But the trolls are sniveling baddies who are too cartoonish to serve as genuine villains, and the Human characters are as flat as warm soda. The fairies were interesting as their mythology and mystique retained my interest. In fact, that was a big problem for me, story-wise, with this series: the promise of a magical world yet minus the focus on magic. Yuki inspires dread because she is a Winter faerie, which adds some much-needed tension, but again, I wanted to see more regarding her use of magic.
I actually felt sorrier for Yuki who ends up being a pawn in the antagonist’s schemes. I cared about her (meaning I didn’t want her to get locked inside a burning building) but there was very little in terms of connecting to her on a deeper emotional level. Likewise, aside from her faerie heritage, she is a bit colorless as a person. Laurel is a passable heroine and her potion-making abilities are neat but they could have been utilized more. Overall, this mythology is fairly solid though I wanted the story to spend a little more time in Avalon since the caste structure is the most intriguing aspect of the series.Ĭharacter-wise though, the series falters.
Faeries in the Wings world also are not your Tinkerbell-types and are actually more akin to plants as they lack internal organs and blood, possess plant cells, sprout flightless blossoms on their backs (instead of wings), and reproduce through pollination. To be fair, Pike does present an interesting interpretation of fairy mythology by linking fairy magic to the four seasons, which also serve as names of the faerie castes. But, like most books that sound good and look good, they turn out to just be mediocre. Not to mention the covers are gorgeous, especially for the first book Wings. Other than fairy tales, which often times don’t feature fairies, I really haven’t read many fairy-based books. The series, thus, follows Laurel’s struggles to decide where she belongs – the Human world she has always known or Avalon, her birth home. In fact, she’s not even Human she’s a faerie who has been orphaned in the Human world to protect the gateway to Avalon, the faerie realm. But when the lump bursts open to reveal majestic flower petals, Laurel realizes she’s more than Human. The Wings series (which consists of four books – Wings, Spells, Illusions, and Destined), by Aprilynne Pike, tells the story of Laurel, a seemingly regular teen whose life is hum-drum until she discovers a lump in the middle of her back that grows faster and larger than your average pimple.
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