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attackfishRose recommended these books to me, and as her birthday’s right around the corner (and of course I gave her books, and a cannoli, but really books) and because I finally got a copy of Fragile Eternity, I decided to bang this out as a thank you.
And also I wanted to express my somewhat complicated thoughts on how I felt when I finally found Fragile Eternity on a “If you like Twilight, read this” display to someone other than the poor bookstore clerk, trapped by his meager wages and forced to listen to my faint gibberings.
Aislinn spends her life pretending she can't see the faeries, because if she ever lets them know she can see them, her life, and the life of her Gran, would likely end the next day. But even when she doesn't flinch when she sees them grab at her, doesn't run when she sees them following her, she can't help catching the eye of one very dangerous faery.
Alright, I’m about to spoil and spoil thoroughly, just so you know.
If the above paragraph sounds like the back cover of your standard teen paranormal romance ala Twilight with fair folk, and you, dear readers are wondering how Rose and I could have enjoyed it, anti-fans as we are, rest assured, I was dubious too. Technically speaking, Wicked Lovely is a faery romance in that there are faeries and it's a romance, and a very satisfying romance it is, too.
Marr sets readers up for an extremely unsatisfying ending, by making a handsome, powerful charismatic faery king (a good argument can even be made for him literally sparkling) and having him become obsessed with the heroine. I was all set to slog through the disheartening storyline of Aislinn fearing him but yet being strangely attracted to him, and running from him, him pursuing, and that pursuit, plus some heroic rescue usually also in some way making her seem incompetent and unable to care for herself (to stupid to live as the trope goes) held up by the text as proof he loves her, and then Aislinn overcoming her fear of what Keenan (our faery king) is because he convinces her, and she trusts him that much and then falling in love with him, hey everybody, happy ending, the end. Instead of inflicting that upon me, however, Marr deconstructs the trope in its entirety. Furthermore, the actions of the supernatural love interest and the human rival don't change. It's the heroine's actions and her assertion of her own agency.
Book: Being a faery isn’t that scary, now is it.
Aislinn: *looks over at Keenan* No it isn’t, but you still can’t touch this, hahahaha!
Fish: Preach it sister!
What I like almost as much as the fact that Aislinn doesn’t end up with Keenan, is that Keenan, whose behavior is actually relatively unobjectionable compared to many teen paranormal romance heroes *cough* Edward Cullen *cough*, gets called on his creepy stalking, both by Aislinn and by the text itself. She might be a little attracted to him, but when he pursues her, she runs, and she resents him, and she wants nothing to do with him. The fear Aislinn feels is real, and palpable, and not just some titillating set up to him overcoming her fear as in most teen paranormal romances. When her friends can’t understand why she fears him even as he goes too far over and over again, I knew what that felt like. When Seth offers her a safe place, I wanted to pinch his little cheeks.
While Wicked Lovely is a romance, the story isn’t about making love work against the odds, it’s about Aislinn’s struggle to keep her freedom and her selfhood in the face of Keenan’s assaults on both. Choosing Seth is symbolic of Aislinn holding on to what makes her Aislinn.
Leslie wants out. She wants out of her terrible home life, out of her fear, and out of her brother's grasp, but mostly she wants to claim a little of her own back. So when she sees a new and strangely compelling tattoo design, she decides to start by claiming her own skin. But the tattoo isn't just a tattoo, and instead of getting some of her own back, she might just lose it forever.
Emotionally, this is an incredibly difficult book to read. Right off the bat, the portrayals of Leslie's home life and her heavily implied (and later stated) rape at the hands of her brother's drug buddies, at her brother's behest, and her desperate waiting until she's old enough to get away to college set the signals that this is a very dark book. It doesn't get any easier either, because as soon as Leslie gets her coveted tattoo, Leslie, dragging the readers with her, is plunged headlong into the terrifying, and revolting world of a faery court. This isn't the Summer Court, readers became accustomed to in Wicked Lovely, with its many pitfalls but its general benevolence, or even the Winter Court under Donia's relatively congenial reign. This is the Dark Court where the faeries hunger for the fear, anger, and pain of humans and other faeries. Leslie becomes their king's human pet and main source of food.
I spent most of this book going “Oh my God, why are you still reading this?”
Fish: Eheheheh Dark, *shudder* I'll put you down now and back away slowly.
Book: You know you will finish me.
Fish: Now why would I do that, tricksome textual tormentor, I know your fiendish ways.
Book: Your own obsessive compulsive tendencies will force you to.
Fish: True, but I-
Book: And I will call to you all night long, and sing a sweet siren song into your dreams. by which I mean nightmares.
Fish: Well in that case...
