When you think of fairies you think of Tinkerbelle, don’t you? Sometimes I do, but sometimes I think of the fairies that my Irish grandmother would talk about, beautiful but deadly, who would steal babies and get humans to enter into impossible bargains. These are the fairies found in both The Call and the Invasion. Kids no longer get to experience childhood, instead, they begin training as warriors waiting for the day that they will be “called” from our world to the fairy world. For two minutes, kids pop out of existence, leaving only a pile of clothes behind. Once in the fairy world, they are hunted, caught and either transformed or killed. Either way, no one comes back the same person as when they left. No one thinks that Nessa has a chance, as a polio survivor, her legs are weak. But everyone underestimates her, except for Anto, the boy she loves but refuses to have feelings for because it will just make things harder for them when they are called…because they will be called.
The second book (and I believe it’s just the two, I don’t think it’ll be a trilogy), picks up right after the first one ends. Anto and Nessa dream of starting their lives together having both (SPOILER) survived the call from the first book. The fairies are tired of living in the grey land (which I pictured to be very much like being trapped in a Dali painting that could kill you) and they want to make their way back into our world. With the help of traitors, this could happen, decimating humanity through torture, pain and death. Nessa is believed to be one of these traitors because how could a girl with polio survive the call when so many strapping young men came back dead? That’s always the question right? How could a girl survive? PLEEEEAAASSSEE…Nessa was resourceful, smart and she handled her shit, that’s how. Anyhooo…
I really enjoyed both books. It was like a twisted fairy tale, horror story, love story, all rolled up in a well told couple of books. Both were extremely quick reads and gave me a slight Hunger Games meets something that Clive Barker might’ve written–so if you enjoy either of those things, you might like these books as well. Shout out to MrsLangdon Alger who wrote far better reviews which inspired me to read these books. You might notice a trend, when I can’t inspire myself to read a book off my own list, I come here, read reviews and trust y’all to make good choices for me. Where the hell were you in college? All bad choices, all the time 🙂