Leslie Grady's Reviews > Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception

** spoiler alert ** I don't think that I will ever read anything by Stiefvater again. I will use a quote from her book to illustrate my point:

"We sat arm to arm, staring at the same grubby plastic menu, like we were a normal couple, not a telekinetic freak and a soulless fairie assassin. I let my imagination run wild with the idea of dating - Luke an ordinary teenage boy, me an ordinary girl. We'd eat the same old barbecue sandwiches we always got, then he'd pull me out of the booth by my hand and we'd go out to his car. He'd let me drive because he knew I liked to, and we'd do things normal couples did when they dated. We'd go to the Smithsonian and try to interpret modern art. We'd go to the movies and watch stupid action flicks and laugh at the melodramatic lines. We'd go hiking at the state park and watch summer disappear over the horizon; I'd lose my virginity while the trees shed their leaves all around us. When winter came, he'd hold my frozen hands and tell me how much he loved me, and that he'd never leave me."

Okay...now reader of that insanely long quote, can you imagine what I would take issue with? HOLY COW! The part where she freaking is talking about losing her virginity! Stiefvater is one incredibly irresponsible YA writer. This is a book about a 16 year old girl written for 16 year old girls and she flippantly throws that in there. You know, go to the museum, go to the movies, and have sex with your teenage boyfriend--I guess seeing "trees shed their leaves" makes girls want to shed their clothes. Awesome. That's what we need all teenagers doing. Why didn't she just add getting pregnant and dropping out of high school to the list? She could have just as easily said "Have my first kiss under the moonlight" or something to keep it a little, oh I don't know, more child friendly, but if that didn't turn me off to this book, there's more (well, when I say there's more, I mean I have more criticism, not that the book has any depth).

Okay, so in this installment of YA lit we have a shy girl who has never dated meets mysterious older and gorgeous guy and he is instantly fascinated with her. He hints that he has some super dark secret and that he just can't keep himself from her, and despite many red flags (the fact that she can read his mind and see his memories and oh WAIT...he's not only a murderer, he's an assassin) she finds herself falling in love with him only to discover that his dark secret is going to keep them apart in the end. But wait! Love overcomes all obstacles and together they fight the evil forces keeping them apart and are at last, together.

First, I am going to give the author a pass on the super-trite story line because you can't expect much more out of YA authors. Here's where I get annoyed: Deirdre knows he's an assassin and is at first disturbed by this fact, but then it is like it never happened (because he is just so good looking, I guess). At least Edward Cullen was killing the rapists and murders of the world like some vigilante; Luke is just killing.

But you didn't tell the rest of the story! He HAS to kill them because some fairie queen is keeping his soul captive as a dove and tortures it when he disobeys her orders. Oh of course...the whole, my sin doesn't count because I was ordered to do it defense. Here's where that logic fails: he kills to keep the queen happy and because he doesn't want to be tortured, but all of a sudden he falls for his "mark" and now he can't kill her no matter the pain that will result? Well, I'm sorry, but if you can't kill now, you didn't have to kill then, and you should have been man enough to take the beating.

There is so much more to say, but I think you get the point: I didn't like the book.

I seriously don't know why I bought this book...I am trying to remember buying it on my Kindle and I don't remember it. Maybe the fairies made me do it?

Anyway, please save yourself the money and just don't.

Awful, simply awful.

And no, I won't be reading the rest of the series.