Aprilynne Pike

Arabesque

Jennifer

Aprilynne Pike's Wings series is amongst a book series that I've started reading over a decade ago on hardcopies. Arabesque is the finall installment of the series and it's also the sole book by her that I've read electronically. One thing that I really enjoyed in the series is the fairy concepts and its magical system. So it was really fun to see how Pike fleshed out the details about the fairies through the previous 4 books. I think Arabesque managed to include sufficient exploration of the magic system for me to follow up despite years after reading Destined.

What I enjoyed in Arabesque is that the story is narrated from the narratives of a different character: a Summer Faerie named Rowen. Her aspiration to succeed at the dance academy also leads to intersting dynamics between humans & faes. But this isn't just a romance story, behind the scenes I also enjoyed the tension experienced by the faes. 

On the other hand, my biggest criticism with Arabesque is the pacing and the build-ups. I think the details of the worldbuilding should be provided earlier rather than to be left in dark until the climax. Due to this shortcoming I also found that a few relevant characters are not sufficiently developed as there's simply not enough context for me to figure out where they're coming from and how they would contribute to the plot.

Despite my issues with the pacing, I nevertheless found Arabesque quite a fun and quick read. Sometimes it just feels like shrugging more than a decade old weight off my shoulders by finishing a series that I've started long ago.

Arabesque

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