Where Wicked Lovely was more amusing than powerful, Ink Exchange is decidedly the inverse of that. It wasn't just the topics it dealt with that made it so much darker, but also its themes. It's Leslie's tattoo, meant to be a way for her to reclaim her own self that becomes the way that Irial (The Dark Court king) claims her for his own. There's a sense of hopelessness to the book, that everything she does to get out of her hole just digs her in deeper. A strong theme of "be careful what you wish for” runs all the way through Ink Exchange, and I finished it in desperate need of pick me up happy reading. I retreated into happy Harry Potter fanfic for a while upon finishing.
This isn't to say Ink Exchange isn't well written. It is. It's just really depressing and you, dear readers, better be really happy when you start reading, or it will curdle the world around you. Like Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange is a story about keeping one's selfhood, but Leslie comes much closer to losing it, and things at the end aren't any better than when they began.
Seth is Aislinn’s rock, the strongest thread keeping her connected to the mortal world, and he's always aware that Keenan is just waiting for him to age and die to have the recalcitrant Summer Queen all to himself. But when Seth bargains away his mortality, will he lose the love of the one person he sold it for?
I couldn't wait for Fragile Eternity. More Aislinn! More Keenan! More Seth! More Donia!
Oh that's right, I didn't give Donia more than a passing mention above. Donia is another girl that Keenan stalked, only she fell in love with him hard and fast almost immediately. When she attempted to step up beside him as Summer Queen, she instead was turned into the Winter Girl, whose duty it was to warn away anyone else Keenan should set his cap to. Instead she helps the already leery Aislinn stand up to him and fight him on his own terms. Well, anyway after she is freed by Aislinn's becoming the Summer Queen, and the Winter Queen is defeated, Donia becomes the new Winter Queen. Then, as she loves Keenan still, as much as she fights him, and she's his equal, and he loves her, they got together. I felt stupidly happy.
However, all is not well between the two. As she settles into being Winter Queen and their purposes are less aligned than ever, Donia feels he's imposing too much on their friendship by wanting her to go easy on his court, and he thinks she's being just plain nasty. Also, he's still trying to get Aislinn in bed. Donia is a dalliance. Actually, I hate to say it, but while Keenan's a jerk, I'm with him on this. She didn't have to take out her fear and anger at Keenan on Aislinn and almost kill the poor girl. Still, she and Seth war in my heart for series favorite. She’s just so independent in love and so cool.
The real star of Fragile Eternity is Seth, Aislinn's human lover. Just as Aislinn fiercely wished to remain human and stay with Seth, so too does he wish to become faery to be with Aislinn. Unfortunately, Keenan was only letting her have Seth while he knew Seth would grow old, die, and cease to come between them. When Seth disappears to undergo the change from mortal to faery, he doesn’t tell her, and Keenan, who knows, chooses not to inform her. As he is gone for longer and longer, she give in to Keenan's advances, and Keenan leaves Donia for her. When Seth comes back, however, and Aislinn finds out Keenan deceived her... Well, I was happy that he was out with both Aislinn and Donia, but he wasn't.
Seth wants to hold onto his selfhood, but he's willing to risk giving it up to have Aislinn. It’s a skillful and very sweet gender flip of the standard paranormal romance. Besides, I was just happy that Keenan's machinations just ended with him without either woman he cared about.
I got to see a lot more of the Summer Girls in Fragile Eternity, and I liked what I saw. In Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange, the only view readers had of the faery girls was through the eyes of others, and others who didn't think much of them at that. Before, I was of the opinion that I would pick up the Winter Queen's staff not because I loved Keenan or wanted to be Summer Queen, but because being Winter Girl was better than being a Summer Girl. But Seth spends quite a bit of time with them, and I got to see them not as the interchangeable, pliant frivolous things Donia and Keenan see them as but as the distinct, sometimes willful, even sometimes sad former mortals trapped forever in the Summer Court. When some of them wanted to play with Seth and see him dance the night away with them under faery enchantment, others (one other) insisted it would be wrong, and freed him, but when he thanked her, she reminded him she let him dance with her first. Some of them cried when he became faery, only they truly cognizant of what he had given up. Not even they gave up what made them individuals.
The characterization at times felt weak, Donia's switch to violent undeserved cruelty, and Seth's compliance with the High Queen’s adoption and family building and the love he felt for her all felt too sudden and a bit forced, but Seth's journey and Keenan's manipulations of Aislinn were masterfully handled.
And this, the way it deconstructs and gender flips, and never glorifies creepy misogynistic behavior is why I feel odd seeing Marr's books compared to Stephanie Meyer's but also why I feel so good about the idea of a Twilight fan picking one up, reading it, and maybe learning a bit.
For some reason (possibly the inclusion of certain thematically unimportant but entertaining details) that made the whole series feel like really good fanfic, and no that isn't an insult. I like fanfic. I mean, come on, I write the stuff. Also, I would read Aislinn/Donia. Does this make me a bad person?
