AUTHOR: Aprilynne Pike
PAGES: 294
WEBSITE: http://www.aprilynnepike.com/
TWITTER: @AprilynnePike
ACQUIRED: Library
SUMMARY: In Orick, a small town of roughly five-hundred people, Laurel in content with her simple life living in the small home on the land that has been in her mothers family for generations. Under her parents guidance Laurel has lead a private, home schooled, doctor free life. Due to her parents "hippy" lifestyle, Laurel has never been to school and she never has been to a doctor. Her mother makes her own medicine and neither parents trusts doctors. At three Laurel was actually left in a basket on her now parents doorstep. The only time Laurel saw a doctor was to help finalize the adoption.
When her father dreams come true of owning a bookstore the family moves to Crescent City. This is where Laurels life turns upside down. At fifteen, her parents feel it is in her best interest to join public school. Although she finds it constricting being inside all day, she manages to make friends with a boy named David.
Laurel adjusts and becomes a typical teenage girl, until one morning she wakes up with flower petals growing out of her back, which turn into a huge blossom. She hides her secret from her parents and seeks the help of David to find out what is happening to her. She chooses to bind her "wings" down and hopes they will eventually go away.
Her parents decide to sell the land in Orick when a sudden large offer is made. Returning to the land to clean it up for the sell, Laurel wonders off down by the stream, she unwraps her blossom and suddenly a young man appears. He introduces himself as Tamani and claims he is a faerie, not only that, but also that Laurel is a faerie. He explains that Laurel is a Changeling and that the land her mother owns contains the gateway to the faerie world. He tells her the myths and facts about the faerie world. And how important her part is in keeping the faeries safe.
When Laurel tries to convince her parents not to sell the land her father falls ill. Mr. Barnes shows up at the hospital for Laurels mother to sign the papers, after failed attempts through Laurel to get messages to her. Laurel senses something is not quit right with this Mr. Barnes, so her and David decide to investigate. Their snooping leads them to near death at the hands of trolls. And they must seek the help of the faeries.
The most important thing is to keep the land in her family and the faeries safe. But along the way Laurel finds herself having to choose between her love of David and the world she has always known, or her love for Tamani and a world she is just discovering.
OPINION: I liked this book a lot. I thought it took a great spin on "faerie tales." How could you not like a book containing faeries and trolls? I loved how faeries are betrayed as flowers and how us "humans" have been getting the stories wrong. I found it hard to believe Laurel wouldn't tell her parents about her wings/petals and kept attending school; but who knows how you would react to waking up with "wings." I found the book very entertaining and intriguing, full of danger and mystery and a dash of sweet romance.
Wings is set to become a motion picture starring Miley Cyrus.
