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Over the years I'd heard of this book and seen its beautiful cover many, many times. I never felt the urge to read it because, quite frankly, faeries didn't interest me and the idea of the story in general seemed typical. Urban fantasy also often tends to rub me the wrong way.Then I read an interview in which Stephenie Meyer spoke badly of it. Here's the quote:"City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare (and the sequel, City of Ashes which doesn't come out until March--make friends with booksellers! They share advanced reading copies!). I am totally intrigued with this series, at the same time there is one particular issue that messes with me. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't specify. It's not BAD, just really, really uncomfortable. I thought she'd put it to bed in book one, but then it was there stronger than ever in book two. I think she's going to try to resolve it in book three, but HOW? HOW CASSANDRA?? (Ha ha, sorry). I need to find a City of Bones forum to vent! The thing that really gets me about City of Bones is that it is about 200 times better than Wicked Lovely, but Wicked Lovely is the one that gets all the accolades and the prominent shelving in the bookstores. Yes, WL has a wickedly lovely cover, but just go google the City of Bones cover. OH. MY."Now first of all City of Bones is awful. Downright ridiculous and some of the worst, most self-indulgent writing I've seen in years. I won't say more on that series, if you want my full thoughts you can read my review on City of Bones. What I do want to note is Meyer's ridiculous statement on it being better than Wicked Lovely and her implication that a lot of Wicked Lovely's attention is due to a pretty cover. What, pray tell, do you think got people to read YOUR books? It honest to God wasn't well-developed characters or an interesting plot.So since I detested Meyer's books and felt curious, especially after reading City of Bones, about what Wicked Lovely was like considering she disliked it so much, I went and got it from the library. Honestly, I wish I had enough money to just buy the book, the entire series, right now.Marr's plot and characters are fantastic, gripping, and intensely exciting. It has romance without it getting cheesy and fluffy. It has characters that are three-dimensional. While I didn't know much about Aislinn as far as her hobbies and interests went, I enjoyed seeing her deal with the problem of the faeries who were now paying far too much attention to her. Seth is a nice change from the typical romantic interest- he's sweet, he's calm, he's understanding, he's the nice guy that finishes first. In most YA I've read in the past, Keenan would have been the love interest, Seth would've been that friend that always loved Aislinn but she never realized it and never really took into consideration how he felt about anything ever. Keenan is hot, Keenan has money and power, Keenan wants her to be his, but the beauty of it all is that *she* does not want Keenan. She loves Seth, and as far as we know in the story, that's final.The tragedy behind the stories of the Winter Girls, specifically Donia, is extremely interesting as well. How horrible, that you should think you love a man so deeply only to be forced to later watch him woo another new girl time and time again. Not only that, but physically touching each other at all is a problem. I would hate to be in Donia's shoes, considering it was clear she still truly loved Keenan.I think that for those of you that are tired of the cliche fantasy/romance formulas, Wicked Lovely will be an extremely refreshing read.My only complaint is simply that Marr's writing needs to improve. I mean simple word choices and sentences structures, not her plots or her character development. Now and then she chooses a set of words that makes a sentence far more complicated than it needs to be, so she needs to simplify a bit. Otherwise, the book is fantastic. I'm currently reading the sequel, I'm nearly done in fact, and I already love it. I think I'm a permanent fan of Marr's from here on out.