Wicked Lovely or Just Wicked

Melissa Marr's young adult Wicked Lovely series contains five books about a new age in four faery courts. The courts consist of  Summer, Winter, High and Dark. There is romance. There is adventure. There is teenage drama. There are sex scenes with no sex. Which is understandable given her target audience, but they do scream uh-duh.

Like all good book series there are pros and cons. I want to like them all, but there was something nagging at me. Could it have been my age? Could it have been poor grammar? Could it have been the way Melissa Marr rehashes the same information over and over again? Seriously, I could have developed a drinking game and been sloshed by the end of book 1, Wicked Lovely, and had alcohol poisoning by book 3, Fragile Eternity.

You may be thinking I hate this series. Please allow me to elaborate in the pros catagory. The characters are phenomenal. They are the reason I stuck it through to the very end. Melissa Marr has created a fabulous world full of amazing characters. Aislinn is a Sighted -meaning she can see the obfuscated faeries- mortal who is chosen by Keenan, the cursed Summer King, to be his Queen, pick up a magic staff and rescue him and his court from the curse. Mind you many other girls were chosen in a  Wayne's World style of "Oh yes, she will be mine," sort of manner only to be turned into fae and bound to the King for as long they live. Or worse they turn into the Winter Girl. Her job is to detour the girls from picking up the staff and simply become fae. I may not be clarifying this right. In that case, read the books and Melissa will hammer it home.

Then there is the love square. Aislinn loves Seth. Keenan loves Winter Girl Donia. But Keenan has to seduce Aislinn for the good of his court. In the end everyone wants the others to be with the ones they actually love. All of their love leads the reader down a great big crazy train of ordered chaos. When/if you read the books will you understand precisely what I mean this time.

The action scenes were hard to follow. The emotional one-on-one scenes were sweet, funny and at times romantic. Could I have lived without every reading this series? Yes. But then I would have missed out on such characters as Seth, a driven, independent punk who was too mature for his age, Devlin, think sexy Spock, Niall, his character arch was beautiful and my favorite Donia. She was courageous, intelligent, and loved without letting that love consume her. Should I recommend this book to any of my teenage daughters I would push upon them Donia. She is a woman's woman.

If you wish to read them the order goes as follows:

Wicked Lovely
Ink Exchange
Fragile Eternity
Radiant Shadows
Darkest Mercy

There are a few short stories that go between the books that I did not read. Should you want the full scope they are: Stopping Time. It follows the events of Ink Exchange. And Old Habit which is about Niall between the second and third books. There is also an anthology called Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions. This is after the last book. I have no desire to read these. But if you do please let me know what you think.

Feel free to leave a comment or question below. I would love to strike up a conversation about this series. To see my reviews about each individual book as I read them please check out my page on Goodreads.