Book Review: Lament: the Faerie Queen's Deception by Maggie Stiefvater

Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception draws the unsuspecting Deidre Monaghan into a world she didn't know existed.  When the gifted musician meets Luke, an extraordinary boy who seems to draw her out of her shell, she doesn't realize that he might have a darker interest in her.  As her visions of faeries and other strange creatures become more clear, she and her best friend James are drawn into a deadly fight against the Faerie Queen.

Things I Liked:

Oh, the faerie details in this book!  They are gorgeous.  You can tell Stiefvater spent plenty of time looking at celtic lore for her back story and mythology.  I loved the intricacies and depth involved in creating manyd different kinds of faeries and creatures.  Her writing can be quite gorgeous, particularly when describing music:

"The strings were still buttery-soft from the heat outside, and the acoustics of the stage made the harp sound twenty feet tall.  Luke chipped in and began to play, and the flute was low and breathy like his singing voice, full of expression and barely suppressed emotions.  Together, we sounded like an orchestra, albeit an ancient, untamed one, and when I began to sing, the auditorium became as still as a winter night." p23

Things I Didn't Like:

Occasionally the dialog sounded a little stiff and I wasn't exactly sure of the meaning because of an awkward turn of phrase.  There were also a few minor elements in the story that I thought didn't quite fit with the story - it's very difficult to explain, but sometimes they almost detracted from the rich details of the story.  These things were only very minor, though, because I found myself very caught up in the story.

Read-alikes:

Felt a lot like the Wicked Lovely books by Melissa Marr

It also reminded me of Need by Carrie Jones

Of course, it felt a little Twilight-esque too :)

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:

s-factor: !@

not many in number, but they were the big ones

mrg-factor: X

some crude humor and references

v-factor: ->->

a few violent incidences

Overall rating: ****

Do you suppose it is mostly the fame and hype of Twilight that make us compare everything to it, or a matter of which book we read first?

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