Wings is an entertaining read, so if you are in the mood for escape into melodramatic teen romance, you'll probably like this book. But it doesn't stand up well to scrutiny. It is endorsed on the cover by Stephenie Meyer, and there are a lot of similarities to Meyer's Twilight. Like Meyer, Pike is a good storyteller, but her writing could be better. I actually noticed the writing problems much more in Wings than in Twilight. Then there is the plot. The main character, Laurel, is a teenage girl who moves to a new town and is quickly attracted to a boy at school. The girl is unusual instead of the guy and the story is about faeries not vampires, but the set up is pretty similar. I'm sick of the plot device of the girl torn between two guys because she's in love with both and just can't choose! Then the scary bad guys go after her family and she tries to protect them. Sound familiar?

Pike does have a few creative ideas (like the flower), but her characters are pretty flat. Meyer did better with characters, I think. Meyer also did better with moral standards. Nothing happens (yet) in Wings, but attitudes are rather lax. Laurel spends a lot of time at her boyfriend's house with no one else at home. Laurel's mom warns her to be careful not to get pregnant, but that's all. Her boyfriend tells her that his (single) mom respects his privacy because he respects hers by not asking about her dates who often sleep over. Then Laurel's faery love interest tells her that faeries don't reproduce the way humans do, so, he adds with a wink, "sex is just for fun." I also got tired of the repeated description every time she kissed her boyfriend(s) of the "swirling heat" she felt enveloping her! I give Wings a 2 instead of a 1 because the story did draw me in and entertain me initially.