Review (SS5): Lament by Maggie Stiefvater

Tags: YA, fantasy, faeries, love, deception, music

Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary

Deirdre Monaghan is just your average super-talented harpist. Then a boy walks out of her dreams and straight into her life. Deirdre knows that the attractive and slightly dangerous Luke Dillon is no human, but she is hardly prepared for what he is: the faerie queen’s soulless assassin, a human who rejected her and is now forced to kill all she believes is a threat to her.

Luke was sent to kill Deirdre, but neither of them anticipated falling in love with each other. Now, Luke is risking his life to save hers, but Deirdre is not going to let the evil faerie queen walk all over her and destroy her and her family, friends, and loves. Maybe Deirdre is more of a threat to the queen than she herself thought…

Review

Maggie Stiefvater is going to be the rising voice of YA faerie fiction, I can tell. She writes brilliantly, the story is intricate yet satisfying, and, most of all, her characters are the kind you’ll want to fall in love with or be.

We are thrown right into the story from the very beginning, which is confusing for about the first half of the book, as we do not know Luke’s unspeakable history or his connection to Deirdre and the amount of danger she is in. Fortunately, Maggie Stiefvater’s writing totally makes up for that: Deirdre’s narrative tone can be described as “irreverent:” she’s a witty and self-deprecating observer who still manages to pull kick-butt abilities out of thin air as if she’d been born to do it all along.

The characters are truly what make this book. Deirdre is your ideal female protagonist, and Luke her heartbreakingly dazzling male counterpart. Even secondary characters—such as James, Deirdre’s wisecracking best friend, and Una, a bold faerie—take on full shape and importance. It didn’t matter how confusing the beginning was, because once I really got into the book, it was impossible to put down, that’s how deep my connection to the characters was.

LAMENT leaves off on a bittersweet note, and I can’t tell you how eager I am for the release of BALLAD, a companion book. If I could devour Maggie’s writing as food all day, I would. Instead, I will be content to reread LAMENT over and over again, desperately waiting for what she has to show us next.

Similar Authors

Holly Black

Melissa Marr

Writing: 4/5

Characters: 4/5

Plot: 4/5

Want more? Do you even have to ask? Yes!

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Cover discussion: 3.5 out of 5 - I love this so much more than its original cover, particularly the falling green clovers on the black background.

Flux / Oct. 2008

Review (SS2): Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Tags: middle grade, YA, fantasy, faeries, trolls, love triangle

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Summary

15-year-old Laurel has just entered public school for the first time after always being homeschooled. Besides for normal teenage issues such as trying to make friends and getting close to a boy named David, Laurel also has to worry about a mysterious growth on her back, which suddenly blossoms into an actual flower!

With the help of a familiar-looking fairy named Tamani, Laurel learns that she is, in fact, a fairy with the very important job of protecting her adoptive family’s land from possession by the trolls. The trouble is, her parents seem intent on selling the land, and even more so when tragedy strikes. Now, Laurel must face this set of seemingly unbelievable facts about herself and the world in order to protect the ones she loves, as well as the ones she may love.

Review

What a disappointment. WINGS garners attention as being similar to Twilight, but let’s just say that the over-hyped vampire series is still a lot more interesting than anything this book has to offer.

Where do I even begin? The characters lack personality or appeal. Laurel has not a stitch of mental or physical strength on her. Her choice of actions have no validity or sense. The love triangle between Laurel, David, and Tamani is extremely contrived: I sensed no attraction at all between any of the three, no real reason why the boys would like Laurel the bland “heroine,” and no appeal in the caricatures of the boys, David the goody-two-shoes good friend, and Tamani the “dangerously attractive and mysterious” fairy (adjectives placed in quotes because, uh, he’s not. At all). If you’re trying to copy off the popularity of the Twilight love triangle, at least develop the males well enough that readers are encouraged to take sides. There will be no Team David or Team Tamani here: there will be a Team Run-Away-As-Fast-As-You-Can!

