Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely, #1)

by Melissa Marr and Alyssa Bresnahan

[nannah]

I almost want to shelve this as "horror". It's not a typical horror book in that there aren't jump scares, there aren't obviously hideous monsters or gore, and there isn't any psychological thriller elements. What's horrific about this book, however, is how the book handles consent.

Book Content Warnings:
sexual assault

So this book is supposedly about a 17-year-old girl named Aislinn, who grew up with the Sight--that is, she can see fairies. And for some reason, fairies are stalking her. But . . . really, this book is more like a cheap soap opera where she loves pierced dude, but other dude wants her to love him, and his ex still loves him, and maybe he'll try to find someone to tempt the pierced dude away from her, but his evil mom doesn't want any of this to happen and ?? I expected this to be a "real" fairy book, and I get some cheap high school drama (emphasis on the cheap)?

What makes this book even more cheap is that the villain, the Winter Queen, is laughable. She's not intimidating; she's just annoying. She goes around making threats, calling everyone "darling", but never really does anything to prevent what she obviously doesn't want to happen. Usually villains are pretty proactive, keeping the MC from fulfilling their goals, but this villain just strides around making icicles and petty threats.

I'll get to the consent issues, but first I need to talk about Aislinn, the MC. The character I'm supposed to cheer for, feel for, etc. She's another one of those characters who just makes stupid decisions so the plot can move forward. I lost count of the number of times I had to put the book down to roll my eyes.

Example #1: Aislinn doesn't like the Summer King. At all. Doesn't want anything to do with him. BUT. Thinks it's an ok idea to meet him at a carnival alone in the name of "finding out what he wants from her," drinks fairy wine, and dances with him. It's just so transparent? Written to get to the next plot point, obviously. At this part, I really didn't want to read on.

Example #2: The Summer King finds out who Aislinn's "Grams" is, and that he pretty much killed Aislinn's mother (and Grams's daughter). Ok. So then Aislinn and the Summer King just decide to leave Grams's house, without thinking of taking Grams to a safe place or placing guards in front of the house, even though they know how much fairies gossip? So of course, Grams gets hurt. Because the story needs Aislinn to be motivated. It's a weak-assed attempt at creating tension in like half a page.

Most of this is because of the writing failing, I understand . . . especially since the writing fails for other characters too, like when characters had extremely awkward dialogue because what they said was information purely for the audience. It was obvious these characters already knew the information they were spewing (such as the Winter Queen telling someone the rules of the plot, etc.).

One more thing before I get to my main complaint: usually endings are packed full of tension and move fast to keep readers transfixed. But oh no, not this book's ending. Tension drops. Near the very end before what's supposed to be the climax, Aislinn and the Summer King decide to make a social call and chat with Aislinn's boyfriend, who even makes some rice. To quote Aislinn's inner dialogue, "WTF"?

Okay. Here we are: consent.

I could tell things were going to be rocky when Aislinn was sexually assaulted in order to meet a fairy. This introduction could have happened so many other ways, but this author chose to go this direction, which is just lazy and unappealing writing.

The plot turns out to be the Summer King trying to woo Aislinn (pretty much against her will), and more than halfway through, the dude hadn't even thought about whether or not he'd actually be good for her (he states constantly how good she'd be for him though)! And then one of his advisors basically say make her say yes even if the method is unpalatable. All of this is gross and lazy.

"You were born to belong to me." (p.224)

This Summer King is also a character who needed to see a fairy sexually assaulted in front of him to realize it was wrong. How messed up is that, storytelling-wise? Because as a reader, all of this is shown in detail. Yuck.

But then Aislinn's boyfriend actually talks about consent. About how if Aislinn took something, if she was drunk or high, that she CANNOT CONSENT, which is SUPER IMPORTANT, especially in a YA book. Which goes against what's happening in the book, so I'm really confused?

In the end, Aislinn eventually becomes the Summer Queen, even if she doesn't love her King and even if she still stays with her boyfriend. Which means . . . the Summer King's harassment worked. Which means it's ok to not listen to a girl saying "no" to a guy's advancements.

I just don't get this book's conflicting messages and I don't feel comfortable with it.