Wings by Aprilynne Pike

The summary: 

Laurel's life is the very definition of normal . . . until the morning when she wakes up to discover a flower blooming from her back. As it turns out, nothing in Laurel's life is what it seems.

I didn't finish this book because it finally broke my suspension of disbelief. I know, the book that has a summary of a teenager growing wings broke my suspension of disbelief – but stay with me here.

It wasn't that or any of the descriptions of our main character, Laurel, being a clear changeling child – I actually thought all of the hints in the beginning of her nature were really well done because if you were just handed this book without the summary, when she grows wings you'd be like “OH DUH!” The set up for that was rather nice, honestly.

But then she grows those wings and....

The thing that killed it was that she doesn't immediately tell her parents “I HAVE SOMETHING GROWING OUT OF MY BACK, FROM A THING THAT I SPENT ALL OF YESTERDAY CONVINCED WAS A TUMOR, HELP ME!!!”

It would have been one thing if her parents were dead or abusive or at work – but she has a great relationship with them and they're both home when she wakes up with appendages growing out of her back. From something that she spent literally the entire day previous freaking out about because she thought it was a fast growing tumor. And the author wrote her just....not telling her parents and instead going to her almost boyfriend that she's known for all of a month? Maybe two at most? 

It would be one thing if she woke up that morning and had her freak out and her parents were at work. They just moved, they still have the mortgage on their old house, the parents have opened up a new business - if they were at work and she was freaking out at home, it wouldn't be unbelievable for a panicking 16 year old to go "I can't bother my parents, but I'm freaking the fuck out, I'll go to my friend who is also my love interest!" Or if she grew the wings at school or right afterwards, that would also force her to take this secret to her love interest. Or if the author had established that she had a distant relationship or a bad one with her parents, but the author goes out of her way to show that her parents are extremely loving and involved in her life! Like, I'M SORRY a 16 year old waking up with something protruding from their back that looks a little like BONE?? AND THE BASE IS LITERAL FLOWER PETALS??

THAT TEENAGER IS SCREAMING ONCE THEY WAKE UP WITH THAT AND RUNNING TO HER PARENTS!!

ADULTS WOULD BE FREAKED OUT. 

And I dropped that book like it was a hot potato because my reading list is already full without reading things that I would back out of if I found it on AO3 or FFN.