Review: Desert Tales (Sanctuary)

Let me start by saying that I am fan of Melissa Marr's books. She is really talented and boy, can she tell a story. So the moment I saw this in the bookstore, in my most girlish high-pitched voice, I screamed, "Ah! Melissa Marr!". That earned me alarmed looks from the nerds at the manga section. I ignored them. Immediately, I searched for the rest of the Desert Tales series. I even pulled one busy sales person aside and demanded asked for numbers 2 and 3, but they didn't have it yet. *insert sad face here*

ABOUT THE BOOK:


Author: Melissa Marr

Discover Melissa Marr's mesmerizing world of Faerie . . .

The desert is far away from the schemes of the Faerie Courts--and that's how Rika likes it. Once a mortal and now a faery, Rika seeks isolation and revels in her ability to appear invisible to humans. Then, she meets him. Artistic and kind, Jayce is the last person Rika wants to hide from.

But change is coming, challenging Rika's freedom and her new romance, as her past pursues her, even into the heart of the desert. . . .

BOOK REVIEW:

Since I am so patient and calm, I ripped off the plastic packaging as soon as I was out of the mall. I sat on the bus and read my way through home. Let me tell you, reading on a moving vehicle is not the brightest idea, I got dizzy when I got off.


SO ANYWAY...

**** SPOILERS AHEAD ****

I do not recommend it to ALL readers. Yes, Rika did give accounts of her being a faerie in the first place, but it's hard to symphatize with her if you haven't read the Wicked Lovely novels yet. Let's admit it, being a faerie is cool 'cause you get to be immortal and have powers. So why should I feel sorry for Rika? She's just being a whiny little... erm Tinkerbell? But if you read the series, you'll understand that being involved in faerie politics is not as hot as it appears.


Now that I got that out of the way...


I liked Rika. She seems genuine to me and I kind of feel for her. She's lonely but strong. She doesn't show off her powers even though she can totally kick some faerie butt. As for the illustrations, I liked how I can easily see their facial expressions, it's so refreshing. It doesn't make me put a lot of effort into "imagining" what they looked like. Yes, sometimes that can make my head hurt. And my head hurts easily.


There are two things that didn't make me love this manga. Yes, 2, hence, the 3 stars. Hek hek, I'm so good in Math. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, 2 things. First is that I have a lot of trouble liking Jayce. And that's not because of his ugly hairstyle that only looks cool in the cover. Ahem. Jayce, at least in this first book, is just a drawing on a paper. He doesn't have character. He is uninteresting and his actions are unrealistic. Imagine this: you met a stranger. Stranger dragged you inside a club. Stranger got attacked and dragged you to the desert. Then you found out that she lives in a CAVE, which is in the middle of a dangerous DESERT, and it's NIGHT time... would you still allow yourself to be dragged inside her house cave? Hell NO. If that were me, I would run the other away. So what if she saved my life? I'm still going to run the other way, and as fast as I could because bad people are after her. But hey, LOVE is supposed to be blind, right? Especially, instalove. And since this is YA fiction, I'm like, okaaayyy...

The second thing that bothers me about the manga is that it is too short. The only thing that happen in this book is introduction, and I don't even know who the hell Sionnac is! But oh well, I guess that's just another carefully planned tactic to sell the second and third book. -_-

RATING:

All in all, this was an easy and a very short read. I liked it but it wasn't a big deal of a book. I guess I will be buying/borrowing #2 and 3 just because I'm curious of what will happen next to Rika. OR maybe I will just call it a day and wait for the next book to fell out of the sky or something.