I'll admit that I was super excited to read this book just because of all of the hype that has been surrounding this author lately. This fit in perfectly with the Once Upon A Time IV Challenge so I picked it up at the library. I'm really glad I did since this was a good read and an author that I'll certainly read more of.
Deirdre is a talented musician who meets a mysterious boy named Luke at a music recital. From the beginning, Luke is very elusive and seems to know things about Deirdre that she really doesn't know about herself. Because Deirdre is starting to see things that only she can see and all of these new unknowns in her life seem to point to Luke. I really liked the premise of the novel as Deirdre is a Cloverhand which basically means that she can see faeries. Except that she never knew before now that she has this talent and it also means that she is in danger because not all faeries are good or want to be seen. I'm probably one of the few that hasn't read a lot of books about faeries (in fact, the only one that I can think of that I've read was Wicked Lovely) so this was a refreshing read for me. Luke and Deirdre are interested in each other although many of Luke's motives and thoughts aren't shared as to keep the reader in the dark about him. This made me a bit leery of their growing relationship..in fact, I was much more a fan of Deirdre's best friend James. James was a great secondary character in my opinion whom I wanted to play a more important role than he did. He just clicked for me where Luke didn't. The conflict between Deirdre and the faerie Queen was interesting although it took me awhile to understand the relationship between the Queen and Luke. And the ending was good for me but not what I was expecting. It left things open a bit for another book which I *believe* there already is. All in all, I ended up liking this book and the characters in it. And while I had a few problems with it (mainly not being drawn into it right away) I'm planning on picking up the sequel to this one as soon as possible. I'm interested to see where Stiefvater goes with this story and the characters within.
Final Thoughts: An author that I want to read more of and a refreshing read!
Disclosure: I got this one from the library as usual :)
*I read this book for the following challenges:
New Author Challenge
Once Upon a Time IV Challenge
100+ Reading Challenge
YA Reading Challenge
Support Your Library Reading Challenge
Fantasy Reading Challenge
I so enjoy a "fresh" read when it comes to faeries...now if someone would do that with the vampires!!
ReplyDeleteRight or wrong, I'm very standoffish when it comes to faeries. I have tons of faery books lying around and I'm iffy about jumping into them. Stiefvater might make me try, though. Also thinking of reading Melissa Marr's series.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Staci. It's good to hear about a paranormal YA novel that doesn't fit the usual mold. :=) I did like Shiver by this author.
ReplyDeleteStaci- I feel like I should qualify this by saying that I don't read a lot of books with faeries in them. So this was fresh to me but I don't know if everyone else will feel similarily. And I agree with the vampires being a bit overdone.
ReplyDeleteAndi- I've read both authors now and enjoyed both of their books. In fact, I thinking about picking up Marr's next book sooner rather than later. Hope you enjoy them as well.
Stephanie- I haven't read a lot of paranormal YA but they are all the rage right now. I'm really excited to read Shiver after reading this..in fact I have a copy thanks to you and your lovely blog :)
I thought about reading this before I read Shiver and Linger. She sounds like a talented author!
ReplyDeleteLadytink- She is definitely an author to be on the looout for. Let me know if you give any of her boos a try :)
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