Review: Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception by Maggie Stiefvater

Excerpt from back cover:
"Don't you know what happens to Cloverhands who cannot control the fey?"
Summary:
"On the day of an important music competition, talented but painfully introverted and nervous Deirdre Monaghan is helped to perfrom by the compelling and enigmatic Luke Dillon and find herself inexorably drawn into the mysteries and dangers of the faerie world."

This book, though it has its flaws, has been stuck in my mind since I read it couple weeks ago. Its sequel, Ballad, doesn't come out until the fall of 2009 and I find myself anxiously awaiting it. I'll start with the negatives about this book because I feel like they must be addressed as they might be distracting to the reader. The romantic plot line between Deirdre and Luke is very immuture and sudden at the onset of the novel. Luke and Deirdre meet and are immediately spending time together and expressing intrest to the extent of love. While this may work with characters that have a history or knowledge of one another, these two have just met at the beginning of the book and are Deirdre is already spending a lot of time alone with him. I find this odd and it was a bit of a distraction. I did get over it pretty quickly though because of their great chemistry together and I soon found myself rooting for their sudden relationship. I attributed Deirdre's easily given trust and affect to the fact that she is an introverted person who doesn't have a lot of experience with dating... even though she does seem pretty outgoing for someone who is supposed to be so shy.
Now on to the positives. The fey in this book are intriguing. I found myself eager to learn more about their world and why they were so interested in Deirdre's family. I also really enjoyed reading about Deirdre's best friend, James. He was a really funny character that was easy to become attached to and I found myself torn about the status of his character throughout the book.

I rate this book 9 out of 10 because the negatives are easily overlooked when one considers all the positives!