Melissa Marr can be found on Livejournal at melissa_writing.
And also I wanted to express my somewhat complicated thoughts on how I felt when I finally found Fragile Eternity on a “If you like Twilight, read this” display to someone other than the poor bookstore clerk, trapped by his meager wages and forced to listen to my faint gibberings.
Aislinn spends her life pretending she can't see the faeries, because if she ever lets them know she can see them, her life, and the life of her Gran, would likely end the next day. But even when she doesn't flinch when she sees them grab at her, doesn't run when she sees them following her, she can't help catching the eye of one very dangerous faery.
Alright, I’m about to spoil and spoil thoroughly, just so you know.
If the above paragraph sounds like the back cover of your standard teen paranormal romance ala Twilight with fair folk, and you, dear readers are wondering how Rose and I could have enjoyed it, anti-fans as we are, rest assured, I was dubious too. Technically speaking, Wicked Lovely is a faery romance in that there are faeries and it's a romance, and a very satisfying romance it is, too.
Marr sets readers up for an extremely unsatisfying ending, by making a handsome, powerful charismatic faery king (a good argument can even be made for him literally sparkling) and having him become obsessed with the heroine. I was all set to slog through the disheartening storyline of Aislinn fearing him but yet being strangely attracted to him, and running from him, him pursuing, and that pursuit, plus some heroic rescue usually also in some way making her seem incompetent and unable to care for herself (to stupid to live as the trope goes) held up by the text as proof he loves her, and then Aislinn overcoming her fear of what Keenan (our faery king) is because he convinces her, and she trusts him that much and then falling in love with him, hey everybody, happy ending, the end. Instead of inflicting that upon me, however, Marr deconstructs the trope in its entirety. Furthermore, the actions of the supernatural love interest and the human rival don't change. It's the heroine's actions and her assertion of her own agency.
Book: Being a faery isn’t that scary, now is it.
Aislinn: *looks over at Keenan* No it isn’t, but you still can’t touch this, hahahaha!
Fish: Preach it sister!
What I like almost as much as the fact that Aislinn doesn’t end up with Keenan, is that Keenan, whose behavior is actually relatively unobjectionable compared to many teen paranormal romance heroes *cough* Edward Cullen *cough*, gets called on his creepy stalking, both by Aislinn and by the text itself. She might be a little attracted to him, but when he pursues her, she runs, and she resents him, and she wants nothing to do with him. The fear Aislinn feels is real, and palpable, and not just some titillating set up to him overcoming her fear as in most teen paranormal romances. When her friends can’t understand why she fears him even as he goes too far over and over again, I knew what that felt like. When Seth offers her a safe place, I wanted to pinch his little cheeks.
While Wicked Lovely is a romance, the story isn’t about making love work against the odds, it’s about Aislinn’s struggle to keep her freedom and her selfhood in the face of Keenan’s assaults on both. Choosing Seth is symbolic of Aislinn holding on to what makes her Aislinn.
Leslie wants out. She wants out of her terrible home life, out of her fear, and out of her brother's grasp, but mostly she wants to claim a little of her own back. So when she sees a new and strangely compelling tattoo design, she decides to start by claiming her own skin. But the tattoo isn't just a tattoo, and instead of getting some of her own back, she might just lose it forever.
Emotionally, this is an incredibly difficult book to read. Right off the bat, the portrayals of Leslie's home life and her heavily implied (and later stated) rape at the hands of her brother's drug buddies, at her brother's behest, and her desperate waiting until she's old enough to get away to college set the signals that this is a very dark book. It doesn't get any easier either, because as soon as Leslie gets her coveted tattoo, Leslie, dragging the readers with her, is plunged headlong into the terrifying, and revolting world of a faery court. This isn't the Summer Court, readers became accustomed to in Wicked Lovely, with its many pitfalls but its general benevolence, or even the Winter Court under Donia's relatively congenial reign. This is the Dark Court where the faeries hunger for the fear, anger, and pain of humans and other faeries. Leslie becomes their king's human pet and main source of food.
I spent most of this book going “Oh my God, why are you still reading this?”
Fish: Eheheheh Dark, *shudder* I'll put you down now and back away slowly.
Book: You know you will finish me.
Fish: Now why would I do that, tricksome textual tormentor, I know your fiendish ways.
Book: Your own obsessive compulsive tendencies will force you to.
Fish: True, but I-
Book: And I will call to you all night long, and sing a sweet siren song into your dreams. by which I mean nightmares.
Fish: Well in that case...
