Hey hey!

It's been a loooong time, but we haven’t had the time. Sorry! We’ve been really busy with school crap, but don’t worry: we’re back! In a couple of weeks we’ll disappear again because of school (I know, lame!) but we’ll back again so calm down a bit :)

Today it is Rute writing! So bear with it…

There’s been a lot of commotion around supernatural these days and a topic that I was really curious to read about was Fairies. Yes fairies! Those little twinkling, magical creatures! And one interesting fact that I found out is that fairy related books have their clichés too! Fairies are not those cute, tiny and sparkling little beings that laugh all the time and like to sleep in the flowers like Disney told us! They are actually cold, mischievous and tremendously beautiful! If you go to FAIRYLAND and accept something that they give to you, you’re in a seriously lot of trouble. How convenient…

So today I’m going to present to you two books about fairies that I read recently and I’m going to counterweight them:

Ladies and gentleman we have:

THE IRON KING, from Julie Kagawa         VS          WINGS, from Aprilynne Pike

I mean, the books have totally different stories and I’m sorry if I have offended anyone by comparing those two. But I’m going to compare them anyway since they are both about fairies (the topic of this review :)) and  they’re the only ones only about fairies that I read (up 'till now). One of the books will receive a happy smiley face :) and the other will receive a sad face  :( .

First of all, what’s similar?

There’s a love triangle in both: one of the guys is the main “Love” and the other is the cute one or the funny one or the lovable and sweet one (NOTE FROM KARLA: AKA, the poor, normal guy who will end alone. Again) . In both the main characters are full or half fairy: in “The iron king” she’s only half and in “Wings” she’s a full fairy (ok it’s weird to say full fairy but it’s so that you guys understand it :) Ain’t I sweet?). In both they are blondes. Oh, and  both books use known characters from literature.

What’s different?

In “The iron king” the guys are fairies, both of them! And they have… hundreds of years? I’m not sure. In the beginning the main character is a normal teenage girl going to high school.

TIK Love triangle (ignore the faces and the weird ears)

In “Wings” one of them is a fairy and the other one is a human.

W Love triangle

The story

Basically, both stories talk about the main characters discovering that they are, in fact, Magical!

In “Wings” the story starts with the moving of the main character, Laurel, to a new city where she meets one of the love triangle guys, Daniel (he’s the human). Then, some petals/wings start growing from her back and she doesn’t know what’s going on. Later on, she asks Daniel to check what those petals/wings are and she finds out that she’s not human: she’s actually a plant. She goes search for answers in the house she lived in (before moving) and there she meets Tamani (the second guy and also a fairy). He tells her that she’s a fairy send to human world to keep save her property because her house (not the house but more like her backyard) hides the passage to Avalon (the name of FAIRYLAND) and the ogres are trying to buy the property to attack Avalon.

In “The iron king” the story starts with the main characters’ brother being kidnapped and replaced by a changeling. Meghan (the main character) then finds out that her only friend, Robbie, is actually Puck, a fairy, from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. She parts to Nevernever (in FAIRYLAND) where she is attacked a lot of times (SPOILER ALERT: she’s also attacked by the second love triangle guy, the cold badass Ash from the Wintercourt) and she somehow manages to get to the Summer Court with the help of a cat, Grimalkin (since Robbie/Puck, in the middle of a dogs attack, disappears). There, she meets Oberon, the king (also from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and asks his help to find her brother. Surprise surprise, she discovers that she’s Oberon’s daughter, and so, a half fairy. The book has a lot of action and lot of things that happen (like a LOT!) and so, to not ruin the story, I’m only going to do a really brief summary (Beware: who doesn’t want to know the story, don’t read the spoilers!):

-She meets Ash in a party of “reconciliation” between the Summer and the Winter courts. The summer court gets attacked in that party. The courts start to hate each other again. Meghan is able to escape. She parts to find her brother. A lot of adventurous things happen and they find out the existence of an Iron court (iron is fatal to fairies and Fairyland is dying because of the technology advance). Her brother is in the Iron court. The journey goes on with Meghan, Ash and Puck (Puck somewhere in the middle gets hurt and isn’t able to go to the iron court).- End of spoiler

The relationships

In “Wings” I didn’t like the love/attraction at first sight (ok not for his part) between Tamani and Laurel since it was not realistic. Laurel and Daniel relationship was that normal teenage bond typical of high school (at least it reminded me of that :) ).

In “The iron king” Meghan and Ash’s attraction was kind of at first sight too and I think that it could have developed in a different way: it gave me the impression that at the end of the book they were already madly in love).

Puck and Meghan, well, their lovey dovey releashionship was not very developed and I thought he was so cool! Oh well, what are you gonna do right?!

Final thoughts

So, I didn’t like “Wings”. I didn’t. I tried to read it faster but it was a bit boring and the action and adventure to protect the portal, in my opinion, were kind of forced. King Arthur was transformed  in fairy (ok, he was not literally transfomed, he was just a non-human fairy in the fairy history :)) in this book, but there wasn’t an explanation for it and this wasn’t very well availed. There were just a bunch of famous characters’ names. So, with my sincere apologies to all who liked the book, I will give a sad face to this one. I don’t know if I’ll read the continuation “Spells”… Only time will tell :)

“The iron king” will receive a happy face since I like books with a lot of adventure and in this one there’s a lot of stuff happening! There were some predictable outcomes but they were well developed. There was only the fact that her family and school were left behind just like that... but I understand that that would take a lot of space and time explaining… And it’s boring anyway :D

I recommend “The iron king” and i'll definitly read the continuation: "The iron daughter" and the following one "The iron queen"! Here we have a happy face!

Bye, see ya soon! (Sorry the sudden goodbye but I’m sick of writing :) )

Rute, Golden Flamingos