Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Paranormalcy, Kiersten White

Release date: 1st October 2010

Publisher:Harper Collins

Genre:Romance, YA, Paranormal

Pages: 335

Series: Paranormalcy

1. Paranormlacy

2. Supernaturally

3. Endlessly (2012)

VAMPIRES
WEREWOLVES
FAERIES
SHAPESHIFTERS

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 shapeshifter 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 begins to suspect there is a link between her abilities and the sudden rash of deaths, and even worse, that she is at the center of a dark prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

This book has a good memory connected to it, basck when I first read it. It was the end of school and Year Ten was doing a few workshops, and I went to a mosaic one. It was a great day and I was reading the book on the bus and during the breaks at the workshop, and these memories have made me enjoy it a lot more for some reason. Sentimental value and all, I guess. :)

Evie's story caught me in right away and I was stuck. I read this book until 3 in the morning when I was too exhausted to continue. It captivated me and I ltierally couldn't put it down. There have been few books to ever do that.

We're introduced to Evie's ex-boyfriend Ren in a peculiar way, and I was a bit confused when she didn't tell us the reason of their break-up, because at that time, Ren seemed great. I knew their story would come later on, but still, I was quite curious.

As Evie tells us her whole history in a few pages, I breathed a sigh of relief. I hate those books where the heroine has a really bad past and it takes us half the book just to find out half of her bad past. Ther mystery makes you want to continue reading it, but not in a good way.

As we're introduced to Evie's cool sounding life, we find out more about her and the agency she works at, bagging paranormals and putting them to work at the agency. Evie has a thing against faeries and is firm on her opinion about the agency being too stupid to think that they can control them because they know their full names. In this universe, if you know a faerie's full name, they are basicaly under your power if you give them a command. But they're crafty little creatures, able to twist your words around and have it go BANG in your face.

Evie tasers Lend, who no one has any idea what kind of paranormal he is (he can shift shape), and is intrigued by him, and as he is held at the agency, she gets to know him as she hangs out with him. A while later, she develops a crush on him, and their romance is so innocent and fresh, it makes me smile. I read adult books, so a YA romance read is a breath of fresh air. Getting away from the more 'serious' romances (read: no one believes in teenage love) and sex scenes every now and then is refreshing.

As Lend and Evie are sucked into the prophecy and as Evie learns about what kind of paranormal she is, their romance grows as well as keeping us on our toes with the real truth about Evie's agency. Turns out that things are a little different than Evie thought.

I thought of Evie as a bit too immature of someone who does such serious work and has seen more than other teenagers. It may be her way of relaxing and stuff, but her personality didn't really make me like her anymore than I already did. Seriously, she's a very relatable character, but I find most authors either make their teenage leads too serious or immature.