Review: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

  Title: Wicked Lovely           Pages: 328
  Author: Melissa Marr          Source: Library
  Publisher: HarperTeen       Published: Jun 12, 2007         
  Series: Wicked Lovely        Purchase: Amazon
  Rating: 4 out of 5

Aislinn has a secret: she can see faeries. She does all she can to avoid these evil creatures, abiding all her life by simple rules set and enforced by her guardian, her Grams.

Rule #3 – Never stare at invisible faeries.

Rule #2 – Don't answer invisible faeries.

Rule #1 – Don't ever attract faeries' attention.

These rules become increasingly hard to follow when faeries start following her. Even more difficult when one particular faerie dons a glamour to talk to her. Keenan, the Summer King, is determined to see if Aislinn is the Summer Queen that he's been searching for for more than nine centuries. Aislinn isn't the only girl that he's set his eyes on, though.

I had trouble getting through the first half of Wicked Lovely. It was certainly interesting, just a bit slow paced.

Aislinn was another fierce female character. Melissa Marr wrote her perfectly. Marr balances Aislinn's strong, head-held-high attitude with being able to see faeries - something that terrifies her. Aislinn is a character that didn't back down and I loved reading her. She was a wonderfully balanced and amazing heroine. I never once disliked her.

I was definitely rooting on Seth as the pages grew on. I adored the scenes between him and Aislinn, and loved how he tried to 'protect' her from immortal faeries. He acts invincible in an amazingly cute way. I loved his unique personality not normally seen in a co-leading male role.

Now, even though I was definitely on Seth's team, I still loved the character of Keenan. He was written just as beautifully and perfectly as Seth and Aislinn. All three seemed so well thought out and balanced. Most of the characters felt like actual characters instead of filler characters and all of them had a personality, even the smaller characters.

That brings me to the writing and the plot. They were both so well done, that I was incredibly glad I kept reading. Even though it starts off at a slow pace, the pace quickly starts up and captures your attention. Marr writes beautifully and effortlessly in every sense of the words. Her descriptions illustrated Wicked Lovely in, well, a wicked lovely way.

The plot was both surprising and not, but not in a bad sense, more like a comforting way. Some points were foreshadowed and you knew they were going to happen, but many were unexpected twists in the story. It was incredibly unique too, what with the four faerie courts: Summer, Winter, Dark, and High Courts. I enjoyed all the lore that came with it, as well as the excerpts from different books on the subject at the start of each chapter.

Overall, Wicked Lovely was an awesome read and I will definitely read the second in the series.

I give Wicked Lovely a 4 out of 5.