"Wicked Lovely" - brief review
Apr. 29th, 2009 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockI started the audiobook for Wicked Lovely, an urban fantasy YA romance by Melissa Marr, but I gave up after a few hours of listening.
My reasons were varied, but the strongest reason was the reason anyone should give up a book: it just wasn't that interesting to me. I found the title character okay but not inspiring, and the supporting characters too simplistic or too unrealistically perfect. The concept would have been a lot more thrilling as a horror novel than as the only-slightly-dangerous romance it was leading up to be. Which is too bad, because the faeries as an idea are interesting and not a little creepy...if only the writing had committed more to the creepy factor and less to turning them into Baywatch meets Desperate Housewives, if all the characters in Baywatch and Desperate Housewives stopped living their fantastic dramas because one hottie reached through the television set, picked a female viewer, and declared her his queen for the sole purpose of getting away from his mother. Not because the girl was interesting, alluring, or had anything in her personality or even total personhood that he was attracted to.
Anyway, it had promise, but I got bored. That's not even touching on the sexual/gender politics of the book, which from what I read were not bad yet but had the potential to be VERY bad. Ashling, or whatever the main character's name is (it's a stupid name), seemed a young woman with a strong sense of self-preservation and willpower. She also spends much of her time terrified, but in an understandable way given the circumstances she faces everyday and how she's been raised to fear the faerie world. I'd be freaked out all the time too. But right from the first few chapters I could feel the book setting her up for a romance that I knew was going to exploit the worst of the set-up: connect the supposedly "strong willed"---but in reality just plain "terrified"---young woman to the supernaturally alluring, relentlessly aggressive male pursuer. Blegh. I don't need to read that.
My reasons were varied, but the strongest reason was the reason anyone should give up a book: it just wasn't that interesting to me. I found the title character okay but not inspiring, and the supporting characters too simplistic or too unrealistically perfect. The concept would have been a lot more thrilling as a horror novel than as the only-slightly-dangerous romance it was leading up to be. Which is too bad, because the faeries as an idea are interesting and not a little creepy...if only the writing had committed more to the creepy factor and less to turning them into Baywatch meets Desperate Housewives, if all the characters in Baywatch and Desperate Housewives stopped living their fantastic dramas because one hottie reached through the television set, picked a female viewer, and declared her his queen for the sole purpose of getting away from his mother. Not because the girl was interesting, alluring, or had anything in her personality or even total personhood that he was attracted to.
Anyway, it had promise, but I got bored. That's not even touching on the sexual/gender politics of the book, which from what I read were not bad yet but had the potential to be VERY bad. Ashling, or whatever the main character's name is (it's a stupid name), seemed a young woman with a strong sense of self-preservation and willpower. She also spends much of her time terrified, but in an understandable way given the circumstances she faces everyday and how she's been raised to fear the faerie world. I'd be freaked out all the time too. But right from the first few chapters I could feel the book setting her up for a romance that I knew was going to exploit the worst of the set-up: connect the supposedly "strong willed"---but in reality just plain "terrified"---young woman to the supernaturally alluring, relentlessly aggressive male pursuer. Blegh. I don't need to read that.
