Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis: 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.

Review: So I picked this book up this morning and by this afternoon I'd finished it. It's been so long since I've been able to just sit and read a book that I raced through this one! I did enjoy this book, although I didn't love it like I wanted to.

Aislinn seems to get a lot of criticism in other reviews but I did actually quite like her. She was stubborn and hard headed and she didn't let Keenan dictate to her. Yes, the constant reminder of the three rules was a little repetitive at times but, on the whole, I did actually like her. Seth was another character that I really liked. He protects Aislinn and works with her, listening to her plans and helping her sort through them. This is a practically unheard of characteristic in YA! A guy who lets the girl do what she needs to do without getting mad? Yay for Seth in my book! I also love the fact that he lives in a train. A train! I would love to see that place it sounds amazing (the boa constrictor he keeps as a pet, not so amazing, but nobody's perfect). I liked that Aislinn fought for him as well and she didn't get so caught up in Keenan and his faery charms that she forgot about Seth.

Keenan...confused me. In some ways, I did like him. I felt sorry for him when he was around the Winter Queen and, towards the end where he essentially had to choose between the girl he (supposedly) loves, and his Summer Queen; but when it comes to actually getting Aislinn to like him I really didn't like him. He knew that Aislinn didn't understand what was going on and yet he took it as fact that she was his Queen. He didn't know that for sure though and that really annoyed me. Yes, there's a chance that Aislinn is his Queen, but they don't know that for sure. His certainty of this meant that he did some really ridiculous things as he tried to get her to agree and I just wanted to hit him! Urgh! I hope that Keenan redeems himself in the next book - I hope so, because he is a good guy, he was just being fed misinformation and posturing in front of Aislinn but still. He has so much potential.

The plot itself was good but I found it a little...confusing with how it played out. I felt like the plot needed a little more explanation in the earlier stages of the book, rather than leaving it till later on in the book. One of the biggest things that confused me was the idea of the Winter Girl. To find out if you're the Summer Queen, you have to pick up a staff from the Winter Queen to prove that you can hold it without taking on the chill. Why? Why would the Summer Queen need to withstand the chill from Winter? That ability doesn't translate once you become Summer Queen - lets face it, no one likes to stand out in the cold for ages - so why does she have to hold it? It makes no sense to me. I'm hoping that this is maybe explained more in the next book - just more back story on how this 'game' came to be in the first place would be really interesting - because I really don't understand why that was a requirement. Also, why does the Winter Girl have to convince the next mortal girl that Keenan is no good? If they are no longer mortal anyway, they are technically bound to him either way, so why would it matter? These are all questions I want answering and they're questions that let this book down for me.

On the whole, I did enjoy this book. I thought most of the characters were quite interesting and the plot moved along nicely, although (possibly because it was a debut) there were a lot of things that I didn't like and a whole lot of questions left unanswered. I will read the next book, because apparently they get better and if I get through the next one as quickly as I did this one, then I'll be happy.

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