This is the companion book (sort of a sequel) to Wicked Lovely, which I reviewed here. Melissa Marr, I think, won some sort of RWA award for Wicked Lovely; I enjoyed the book quite a bit, as my review showed. There’s a third book, an actual sequel to WL, that has been finished and might come out in the next year and a half; she’s also got a manga series about an earlier Summer Girl due at some point. Other than that, about her I know from her website that she loves tiramisu, beef stew, calla lilies, acoustic music, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (which, incidentally, I loathe), and tattoos.

Leslie, Aislinn’s good friend, hasn’t exactly had an easy time of it. Her mother left, her father retired and became a drunk, and her brother became a drug dealer — one who certainly doesn’t have his sister’s best interests at heart. She’s also been sexually assaulted (fortunately off-screen) in the recent past. At the moment, all she would like is to reclaim her life and get out of town. She’s applied for a lot of colleges and scholarships, but her main goal in the short-term is to get a tattoo. She’s found the tattoo parlor and the tattoo artist and eventually, she does find the right tattoo. Unfortunately, that tattoo comes with — let’s say, some interesting connections. Is she strong enough to survive them?

Ultimately — and a few passages towards the end make this clear — the book is about choices and balance. Leslie’s been a little limited in her choices — limited in so many ways to the choices that are made for her — and craves someone to make it all better. Unfortunately, as most people know, this isn’t generally possible. The book is also about how the choices of Aislinn and Niall and Irial (the Dark Court’s king) are affecting them, as well as impacting Leslie’s life. Eventually, it comes down to a handful of ultimate choices — of course I’m not going to tell you about it, but those choices can determine the eventual fate of several different faery courts.

There’s not a lot of action in this book. Well, I guess there’s some unrest among the faery courts since the rebalancing (in book 1), but when it comes down to it, it’s a lot of threats and very little violence. While there’s a good deal of discussion and a moderate amount of politics, overall it’s a book where nearly nothing happens. It really does resemble a book 2 in a trilogy, in a lot of ways, but I don’t know how many books Ms. Marr has planned. There are a lot of truths in this book, and it’s a very good emotional portrait of an abuse survivor. It does even give a good idea as to why someone might choose to get a tattoo. I’ve heard there are two basic reasons: adornment and symbolism. Leslie’s story is, of course, about symbolism.

I’m not really sure if I liked this book. It was kind of hard to read; I could watch Leslie sinking further and further into a situation where she had no control, and I sometimes despaired at her ability to get out of it. The ending wasn’t terribly satisfying; I assume we might get a tad more resolution on Leslie and her life in future volumes. There wasn’t really a love story the way there was in the first volume; it was more a story of obsession and need, and very little resolution. That having been said, I’m glad I read it; I just don’t know who to recommend it to. Older teens, certainly; probably not abuse or addiction survivors, as it may be triggering; those who enjoyed the first book will find this one fairly different in tone, although not so much in conclusion. I guess one just must be in the right mind. 4/5 stars.