Oh hello there Rad Readers! If you could not tell by my exclamatory punctuation, I quite enjoyed this book... okay fine, I loved it! :)
QUICK SUMMARY: Aislinn is a mortal but is able to see the entire supernatural world of faeries, and these faeries are NOT good faeries. If they knew she could see them, it would be an almost guaranteed death sentence, or worse. Thus she has lived her life following the rules meant to keep her safe from them: Don't stare at invisible faeries. Don't speak to invisible faeries. Don't ever attract faeries' attention. She has gone all her life able to ignore them no matter how much they taunt her or the people around her as they so often do to mortals, but recently something has changed. The faeries are not treating her like some regular mortal anymore, they are following her, paying attention to her, and the rules that have kept her safe her whole life aren't working anymore.
Okay, this is an absolute banger of a book! I came across it at the Goodwill Bookstore, the best place in the world where all books are between $2-4 typically. I bought it simply because I thought the title was pretty cool and decided, hey, let's give it a shot. Let me tell you, this was certainly a shot worth taking! :)
I gave it 5 stars on good reads, and I have said before that I'm not a picky reader, my only real pet peeve is when a book is written poorly in my subjective opinion or when it genuinely does lack substance, but this definitely deserved every single bit of those stars. This is overall not a very highly reviewed book on good reads, the Mecca of book review content, but I feel it deserves higher acclaim.
This definitely falls under the oh so common fantasy/ paranormal genre but what I liked is that it's that genre but with a twist. It is kind of poking fun, criticizing itself in a way. Aislinn is a solid character, has her priorities straight, doesn't mess around. When she is told that she is basically the chosen one she just doesn't care, absolutely uninterested. All she has done in the world of the Fae is nothing, even going so far as to avoid them.
Something I did agree with in the more critical reviews of this book was that in other stories (ex. Harry Potter) when someone is "the chosen one" it is because of their skill, magical abilities, intellect, whatever. They prove themselves in a way through their skill. Aislinn is told she is the chosen one because this random faerie prince has just suddenly showed an interest in her, nothing by her own merit, and she is not having it. I liked this because it really does shed light on the weird not okay-ness of this trope. I am certainly tired of women being decided as the chosen one for none other than the interest of some random person (or paranormal) that she -in most cases- has only recently met, and apparently so is Aislinn because she essentially said no freaking way weirdo.
Aislinn is the exception in these weird tropes, she straight up calls out Keenan, the fairy that has been following her, on the fact that him using his fairy powers to get his was is just uncool, she doesn't want to be the chosen one, he's kind of evil, has been rude to her, and all he really cares about is his faerie rivalry and not her at all as they have literally only known each other for weeks. In summary, Aislinn knows what's up.
I liked that she felt a tie to the mortal world, took things into view the way most realistically would. The average teenager isn't looking to drop everything to become a faerie queen, most have passions, friends, are eager to pursue an education, at least something that should hold them back from dropping off the face of the earth. I enjoyed that this book recognized the unrealistic-ness of such a concept. It's fun to read about the actual logistics of such a bizarre concept.
There is a lot going on in this book. Things get boring if there isn't a lot going on and some of the good reads reviews complained that there wasn't much going on but I don't know how that could be seen. There is so much between Aislinn and the mortal world and then her and the Fae world. Then there is Keenan and this royalty whatevers and then his dram in the faerie world and also the mortal world with a dash his evil mother here and there. Then we have Seth... who knows what's going on with him. Finally Beira, and that mad lad is on a mission to killll let me tell you. (and can we just talk about that ending really quick) *SPOILERS* Okay, the ending... kind of confusing in my opinion. So, is Donia the new Ice Queen? This shouldn't be a big deal since the only real problem with there being the Ice Queen was that she hated Keenan and wanted power. With Donia as the queen who doesn't care about Keenan nor power I couldn't really grasp why everyone seemed to care so much about that. Next qualm: what exactly is going on with Seth, that just wasn't clarified at all. Is he dead or dying or is he just like kind of hurt and going to be okay? *END OF SPOILERS* I will say though that as confusing as the ending was, the final battle was pretty epic. Lots of suspense and magical weapon shooting.
So, what I learned: Keenan: kind of a bad person, self serving thus far, but has potential for character development. Aislinn: knows what's up, doesn't deal with mysogonistic wackiness right now and hopefully continues not to as the series progresses.
Something I definitely find I really appreciated was the lack of information dump. The rules of the faeries and the court and their magic was never explicitly said at all; the author let you figure it out along the way which built for some neat sneaky power wielding capabilities as the story progressed and then in the ultimate battle. From a class I take in school I learned that this is one of the best used writing tools to engage your reader in a story. Don't give it to them outright, people like to work for something. I definitely did find that method effective in this book.
So yes, Wicked Lovely amounted the ever prestigious 5 stars for a cool plot, feminism, good writing, and a fun read! Definitely check this book out!
-C8 :)