Let the casting fun begin!

According to Variety, Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely has been acquired by Universal Pictures.

Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr

Achtung: Lots of spoilers because I don't know how to talk about the plot at all without giving away a lot.

Aislinn is drawn to Keenan, even in a sexual attraction way, even though she is in love with Seth.  Seth is trying to be understanding and give her space, but he sees how Ash is attracted to Keenan.  Ash is having a hard time with her new life as a faery queen, and Seth is also feeling his mortality acutely since he can't really be there for Ash.  He can't protect her and he knows he's going to get older and die, while she stays young and grows closer and closer to Keenan.  Meanwhile, Keenan wants to be with Ash but also still loves Donia.  Bananach is flitting around to Donia and others stirring up trouble, trying to instigate a war.  Eventually, Bananach takes Seth to meet Sorcha, the High Queen, so that he can try to turn into a faery (even though his friend Niall warns him against it).  Seth knows he'll have to trade something in exchange for becoming a faery and needs to be careful about the terms he agrees to, but he attempts it anyway.  Sorcha does change him, but there are some terms he doesn't realize he has agreed to (although they are not all that bad, in my opinion).  All the time that Seth is with Sorcha, Ash thinks he has left her and she gets closer to Keenan, not realizing that he knows where Seth is (apparently everyone knows except Ash).  So the book is first Seth and Ash trying to deal with Ash's faery life and growing attraction to Keenan and then Ash waiting around unhappily while Seth is with Sorcha while he changes into a faery.  It's mostly a setup for the next book and impending war and chaos that Bananach has been trying to create.  I don't know if Melissa would want to hear this, but it kind of reminded me of New Moon.  Ash spends a lot of the book without Seth, growing closer to Keenan who consoles her, and not a lot really happens in the plot; it's more of a setup for the next book.  

I liked this book about as well as I liked Wicked Lovely, but not as much as Ink Exchange.  Like I said, to me not a lot happened.  Seth still seems a little too perfect, and I wonder if there is a reason why he is so special.  And when he was with Sorcha, he is apparently all artistic and creative, but I wish his artistic process was more detailed (more like the way the tattoo process was so well portrayed in Ink Exchange).  But I will say that it definitely makes me eager for the next book!  It leaves everyone and everything on the brink of some major confrontations and chaos.

2008 Favorites

With the end of the year, it's time for all the "best of" lists.   I choose to do "favorites" instead since I didn't read nearly enough to choose "the best."  Plus, it's too subjective anyway.  So these are just my favorites of the year.  

New York Times's Notable Children's Books of the Year

Amazon Editors' YA Picks for 2008

I'm pretty happy with the NYT picks, even though I never read Sunrise Over Fallujah.  I can't get behind any list with TDHOFL-B, however.

My favorites:

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

As an aside, even though I read The Disreputable History months ago and loved it and have given it prime display space at the circulation desk and recommended it to students, it hasn't been checked out once.  I'm sad about this, and I don't know what else to do.

Ink Exchange

I think Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr is a little darker and for slightly more mature readers than Wicked Lovely (due to more discussions of sex, drugs, and debauchery), but I think I liked it better. It's true that you don't have to have read Wicked Lovely first to understand Ink Exchange, but I'd recommend it.

Aislinn's friend Leslie is not as tough and free-spirited as she appeared in Wicked Lovely. She is dealing with some difficult emotional issues related to her mother's abandonment, her father's inability to provide for her family, and the fact that her brother offered her up sexually to his drug dealer to support his addiction. She decides she wants to get a tattoo to reclaim control of her body. She finally decides on one in Rabbit's (the tattoo artist) special book. What she doesn't realize is that the design she's chosen is that of Irial, king of the Dark Court. She also doesn't realize that the ink Rabbit uses for her tattoo is mixed with the blood and tears of Dark Court faeries. Once she begins the process of getting the tattoo, she gets drawn more and more into the faerie world.

Okay, that's the short plot description. Read on for more (with possible spoilers).

Now that Donia is the Winter Queen and at peace with the Summer Court, the Dark Court fey don't have enough jumbled emotions upon which to draw sustenance. So Irial seeks out a mortal for an ink exchange. This will allow him to feed off the emotions of humans and sustain, temporarily at least, the Dark Court. He begins to feel attracted to and protective of Leslie, and she feels attracted to, scared of, and, of course, connected to him more and more. At odds with this, Leslie has always been attracted to Keenan's advisor, Niall (who used to be part of the Dark Court; he and Irial have a history). Niall has been shadowing Leslie in order to protect her, per Aislinn's request, and he is increasingly attracted to her. However, he knows that he should not act on his feelings because Aislinn doesn't want him to (she doesn't want Leslie brought into the faerie world) and because his skin is addictive to humans, and if he ever leaves them, they will suffer and die from withdrawl. But since Leslie comes on to him, he's concerned for her safety since Irial is showing such an interest in her, and because her tattoo is bonding her ever closer to the Dark Court, Irial finds it more and more impossible to resist pursuing her.

What I liked in Wicked Lovely and what I love love love in Ink Exchange is how all of the characters are not merely good or bad but have elements of both and you can root for all/both of them. Even in this love triangle with Irial and Niall, you can see her with both of them. Also, the covers are so amazing! I am in love with both of her book covers. (Wicked Lovely is my computer background.)

I can't wait to talk about the ending with someone!

Ink Exchange, Laurell K. Hamilton, Book Covers, & More!

OMG, this story is so fun! Smart Bitches Trashy Books (who helped me get my first-ever "Bluff the Listener" answer right on "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me" last week) summarizes the kerfuffle that's been going on over this blog post on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Jane Henderson called "Laurell K. Hamilton knock-off for teens?" SBTB summarizes everything better than I can, but essentially, Henderson got a galley of Melissa Marr's Ink Exchange (I'm so jealous!!!) and decided from the cover and summary of the book that it is a "knock off" of Hamilton's Merry Gentry series. I love this stuff because it combines my interest in YA and romance novels. Let's be honest, there are some common elements that occur in certain subgenres of both, as I commented on just the other day. However, I am just so at a loss as to why and how Henderson came to these conclusions to intimate "copyright infringement" and a "knock-off." SBTB and the link they reference to Urban Fantasy Land do a good job of refuting most of the problems with Henderson's post. But let me stress some of my biggest problems:

1. Holly Black commented and pointed out that, hello?, these are not the only two people writing about faeries! And no one has a monopoly on writing about them either, just like no one has a monopoly on writing about vampires or vampire hunters or souls who inhabit living humans' bodies.
2. Having said that, I guess if you are not a connoisseur of any of these genres, then you might think they are all "pretty much the same." I don't think that, but I can see how people would. (Hot vampire who is centuries old attracts a young human female who wants to turn vampire to be with him, the love of her life.)
3. I totally do not get the cover art comparison at all. Only in the broadest, most utterly general sense would I say the covers look anything alike. And I know Marr's art was designed specifically based upon events in the book and that her own tattoo artist designed the tattoo (which appears in the book). For examples of how similar book covers can look, just take a look at a couple of the examples on Jacket Whys (or anywhere else, really). Seriously, I think Henderson is really stretching on this one, and/or really didn't think too long about it before posting.
4. I haven't read Ink Exchange yet (but I'd love an ARC!), but although Wicked Lovely did have a little romance, it was far from erotic. Let me direct Henderson to Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and others if she wants some hot YA action.