Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deceptionby Maggie StiefvaterBy no means let my two month long read of this book make you think that I did not enjoy it. That isn't the case at all. In fact I really, truly liked this debut novel from Maggie Stiefvater (even if I can never get the i and e in her name in the correct order the first time!). I kept it in the bathroom, and no, that's not TMI or anything, I just kept it there next to the bathtub for when I had to soak my poor bones/joints or in case I had one of my many middle-of-the-night-violently-ill moments.Why this book took me so long is because I couldn't read it for long periods of time. I can't explain it any better than I would suddenly feel like I couldn't breathe. Almost as if there was this weight pushing down on my chest and squishing my lungs. I don't know if it was the cover (which, I have to be honest, creeps me out a ton) or just the depth of the magic in the book and the, I don't know, anxiety that SHOULD be there, but wasn't.This wasn't a "boy this book is awful" sort of pressure. I think it was, hmm, fear. Fear that Dee SHOULD have been feeling but wasn't. I think I was feeling it all for her. I am helpful that way. Displaced fear and nerves? Maybe that's it? I mean I was reading this other book (which shall remain nameless) and it was so bad that it was giving me nightmares. The book wasn't even scary! I just felt all kinds of uncomfortable while reading it because it tried so hard to be witty and hip and it was failing miserably. And I had to stop reading it and HIDE IT under a shelf because I was having wicked night terrors about it, scratch that, not about the story, but about the BOOK itself and how badly it was messing up my brain.But I digress... my suffocation wasn't because of suck. It was because the book was too good at making me feel like I should be panicking about the situation.I mean, someone had to! The fact that Deirdre was just accepting everything like it was normal even when some strange guy she's never met before shows up in the bathroom (!!) and hold her hair while she pukes? GAH! Warning bells all over the place for me! WARNING BELLS! And her best friend James is all cool with the seeing faeries thing and that all this is happening? Man! I think these two got into the same stash of Valium that the people in The Lost Sister had.Where are peoples' survival instinct? Street smarts?? Good lord!These faeries scared me. Stiefvater done good with the homicidal faeries. They creeped me out big time. Even Una, who was sort of Drusilla-like (from Buffy) was creepy. I just knew she had danger wafting off of her. Like if she got too close she'd eat you up (Woah, here she comes! Watch out!).Maybe it was an omen when in the header photo above (if you're reading this in the summer) that the only book to have been backwards was Lament? Maybe it knew it would freak me out and was hiding from me until the right moment.Either way, the more I got into this book the more I liked it and the more I had to put it down. I know that sounds hokey, I seriously know that, but it's true.I'm totally curious how long it'll take me to read Ballad now. Heh.