Thursday, December 27, 2012

Book Review: Wicked Lovely (Steph)

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr 


1 out of 5 thumbs up

I think that the name of this book should have been Wicked Confusing. I generally like things that I read, even if they are a little corny, or there’s parts I don’t really care for.  This book, however, even I have to admit was a stinker.

The book is about a teenage girl who we know very little about due to the author’s devastatingly  poor character development.  This girl, Aislinn (Ash for short- maybe I have no idea how to pronounce Aislinn, but “Ash” wouldn’t have been my first guess as a nickname), can see things that most other humans can’t, faeries (eye roll).  She doesn’t tell anyone about her “sight” because if the faeries find out, it’s bad for her, for some reason.  I guess they’ll kill her or something; it never really says. Aislinn is pursued by the faerie Summer King, Keenan, who has been looking for his queen for 900 year or something like that. Again, it’s not real clear. If she agrees to try to become Summer Queen and rule with the Keenan, they will restore balance to the mortal and faerie world, because apparently the world has been sort of stuck in Winter (because of the evil Winter queen, Keenan’s  mother), but you would never know that unless you could read the mind of the author. She definitely doesn’t elaborate much about the state of the world Aislinn lives in to begin with.

Saving the world from perpetual winter would probably be an obvious choice, but Aislinn has a “friend”, Seth, who she’s hung up on, though I have no idea why. Seth is probably the character that I understand the least.  He’s a goth or something like that, I guess, but he paints his nails black and has “tats” (shudder) and piercings all over.  He seems like he’s older than Aislinn, but I have no idea how old, nor what he does for a living, but apparently has some money.  He lives in a set of train cars (which he purchased, apparently, so I guess he’s not a bum) which have people in them all the time, so I’m guessing he’s popular and likes to party. (?)  He seems like a nice enough guy, but not exactly my cup of tea.  So basically the entire book is Aislinn trying to decide what to do.  It’s rather frustrating to read.

Besides the poor character development, which didn’t give me any reason to root for or care about anyone in this book, the story is riddled with plot-holes and a lot of instances where, I felt, the author didn’t feel like writing something and wanted you to read her mind instead.  I remember reading along and felt like I had missed something.  So I’d back-track a little bit to see if I had missed anything, but, there was nothing there to miss.  Also, she would mention a name, or a place, with absolutely no explanation.  As if the reader should already know what she’s talking about, but there’s no other mention of this person or place ANYWHERE.  It’s just really confusing throughout. That and the teenage whining is especially bad.  I know, I know.  It’s a youth fiction book, so there’s bound to be a little moodiness, but this is just ridiculous.

All in all, I’m not sure how this book got published, much less made it on the NY Times Best Seller list. (Yeah, I was just as shocked as you). Don’t waste your time. Seriously. Don’t.

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