Book Review- Wings

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

I've seen this book for a while and I've heard lots about it. I saw an interview of Aprilynne Pike on Inkpop and I saw that she said her Faeries were different from other ones. She said that she thought that she was the only one to make Faeries into pure plants. Well I remember thinking that she was wrong because I made Faeries like that in one of my own books...only they are not fully plants like hers. 

What I liked: I loved her idea of Faeries and how they are pure plant like creatures. While the idea is kinda orginal, I've seen it in other books but it just wasn't as explained as this book. You could tell that she did her research and I thought that was really cool. 

All the characters were very good, although at times David seemed the Mr. Perfect we've seen one too many times. And sometimes Laurel seemed like she wasn't a girl who could take care of herself. I found myself partly crying when we found out that Laurel's dad may not make it and when her mom was about to sell their old house. But then I was really glad when that Jamison guy came and gave her stuff to help her out. The only part I didn't like that him was that I have no idea who he actually is! He seems like he must be some kind of gate keeper to me.

I thought that while I like Tamani (his name is cool too) was cute and stuff, I thought it was kinda creepy the way he likes her. It seems to me that he's more of a stalker-ish guy who doesn't really like her for who she is but just wants her body or whatever. David was cute, I really hope Laurel ends up with David. 

The plot was good, I enjoyed how Laurel knew that there wasn't something right about the guy who wanted to buy their old house and how in the end she kinda helped fight then trolls off. I hope that in the next couple of books we'll see more of Avalon or whatever it was called and I hope that we learn even more about faeries. 

One of the things about this book that I didn't like was that I thought that the book took a while to get to the action and that it started out really slowly.  Overall I really liked this book and I hope to read the next two books. Hopefully, they will be even more exciting. 

So have you ever read a book where the author took a different look at something that's been done lots of times before? Did you like it or not?

Sincerely,

Peony

Writing Tips- Stories With a Love Triangle.

Note: Sorry about the past couple of weeks with messed up posting on Saturdays. We're taking care of it this week. And I'm posting this Saturday tip on today because I saw that no writing tip was posted yesterday. Jessika if you see this, post your post today anyways. Thanks everyone!


In this post I''m going to talk about something that Im sure all of us have noticed by now: love triangles. And for those of us who have noticed them, I'm sure it is driving us nuts because there is just so many in books these days. Especially YA books.

I could list many books with love triangles (Twilight saga, Prophecy of the Sisters series, The Summoning books, The Iron Fey [maybe, we all know Meghan loves Ash but Puck is still in love with her anyways], The Hunger Games, The Infernal Devices series, Eona: The Last Dragoneye, Matched, etc).

Now while I'll say that writers love to use love triangles because for a couple reasons, 1) it adds to the story because while there may be something bigger going on we know that in most cases the MC will have to end up with one of the characters and 2) the writers might have their own reasons. And if you're going to add a love triangle to your story, I dearly hope that it's not just because you think there needs to be something more exciting.

And if there has to be a love triangle in the story I think there has to be a certain way to pull it off (at least in my point of view) I think that no matter who the MC or whoever ends up with whoever, that you cannot just randomly kill off a character or make them disappear so that the girl/boy ends up with the one you liked most or even the one they're suppose to be with. (I.e What happened to Gale in the Hunger Games?)

Plus then there's the thought, if you're trying to display a character realistically, how many of us actually have been or are in a love triangle? Not many girls I know have been loved or whatever by two different guys. Okay well one of my cousins once kinda was but it was complicated.

If you're going to have a girl be loved by two guys (or a guy loved by two girls) remember that you can't throw in some perfect, gary-sue character to be a love interest because we'll know. Make sure that both love interests actually have something to do with the plot. And make sure there's a reason the girl may be in love with both, and not just because one of them is super hot and the other is the sweetest guy ever.

Meeting random guys/girls and almost instantly falling in love with them is bogus, at least I don't like it at all. Like in Guardian of the Gate, Lia just seems to randomly fall in love with Dimitri even though they just met. And "I feel like I've known you forever" is not a good excuse unless there's a really good reason and not "I've been watching you or guarding you secretly". That's just borderline creepy and stalker-ish. 


But meeting a guy (or another guy/girl) and having them learn about the character first and then having them say that they may or may not be in love with them is a way to do it. And if you have to have two guys/girls in the story, they don't always have to be in love with the same person. One can be a friend, brother, sibling, or in love with another person. 


So let's sum this all up, shall we? 

• Don't add a love triangle to your story just because you think there needs to be something else to make it interesting. 
• If you have a love triangle, don't randomly kill off one of the love interests so the MC or whoever ends with the the one you want. 
• Make sure each love interest actually has something to do with the story.
• Don't embody one of them as your version of the perfect man; save those for your daydreams and not your books. 
• Try to change it up; try not to have one of them be the bad guy and the other the good guy. 
• Don't have an instant "love". If you can, gradually have the character fall in love with them or have a good reason for the character to love them when we meet the love interests. 
• You don't always have to have a love triangle if there's two leading guys/girls and the MC. One can be friends or be in love with another while the other guy/girl is in love with the MC or whoever. 
• If you're going for realistic or somewhat believable, remember how many people actually have ever been in a love triangle. 
• Also, not that I've seen this done, but try to not have more than two love interests. Then it tends to get confusing and messy. Just saying.

So, do you hate it when there's a love triangle or do you not mind them? Is there a reason why you do or do not like them? What's the best love triangle you've ever seen and the worst? Did a MC or character ever end up with the person you didn't think they should have? Why or why not?  

Sincerely,
Peony