Where Wicked Lovely was more amusing than powerful, Ink Exchange is decidedly the inverse of that. It wasn't just the topics it dealt with that made it so much darker, but also its themes. It's Leslie's tattoo, meant to be a way for her to reclaim her own self that becomes the way that Irial (The Dark Court king) claims her for his own. There's a sense of hopelessness to the book, that everything she does to get out of her hole just digs her in deeper. A strong theme of "be careful what you wish for” runs all the way through Ink Exchange, and I finished it in desperate need of pick me up happy reading. I retreated into happy Harry Potter fanfic for a while upon finishing.
This isn't to say Ink Exchange isn't well written. It is. It's just really depressing and you, dear readers, better be really happy when you start reading, or it will curdle the world around you. Like Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange is a story about keeping one's selfhood, but Leslie comes much closer to losing it, and things at the end aren't any better than when they began.
Seth is Aislinn’s rock, the strongest thread keeping her connected to the mortal world, and he's always aware that Keenan is just waiting for him to age and die to have the recalcitrant Summer Queen all to himself. But when Seth bargains away his mortality, will he lose the love of the one person he sold it for?
I couldn't wait for Fragile Eternity. More Aislinn! More Keenan! More Seth! More Donia!
Oh that's right, I didn't give Donia more than a passing mention above. Donia is another girl that Keenan stalked, only she fell in love with him hard and fast almost immediately. When she attempted to step up beside him as Summer Queen, she instead was turned into the Winter Girl, whose duty it was to warn away anyone else Keenan should set his cap to. Instead she helps the already leery Aislinn stand up to him and fight him on his own terms. Well, anyway after she is freed by Aislinn's becoming the Summer Queen, and the Winter Queen is defeated, Donia becomes the new Winter Queen. Then, as she loves Keenan still, as much as she fights him, and she's his equal, and he loves her, they got together. I felt stupidly happy.
However, all is not well between the two. As she settles into being Winter Queen and their purposes are less aligned than ever, Donia feels he's imposing too much on their friendship by wanting her to go easy on his court, and he thinks she's being just plain nasty. Also, he's still trying to get Aislinn in bed. Donia is a dalliance. Actually, I hate to say it, but while Keenan's a jerk, I'm with him on this. She didn't have to take out her fear and anger at Keenan on Aislinn and almost kill the poor girl. Still, she and Seth war in my heart for series favorite. She’s just so independent in love and so cool.
The real star of Fragile Eternity is Seth, Aislinn's human lover. Just as Aislinn fiercely wished to remain human and stay with Seth, so too does he wish to become faery to be with Aislinn. Unfortunately, Keenan was only letting her have Seth while he knew Seth would grow old, die, and cease to come between them. When Seth disappears to undergo the change from mortal to faery, he doesn’t tell her, and Keenan, who knows, chooses not to inform her. As he is gone for longer and longer, she give in to Keenan's advances, and Keenan leaves Donia for her. When Seth comes back, however, and Aislinn finds out Keenan deceived her... Well, I was happy that he was out with both Aislinn and Donia, but he wasn't.
Seth wants to hold onto his selfhood, but he's willing to risk giving it up to have Aislinn. It’s a skillful and very sweet gender flip of the standard paranormal romance. Besides, I was just happy that Keenan's machinations just ended with him without either woman he cared about.
I got to see a lot more of the Summer Girls in Fragile Eternity, and I liked what I saw. In Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange, the only view readers had of the faery girls was through the eyes of others, and others who didn't think much of them at that. Before, I was of the opinion that I would pick up the Winter Queen's staff not because I loved Keenan or wanted to be Summer Queen, but because being Winter Girl was better than being a Summer Girl. But Seth spends quite a bit of time with them, and I got to see them not as the interchangeable, pliant frivolous things Donia and Keenan see them as but as the distinct, sometimes willful, even sometimes sad former mortals trapped forever in the Summer Court. When some of them wanted to play with Seth and see him dance the night away with them under faery enchantment, others (one other) insisted it would be wrong, and freed him, but when he thanked her, she reminded him she let him dance with her first. Some of them cried when he became faery, only they truly cognizant of what he had given up. Not even they gave up what made them individuals.
The characterization at times felt weak, Donia's switch to violent undeserved cruelty, and Seth's compliance with the High Queen’s adoption and family building and the love he felt for her all felt too sudden and a bit forced, but Seth's journey and Keenan's manipulations of Aislinn were masterfully handled.
And this, the way it deconstructs and gender flips, and never glorifies creepy misogynistic behavior is why I feel odd seeing Marr's books compared to Stephanie Meyer's but also why I feel so good about the idea of a Twilight fan picking one up, reading it, and maybe learning a bit.
For some reason (possibly the inclusion of certain thematically unimportant but entertaining details) that made the whole series feel like really good fanfic, and no that isn't an insult. I like fanfic. I mean, come on, I write the stuff. Also, I would read Aislinn/Donia. Does this make me a bad person?
Melissa Marr can be found on Livejournal at melissa_writing.
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