Underrated Review: Violet Wings

Synopsis:
Zaria is a young fairy who lives in the world of Tirfeyne, a world populated by fairies, genies, leprechauns and the like.  Contrary to popular believe, magic can not save these people from physical harm, and so those who inhabit Tirfeyne are forbidden from being seen by humans after the first gun was fired at one of their kind.  Its believed that Zaria's own parents and brother died on Earth because they broke this rule.  Unfortunately for Zaria, it may now be her turn to break that rule.  After she turns fourteen, the age when all fairies and genies find out their power level, she meets a fairy who's more powerful than any Zaria has ever heard of.  And that fairy wants Zaria's mother's spell book.  The only place that Zaria can think to hide it, is Earth.

Review: 

First of all, sorry if my Synopsis sounds a little disjointed, I was trying to describe the world and Zaria's plight without giving anything away.  I personally didn't like the description on the book, because it sounds as though Zaria's mother and brother disappear together and that is not exactly what happens (it didn't even mention her father).

Character:
Zaria: At times Zaria doesn't make the brightest choices and can be more of a follower than a leader (in the beginning at least), but I sum most of this up to being a naive fourteen year old, in a world where being fourteen means you still have to life as a child in an area designed only for children and their parents.  Over all though, I liked her as a character.  She's got spunk, and she never backed down.  I was always rooting for her to succeed.

Plot:
In this book, each chapter is headed with a snippet from a history book of the world of Tirfeyne.  At first I found it distracting because I couldn't always see a connection between that snippet and the chapter at hand.  By the end of the book though, the purpose of those snippets became abundantly clear, they gave you, the reader, a much better understanding of the world quickly and easily.  Yes, she could have written it in as part of the plot, but I think it would have started to get difficult for young readers this book was intended for.
I thought the world and how it worked was creative.  While much was explained in those snippets at the beginning of chapters, important things were discussed in the chapters as well.  Knowing how the world was divided (ie. who lived where), knowing how they determined a fairy or genies power and what it meant, and how a fairy godmother or genie godfather were all shown to the reader, and it made the world more real.
I found the plot interesting and engaging.  Zaria's journey to earth, her dealings with the evil fairy, and the realization that more may be going on in her world than they knew all kept me interested and wanting more.
Most importantly though, I kept wondering, how the story was going to end.  It seemed like a lot of major plots were introduced that couldn't be solved in one book, and for awhile I was afraid that was exactly what was going to happen.  I was very happy when I got to the end of the book and realized that it was the start of a series (at least I hope more books are on there way, because this was left very open ended).
Perhaps my biggest problem with this book is that the chapters were all so short.  In other books, most of these chapters would have been sections in larger chapters.  For some I saw the reason to shorten them and have them stand alone, but for others I thought they would have worked just as well combined with the chapters around them.