The Faerie Path by Ferwin Jones

Title: The Faerie Path
Author: Frewin Jones
Publication: HarperTeen (2007)
ISBN 9780060871024
Format: Hardcover (US $16.99) 312 pages
Acquired: From the library.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Anita was living an ordinary life.

Until an elegant stranger pulled her

into another world.

Swept away into a court of magic and beauty, she discovers she is Tania, the lost princess of Faerie: the youngest daughter of Oberon and Titania. Since Tania's mysterious disappearance on the eve of her wedding five hundred years before, Faerie has been sunk in darkness and gloom. The courtly Lord Gabriel Drake, who Tania was once to marry, has found her and brought her back.

With Tania's return, Faerie comes alive again as a land of winged children, glittering balls, and fantastic delights. But Tania can't forget Anita's world, or the boy she loved there.

Torn between two loves and between two worlds, Tania slowly comes to discover why she disappeared so long ago. She possesses a singular magical ability and she must use it to stop a sinister plan that threatens the entire world of Faerie.

~*~*~*~*~*~

This faerie book certainly does have all of the key ingredients for every modern faery book. It has a liberal amount of Shakespeare (this one has it in the form of the play, A Midsummer's Night Dream), Oberon, Titania, the faery world, changelings, a wild hunt, and a love that can never be but in the end is. How original. Wait, I think I have read this book before. I think I have read this one a couple of times.

It bugs me how sometimes when I read reviews for books that I am thinking about reading I see some variation of this phrase: "Since the book was a YA I did not expect much from it." Just because the book is aimed at teenagers does not mean that they do not have to have all of the same characteristics that is needed in any other book, i.e., characterization, plot, character development, good dialogue, proper grammar, interesting characters, etc, etc. The only problem is that most of the time the books that are always being set apart in YA are the ones that don't bother with those things. These books are still hopefully being written by professionals or at the very least someone with an English degree. How ever I will be the first to admit that ever since Twilight came out the quality of writing that I am seeing has gone considerably down. Before the main characters actually had to have chemistry and a personality. Now as long as the author reminds us how hot the main characters are every page, how mysterious the male lead is, and point out how the decidedly stupid main female was able to read a giant flashing neon trail to the secret that the male lead was hiding, you can have a bestselling book. If there is no secret to find out you can always just throw in gratuitous sex scenes. Those are like explosions in action movies, they distract you from the plot holes.

Moving away from that rant. This book wasn't original but it was interesting. I wish Anita would just tell her parents the truth but then she would not have as many conflicts to overcome. Although there is something that I do particularly like about this book. And that was how Anita and Ethan are actually boyfriend and girlfriend before the book starts. They know each other and they like each other before and we are not forced to have to believe that two random strangers can suddenly fall in love within 100 pages. It is always nice to see faeries as non-sociopathic jerks. There is of course the villain but that seems to be the anomalies and not the norm. While I liked this book I doubt they can ever really stand out for me because of all of the other Faerie books that seem to be built off of the same basic principle. And I am really sick of Shakespeare.