You would think that, after finding book after book of YA fantasy focused on the fae to be better than i expected, I would expect better. So much for being rational.
I think much of the problem is that I like these books despite the topic, despite the fairy choices. Wicked Lovely is definitely one of those books - I admire the writing and I think Marr does a better job than most with her teenage girl characters and I especially love that Aislinn almost never acts like an idiot.
Strong female characters are all well and good, but if you hand them the idiot ball every time the plot needs to advance, you are shooting your feminist self in the foot.
But Marr doesn't do that, she lets Aislinn be the kind of girl you, as a reader, want her to be.
I just...find myself missing the fantasy of my youth. I preferred the sword-wielding, dragon slaying Alannas and Aerins I read while growing up, not because of their character, but because I think the worlds they inhabited were better worlds.