Books, Bad Boys & Tattoos

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Clipped Wings is a beautiful story about two people, Hayden and Tenley, who find solace in each other as they try to leave their tragic pasts behind them and just embrace the future. I shelved this book under Supernatural thinking it's about angels given the word wings in the title. But when I checked on the synopsis on Goodreads, I didn't know I was in for a big surprise. 

Helena Hunting's writing style is rich and delicate. She could perfectly execute the emotions of her characters in detail without boring her readers out. At some point I found myself reading a finely crafted prose. All the emotions and stories of the two main characters' pasts were brilliantly put into words and interlaced with the future.

The characters are very likable as well. I rarely take a liking to both the main characters of a book (the last time I felt so was with Mia Sheridan's Archer's Voice) and it surprised me that Hunting did not disappoint me in that area. I am very particular with New Adult books as I have not appreciated the fact that authors of this genre would want to write about emotionally and mentally injured protagonists and lose the logic along the way when it's time to talk about lewd scenes. But in Clipped Wings, even as both of the characters have pasts which they would just want to leave behind and never think of again, Hayden and Tenley didn't go all stupid as they quenched their thirsts for each other. And that's another thing I liked about this book, the fact that Hunting used their physical connection to deal with their pasts.

But the one I loved the most in this story is how Hunting made tattoos and piercings a beautiful thing. I am not pertaining to how they adorn one's body, no. I'm talking about how Hayden's being a tattoo artist isn't just about creating art on people's bodies. It could be correlated with someone's emotions as well and it can either break or make him. Hayden taught me that tattoos aren't just "designs" on one's limbs and torso but they're actually representations of that person's past and even future. Most stories about bad boys with tattoos are just for the sake of satiating the reader's craving for a bad boy. Clipped Wings isn't just about a bad boy with tattoos and piercings, it's about what tattoos and piercings are for.

Everything about this book is beautiful. The descriptions of the tattoos, how I imagined them to look like, the story of Hayden and Tenley and how they deal with the horrific and overwhelming past of the other...so brilliant. I just wish Hunting would have explained some scenes more and elaborated further on how Hayden and Tenley had connected with each other after only weeks of seeing and barely talking to each other.