beings did. I liked how Aislinn was a strong character at times, yet also vulnerable. She didn't fall in love with Keenan because of his supernatural presence either, which I loved.

Throughout the whole novel I got this feeling like in "The Pirates of the Caribbean: Worlds End" where Jack Sparrow stabs the heart and William is chosen to become the Captain of the ship. There were all these instances where people had their fate decided for them by other people. Other people with foolish wishes.

I think the cover of the book is beautiful and it definitely encouraged me to buy and read this book. It definitely depicts the "winter's chill" described in the novel. The title was also beautiful and had both a metaphoric and poetic resemblance to the story. It reminded me of Libba Bray's "Great and Terrible Beauty" in this way.

Overall I gave this book 5 Stars. I couldn't find any fault with it and thought it was a very balanced story. I recommend this to anyone who likes YA books that have equal amounts of beautiful and wicked elements within the story. Definitely one for lovers of "The Gemma Doyle Triology".

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