Book Review: Wings

TITLE: Wings
Book 1 in the Wings series
AUTHOR: Aprillynne Pike
PUBLISHED: 2009
CATEGORY: Young adult (though I say it's more middle-grade in tone)
GENRE: faeries, fantasy, romance, drama
SHORT PREMISE: A girl discovers she's a faerie.
MY REVIEW: First, I want to apologize for my absence this past week. I was really sick and that ate into reading time. But I'm back to normal (well, normal for me) and sadly have to start off with a review of a book I hated. First I do realize I am not the target audience for Wings. It is very obviously meant to be a clean cut book for tweens to read and okay that's fine because I understand that tweens need books too. However, were I a tween in this day and age I would probably be insulted that you would think I would buy any of the stuff in this book. I also recognize and do appreciate the fact that the author was trying something new with the faerie mythology. However, that something new she tried made absolutely NO SENSE.
The big problem with this book (other then the rampant case of stupid going on) was that the characters were dull and not developed at all. Laurel was a HUGE Mary Sue (she and Bella Swan could seriously compete for the Mary Sue Olympics). It is no accident that Miley Cyrus has been tapped to play her in the movie. The character is naturally gifted, somehow manages to know things right away, and never gets called out on stuff like oh say the fact that she's dating a human boy but flirting with a faerie boy at the same time (in fact once she flirted with the faerie while said boy waited for her in the car! Not cool). Then she wonders why faerie boy has developed a crush on her in the end. Gee, let me think...All the other characters are two-dimensional and basically exist to tell Laurel how amazing she is (I'm serious, all of them tell her she's special at one point or other in the book). The other reason a Disney Channel star has been set for this movie (is she still considered one? Not sure what's going on there to be honest) is this book is very...wholesome I guess you could call it. It apparently exists in the same magical world as High School Musical/Camp Rock where there's no drugs/swearing/peer pressure and teenagers don't think about sex at all. Which again, I'm aware this is aimed at tweens, but even tweens would be raising an eyebrow at a girl wanting to be homeschooled or choosing strawberries instead of candy (and thinking that's better!). The unsubtle agenda in this book was annoying.
Then it all just boils down to the plot being dull and predictable as all get out and just small details not making any sense. For instance due to apparently being a venus flytrap or some such ridiculousness Laurel has no heartbeat or blood. Um...I'm sorry but in fifteen years NO ONE NOTICED THIS? This girl was supposed to be smart I thought? Also her parents get the dumb parents of YA award for sure. They never once question why their kid wouldn't eat food? Um, I don't care if you're morally against doctors that's kind of a red flag that something's up. Also in this day and age they didn't get health insurance even though they own a business and have a kid? Like I said, it's stuff like this that makes this book just dumb.
Like I said, I'm not the target audience. But I like to think that the target audience would be intelligent enough to know this book is bad. If you are still curious about this book then I'd check it out from the library. Don't waste your money on it. Thankfully this looks to be like the last bad review I'll have to do for awhile because it's mostly awesome books from here on out including Mercy Thompson 4, Vampire Academy 6, Evernight 4, and Red Glove! Books like those make up for books like this.
WHO SHOULD READ: No one. This book is an insult to people's intelligence. Only read if you really want to.
MY RATING: One out of Five fairy wings