Review: Wings by Aprilynne Pike

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm participating in Utah Author Month.  In the book club I participated in this past school year, we read novels by local authors, which helps me to jump right in and share Wings by Aprilynne Pike!

Synopsis:  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."

Review:  Before I read Wings, a small group of students in my Popular Fiction class read it in a reader's circle.  The girls thought it was a strange concept, for a girl to have the same cellular structure as a plant, and couldn't completely get over the odd facts about Laurel's life.  For instance, she was really only able to eat peach nectar and had the giant flower petals growing out of her back.  With that preface, I was a little nervous about my own response, but I can say that my own wasn't too far off.  The idea is original and pretty creative, to have a fairy be made of plant cells, and her wings really be the petals of a flower.  The creatures, therefore, are also interesting as we learn about Laurel's past and how she came to be with a human family.  My guess is that the second book might take off with a lot more action that the first book had to set up.  We find out that the faeries' land is being threatened by people who want to buy it, and other not so nice magical creatures that also come in to play.  The set up from this first book, as odd as it felt, might be leading to some more exciting story twists for Laurel and her new (and old) friends.

*FTC Disclosure:  Review is based on a personal copy of the novel.