It may be short, but....

All right. I did it. I ventured into the land of the short story.
And I found, that, given certain elements, this land could, possibly, be a nice to place to stop at. But not all the time...Here's the deal.
As previously noted, not the biggest fan of the short story. Mainly because I feel such a connection when an author opens their world so completely...that I don't want to leave. I don't necessarily have to stay with the same characters, but if I like that world...well, I like it. And who wants to leave a place they like? (Yes, sometimes I feel like reading is my mini vacay...so I take many.)
So, who better for a real mini vacay (and, boy do I mean mini...only considering how long I've spent in other parts of her world!) than that of Melissa Marr.
Okay, so really, not gushing here. Promise. But, I did google...and youtube. And there I found a snip it of an interview. And, learned why her worlds so appealed to me. (Please forgive the summarizing...)
Melissa Marr doesn't believe in dumbing down...for any reader. And since her target audience is the YA set, at least for her Wicked Lovely series, and the short story I'm attempting to review (getting there, promise!), she keeps to that principle. (Side note...the "closed door" element also intrigued me...)
So, there I was...at my library (please, I love the library. It allows me to sustain my shoe habit.) picking a collection of short stories I had requested....hoping there was a little nugget of yummy gooey-ness in my hands. So I began.
Basically, in a nutshell, Love Struck is a love story (from Love is Hell...there's a dose of wisdom, right?) between a human girl and a...selkie. From on the onset, I have to say, I felt like I was in familiar territory. From her cadence and rythm, to how I felt sitting on the beach with Alana...to the intermingling of the mystical meets real world. I liked it here. So I stayed.
It was a love story..and, like all stories, has issues of trust, belief, and faith. Alana doesn't want to end up like her mom, falling for pretty boy after pretty boy, so she isolates herself, giving herself the rules her mother won't. She meets two "boys", who turn out to be the creatures of legend we from her grandmother's stories...selkies. Who, in her rendition of the story, trap their would be mate and trick them into falling in love...which, to Alana, isn't a real love. What really drew me in was the how Alana didn't seem to trust herself, but when she would let go...she started to trust herself as well as Murrin, the selkie whose skin she picks up on the beach (bad brother!). And, like any urban myth (or just plain ol' fairy tale, what you know isn't always the whole truth). But, like anyone, when things are going well, she lets her doubts and maybe her fears work there way in...
I don't want to give out any spoilers, but I will say that for a short story, I loved it and I wished I could visit again. Thanks, Melissa Marr for that...