Book Review: Handcuffs by Bethany Griffin

Summer's here! That means YAYA is kicking off a summertime book club and study. We're starting with a little plug for our own Bethany Griffin, whose novel, Handcuffs recently came out with Delacorte. This review was originally featured at Gracetopia. Grace is, as well as my Facebook wife, a good friend and fellow writer.

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She runs out of the room crying.
Let me start over.
My mom runs out of the room crying.
Um, let me start over.

Bethany Griffin’s debut novel, Handcuffs, follows the story of Parker Prescott, an “ice princess” with problems. Her parents are unemployed and about to lose their house, the local high school blogger is spreading rumors that she’s a whore, her sister’s marriage is falling apart right on top of her, and–oh yeah–her ex-boyfriend came over and there was that incident with the handcuffs.

This ain’t Sweet Valley High, folks.

Griffin’s writing is taut and quick, moving through this high-school hell at breakneck speed as Parker tries to fix her life. I could not put the book down–it totally stole an entire Saturday from me.

While the plot is a good one—fast-paced, twisty—it was really the characters that grabbed hold and wouldn’t let me leave. They are exquisitely drawn, fresh and real. I loved Parker, and I was definitely rooting for her very early on. And I may have occasionally said “no! no! Parker don’t!” aloud to the book. Yes, that may have happened. Parker and her problems are easy to relate to–her everyday problems as well as her extraordinary ones. And the ex, ohhhh the ex. He’s mysterious and dangerous… and nameless. Throughout the book he is referred to only as “him” or “my ex-boyfriend” and so on. A cute gimmick? I don’t think so. It focuses the story on Parker. It’s Parker’s feelings for the boy that are important, not necessarily the boy himself. An interesting literary choice on Griffin’s part, and I think a good one.

So overall, I enjoyed this book immensely and I highly recommend it for the YA reader in your life.

Disclaimer: I do happen to know Bethany, she is awesomesauce, but I didn’t let that influence the writing of the review; please don’t let it influence your reading of it.

Wicked Lovely is Charming Fun

I picked up WICKED LOVELY as a result of one thing—the title. It is, in my opinion, one of the best titles I’ve ever seen, right up there with A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY and WILDWOOD DANCING. It puts it in the elite collection of books I plucked off the shelf with absolutely no thought of plot or characters or genre.

Fortunately, the rest of the book did not disappoint. Marr creates a believable world full of vivid creatures, re-exploring the fey in an entirely fresh way. Her characters are highly engaging, particularly Aislinn, Seth, and Keenan. Aislinn and Seth both live in a world far outside the high school norm and neither are clinging desperately at the fringes of society—they’re happy to be different, which is a refreshing change from clique books. (Although, to be fair, Aislinn does seem to resent her Faery Sight.)

WICKED LOVELY is sure to charm readers—I know I’ll be looking forward to INK EXCHANGE!

Wicked Lovely rocked my face

Wicked Lovely made me start a new rule for myself: I will not start books just before I go to bed. I planned on reading a couple chapters and going to sleep, but it became “Marathon reading session until I finished the book at three in the morning.” In spite of my best attempts at willpower, I couldn’t stop myself from turning the page.

Reading this book forced me to suspend all the adorable notions of fairies I had from childhood stories and step into a much darker concept of a fairy world, lying alongside and wrecking havoc in our world. The very first scene threw me off balance, in a way that made me want to know more. Getting sucked into the story is easy, thanks to a realistic “real world” portrayal and amazing characters. I found myself sympathizing with Aislinn while being unbelievably intrigued (and disgusted) by Kennan. And Aislinn’s friend-but-maybe-more Seth…well, if Seth is real, I hope he lives in my town.

Knowing very little about the actual folklore of fairies (except what Sophie has written on this blog) I wasn’t able to compare the courts of the novel with traditional fairy lore. Even without all this background, there was a strong feeling of history in the reading. I really felt like I was watching a battle that had gone on for centuries.

So if you only like lovely stories of mischievous but still cute little sprites, I would not recommend Wicked Lovely. But if you have any sort of love of non-traditional fantasy with wonderful characters and a plot that gets thicker and better with each page, go grab a copy. Just don’t start it at nine PM.

Wicked Lovely is Wicked Awesome

It wasn’t long after Wicked Lovely was released in June 2007 that I started hearing news about it. It was displayed in the front of most bookstores, and websites had it featured on their front pages. I didn’t know anyone who’d read it, but it seemed like the rest of the world had. So, recently, I decided to check it out myself. And I’m glad I did.

Honestly, I don’t usually read about fairies, so I was a little skeptical at first. Most fairy books I’d heard of focused on little happy creatures with wings who played with butterflies or rode on ladybugs. Nice, sure, and great for some people, but they just weren’t my thing. Even the “dark” fairies just tended to be pixies, who would knock over the sugar jar or something like that. Minor things that, to me, just weren’t any cause for alarm or worry. But as soon as I started Wicked Lovely, I knew it wasn’t going to be one of those Disney-esque fairytales.

The mood was set right from the start with an amazing prologue that was enticing and delightfully perplexing and made me have to read on, just to find out what’s going to happen on the next page. And not once was I disappointed as I turned each page and read the story of Aislinn, Keenan, Seth, and the Winter and Summer Courts.

Melissa Marr did an amazing job of making traditional fairies her own while keeping with many folkloric customs and showing that not all fairies live in sunflowers and smile all day. At times I almost felt as if I was there, with Aislinn and the others, learning more and trying to decide what was right and wrong and good and bad and if those terms could even be applied to the new world I’d been thrown into.

The fey in Wicked Lovely are not the personality-lite happy-go-lucky sort that many would remember from their childhoods. They have motives, and secrets, and pasts, and futures. They’re almost human, save for the magic and immortality of course. It was refreshing, and eerie, to read of fairies portrayed in a fashion that could very well be plausible, making this one of few fairy-stories where I’ve felt it could truly be real.

I haven’t gone into much detail about the actual story here—this is more an introduction of Melissa Marr’s work then a full review of the text itself—but my fellow YAYAs will follow with their own thoughts and feelings on this novel that, to me, has to be one of the best fairytales around and one of the best YA books of 2007.

If I were actually certified to give some kind of ranking on books, Wicked Lovely would get five out of five stars (or maybe sunbursts), without question.