Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
"Weird as it is working for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, Evie's always thought of herself as normal. Sure, her best friend is a mermaid, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she's falling for a shape-shifter, and she's the only person who can see through paranormals' glamours, but still. Normal.
"Only now paranormals are dying, and Evie's dreams are filled with haunting voices and mysterious prophecies. She soon realizes that there may be a link between her abilities and the sudden rash of deaths. Not only that, but she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.
Rating: 4/5
I picked this novel up at a bookstore a couple of days ago (a story I'll tell you later, because it's sort of long and I would rather review this right now), but I only got around to reading it today. Paranormalcy by Kiersten White was recommended to me a couple of weeks ago and, when I saw it on the table, I thought I would add it to the stack of books I was already purchasing. Once I realized how much my books were going to be, I almost put all of them except for the debut novel back, but I really couldn't help myself... and I'm glad I spent the money.
Let me start by saying: This book is a page turner. Seriously. I just read it all in a few hours, only breaking for dinner and coffee. I kept reading even when my beautiful kitty somehow swindled me out of most of my chair. But, page turning does not turn this into a proper review, so onward we go.
First off, I'm a sucker for faerie novels. So the fact that there were faeries in this novel? Automatic plus. But, with or without that aspect, I loved this book.
Characterization, in my opinion, was definitely one of the stronger points in this novel. The main character, Evie, was light and relatively cheerful, despite the rather dark situation. She was well developed and she moved the story along with ease. She made everything interesting, even simply traveling down the hallway (in a rolling chair). And I really appreciated the fact that she wasn't just a lay-down-and-take-it character, even though she had been fairly sheltered up until things started going wrong.
And Raquel - a woman who was, in many ways, Evie's parental figure - was exceptionally expressive, as well as being a very private individual. Even the smallest characters in this book had their share of personality, which was wonderful to see.
The only thing that kept me from giving this a five out of five was that, at times, I really didn't feel the relationship between Evie and some of the other characters. While all of the characters had personality, I was only told how Evie felt about them. And, to sell me completely on a book, showing versus telling really is key. Still, I thought it was excellent and I expect some of that will even out later.
Some of the plots remain unresolved by the end of the novel, but I suspect that has rather more to do with the coming sequels than a lack of attention paid to each point. I'm really looking forward to those, in case you couldn't tell already.
This book can be found in bookstores or online:
Paranormalcy
Happy readings!
