Oct 11, 2010

Book Review: PARANORMALCY

Title: Paranormalcy
Author: Kiersten White
Rating: 4/5
Good if...you want a book that takes all the awesome elements of paranormal YA and brings them together under one beautiful cover

Summary:
Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, 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 Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.  So much for normal.

My thoughts...
Wow, since this book came out I think I've seen about a million reviews for it and--no lie--all of them have been 5/5, perfect.  Don't get me wrong.  I really liked this book; I just didn't love it.  And I couldn't justify ranking this one in the same place as say Hunger Games or Wings. 

But first, let me go on the record saying how awesome some features of this novel were!  (A) The Cover!  Awesome  (B) Evie, the main character, she was funny, girly, and really cool.  Loved her voice.  (C)  The incorporation of all the different paranormal creatures.  A mermaid, a fairy, vampires, werewolves, the coolest shapeshifter ever (closely resembling Mystique from X-Men), and Evie herself was pretty unique.  (D) The plot line.  The story was very well planned.  It always made sense and was what ulitimately kept me hooked.

But still I felt like there was this disconnect and for me it happened over several features of the book.  (A) The romance.  Lend was perfect.  I should have loved him, but perhaps he was a little too perfect, perhaps it all just fell into Evie's lap a little too easily.  Either way, my heart didn't skip when they finially kissed.  (B) The death of certain characters.  I didn't feel sad.  (C) The creepiness of the villian.  I didn't feel scared. 

I think part of the problem was that everything was so surface.  I never really got to know the characters for who they really were.  Evie too.  And maybe that's why I had such a hard time FEELING as I read.  And even though the plot was awesome, if you can't feel it then it's just sort of numb, right?  But all in all, this was a great debut novel and I recommend reading it if you haven't.

5 comments:

Jennifer Shirk said...

Good review. I enjoyed it too.
In fact, I bought it for a gift for my YA-niece for a gift. :)

Adriana said...

I'm glad to see your review among all these 5/5. I'm still not sure about reading this book though. I might get around to it eventually. Great review!

Hannah said...

Thank you for giving an honest review! I've heard the same from some really good friends who don't blog but not one review online expressed the same until yours. Thank you again! I feel better about reading it now. :D

Jeff King said...

Good review... thx for taking the time.

Nat said...

I enjoyed this one a lot but didn't LOVE it either. I'm still looking forward to the next one in the series though.