Paranormalcy by Kiersten White + Giveaway

Published September 1, 2010.

Author website.

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.

So much for normal. (goodreads.com)

I'm seriously kicking myself for waiting so long to pick up PARANORMALCY. The voice is epic; like the author crawled inside my head and kidnapped my seventeen-year-old self and put it on the page. It rings true and normal to Evie, not over the top at all in any way (like intelligence or snark or whatever). It just fits to a T. Love it.

Evie is the kind of chick that we need more of in the YA world. She can hold her own in a nominally normal way (she doesn't have super human strength and actually depends a lot on a taser, a pink one at that) and she calls it like she sees it. When Reth goes all super creeper she lays the smack down on him as best she can. She's not all like "OMG he's sooooo hot. Isn't it romantic when he watches me sleep without me knowing and kidnaps me to places unknown?" He's a creep, she calls it and she does her best to stay away from him. I felt bad for her when the shoe dropped because her world as she knew it came crumbling down in so many ways. The pseudo-family she built up for herself, gone. The only home she ever really knew, gone. All she ever wanted to do was be normal and she tried despite it all but in the end it never worked.

Lend is a great character. Totally the kind of guy I can get behind and root for. No stalker tendencies for him. He just is. Like Evie, he just wants to be normal. He wants to be with someone for whom he doesn't have to pretend around. Someone that can see him. Enter Evie and her x-ray eyes and bam! We have a couple. Through Lend Evie can be the semi-normal chick she so strived for and Lend can just be himself. They really do compliment each other.

I'm not the biggest fan of The Chosen One syndrome because it stands out so much but when its done well, I'll take it. Evie's story is done well. She's an odd ball, a non-entity entity that no one can explain and the story takes a while to build up to it but once it gets there, when everything unravels it seems to fit. I'm not left going WTF? but yes, I believe that. So Evie gets a pass for being the super awesome prophecy child.

The whole world White built is like that, believable. A pseudo-government agency that monitors paranormal life all over the world? Sounds like The X-Files with Sam and Dean heading up the presidency. I believed it. With Evie underground we were behind the curtain, seeing things that no other non-paranormal would get to see. Step out from that and Evie gets to see the life that the rest of us are privy too. She comes behind our curtain. But the shades don't stay drawn for long. Eventually the curtain just gets ripped right down.

The ending offers resolution for this particular story but it leaves things open for the coming books. At least it wasn't done cheaply. Yeah, I want to know more about Evie's weaknesses because those, her real ones, don't come out until the end. It made her even more relatable and I want to see more of that. Not to mention what happened with the faeries and the people she knew at the Center. But the immediate arc is resolved and while it left me wanting more, I didn't feel deprived or gypped out of a good ending. I got it and I loved it.

PARANORMALCY is a great book for anyone looking to get away from your standard YA paranormal fare as of late. With a snarky, sharp voice and a heroine to stand next to and fight the battle with, it's an excellent fresh breath in an otherwise smog-ridden landscape. I can't wait to read SUPERNATURALLY.

Ban Factor: High - Werewolves and vampies and big bad faeries. Eeeeeeeeeeee!

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