The concept of fairies being similar to plants was fairly interesting; my favorite parts of the book are when David geeks out and begins doing all sorts of scientific experiments on Laurel to prove to her that she is a plant. It was quite fascinating, all of the ways that Pike came up with to link fairies to plants! Unfortunately, the story lacked everything else: engaging dialogue, plot, movement. The word that sprang to mind most when I read this book was “contrived;” it felt like we readers were told how we were supposed to feel about the characters and their predicaments instead of actually letting us feel anything. Anything that readers needed to know about the plot was explained in endless pages of stationary dialogue, which I wouldn’t even mind if not for the fact that the dialogue feels forced and the characters are not explaining anything of worth or interest to me anyway.

Alas, it seems like I and other reviewers can blither and blather all we want; the audience (and publishers) clearly know what they want, and that’s some more Twilight spin-offs. Seriously, though, if you’re looking for some more fantasy love triangles and fairy wars etc., don’t check here. It won’t be long before you’ll be wondering about how you can get a refund on your time.

Similar Authors

Stephenie Meyer

Melissa Marr

Maggie Stiefvater

R. J. Anderson

Writing: 1/5

Characters: 1/5

Plot: 2/5

Overall Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Cover discussion: 2 out of 5 - It's... pretty, I guess. And cute, sorta. But, um, what does it have to do with the story? Can anyone tell me?

Series Summer 2009 Book #2

Review: Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr

Wicked Lovely series, Book Three

Publication date: April 21, 2009

Tags: YA, fantasy, fairies, love triangle

Summary

You would think that once the malevolent Winter Queen Beira’s reign was destroyed and the Summer King, Keenan, was restored to full power when he found his Summer Queen, Aislinn, that the this alternative faerie world, located in Philadelphia, would be peaceful again. But it’s not. The monarchs of all three faery courts have changed hands, and former friendships (Niall, Keenan’s former advisor, now the king of the Dark Court) and flames (Donia, the new Winter Queen) will become enemies to be wary of.

Meanwhile, in between adjusting to being a faery and learning her duties as Summer Queen, Aislinn struggles to find balance between Keenan—her king, her partner, her friend, to whom she experiences an undeniable attraction—and Seth, her wonderful mortal boyfriend. Seth is frustrated that his mortality hinders his ability to protect Aislinn from faery threats. With a hint from Bananach, the dangerously insane faery of Chaos and War, Seth goes to Sorcha, the faery queen of Reason, in order to be changed into a faery, so that he and Aislinn may stay together forever and equally.

What none of them except Bananach know, however, is that every one of their actions takes them all a step closer to a war that could destroy everything they knew…

Review

If you thought the world of faerie couldn’t get more dangerously sexy and alluring than Melissa Marr’s first book, Wicked Lovely, well, you’re wrong. Fragile Eternity focuses mostly on the characters’ relationships with one another. And what brilliantly hot and tension-filled ones they are! Lengthy conversations between Keenan and Aislinn, Keenan and Donia—okay, Keenan and anyone—should come with a “sexual tension!” warning/preview. Melissa Marr definitely writes wonderfully complex characters who are stuck in situations that have no easy solutions.

The writing of Fragile Eternity is fantastic: lyrical, magical, completely befitting the ideas it wants to express. This is poetry in motion, beauty in black and white. (And this is not mentioning the gorgeous cover that this book is graced with.)

When I read Wicked Lovely I thought it was a decently written urban fantasy novel but nothing special. That’s why I was so surprised at how much better I thought Fragile Eternity was. Parts of the story are still frustrating to me—despite how well drawn the characters are and how good the writing is, I still can’t seem to fully connect with them—but I have no doubt that fans of Wicked Lovely will run out to buy this one. The ending, while rather anticlimactic after so much buildup over 300+ pages, promises a possibly even more exciting and tension-filled sequel. This may not be a hands-down favorite fantasy series of mine, but the love triangle and Melissa’s beautiful writing are enough to keep me reading, and far less picky fantasy lovers will passionately declare their ardour for Marr’s faerie world.

Writing: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Cover discussion: 5 out of 5 - Yes! Yes! THIS is how a cover should look like! I'm absolutely enamored by the balance of warm and cool colors. Love how only the butterfly is strikingly in focus, while the rest of the cover blurs into the background. It may not be entirely relevant to the story, but I'm nevertheless tempted to buy this book, if just so I can gaze adoringly at the cover. Oh dear, I'm making a fool of myself. Moving on.