Shelly's Book Blog

Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely combines realistic fiction with fantasy, much like Stephanie's Meyer's Twilight and its sequels, but substituting faeries for vampires. Aislinn, the main character of Marr's book, shares many characteristics with Bella, who is Meyer's heroine. They both struggle with, and at times feel overwhelmed by, a relationship with a man who is not mortal. The big difference in Wicked Lovely is that Aislinn does not love the non-mortal guy. She wants to stay with her mortal life and her mortal friends. Keenan, the "Summer King," has his own reasons, though, for wanting to convince Aislinn to commit to him and his faery world.

This story took a while to hook me, maybe because I was comparing it to Meyer's books and having to adjust to a different style. Also, the faeries in Marr's book are portrayed, in the beginning, as dangerous and even evil. Aislinn was not drawn to them, as Bella was to the Cullens family. In the end, though, I found this to be an enjoyable read. Marr manages to gracefully blend the two distinct worlds. Her evil Winter Queen is a really frightening villain, and it's nice to see that Keenan is a pretty complex character (I think he's actually better drawn in the book than is Aislinn). This is a YA book for the 16 and over crowd.