Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Wings
Author: Aprilynne Pike
Pages: 294
Wings #1
Published by HarperTeen
My Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: (From Goodreads)
 
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.


My Review:
  What an excellent debut that Aprilynne Pike has crafted! I was enthralled with Wings.

I picked a paperback of this book up at a local bookstore on a shopping trip.

I loved Wings from the first page right up to the very last sentence. I thought it had amazing narration, as well as being woven with wonderful mythology, amazing description and a very neat take on faeries.

The amazing description was the first thing that popped out to me. Aprilynne Pike describes everything using wonderful, colourful words. I thought this book had a charming quality of magic.

But, wow, the take on faeries. Never once, until now, have I come across a faerie world where faeries are referred to as plants. I thought it was actually quite outstanding, and frankly, cool. I mean, I did see things in common with other faerie books, but the things I noticed were all things I loved. The faerie courts are different in each book and same with this one.

The characters were intriguing, especially Tamani. He was one of my favorites. He was so mysterious, and I'm craving more of him! Whoever starts the Team things, I want to let them know I'm on Team Tamani. Laurel was a great main character. She's everybody, a very average teenage girl. I can definitely relate to her; I could see that she was more of a reserved person, keeping more to herself, though she loves her friends. I can definitely relate to her, and I'm really glad Aprilynne Pike created such a likeable and relatable character.

As for the plot: I really enjoyed the plot, and the story enfolds well to it. I was not a fan of the end, where they are taken by the trolls. Though the plot does well along the lines of this, I found the scenes with the trolls unclimatic. That’s probably just me, though, because the overall ending was pretty good, and I am excited for more. The trolls were a good thing to add to the mythology, but they weren’t my favourite.
As for the gate to Avalon, I loved the idea. I didn’t get to read much about it, so I hope there will be more about it in Spells, the sequel. I always love the idea of faerie gates or magical gates, and this seemed so mysterious.


Overall, I thought Wings was a very well written, entertaining and charming take on the mythology of the faerie world.