Mermaids and werewolves and vampires and faeries and hags and shape-shifters and waterspirits, if you can name a paranormal, I'm sure they are at least mentioned in Paranormalcy by Kiersten White.
This book rocked my socks off! It's soooo very awesome! It's so awesome, in fact, that I'm sorry it took me two years to read it, so awesome in fact that I'm sorry I don't have the second book right now!
This is one of those cool books that on the surface seems like a cute romp into paranormal land, but is actually a commentary on discrimination, service and relationships.
Evie is seriously that perfect female heroine that I've been looking for when I read teen SF books. She's so girly (pink and animal print are incorporated into everything she wears), but she can also kick major butt using her pink rhinestone encrusted taser, nicknamed Tasy, of course. She falls for a shape-shifter and has doubts, but not the whiny (sorry, I'm about to compare her to two teen girls who annoy the dickens out of me) "I can't live without you" doubts of Bella Swan or "the too tough too touch me blocked-headedness" of Katniss Everdeen. Evie is the rock-star of these girls.
While the plot of this book is not new, the approach is. And, don't let the cover fool you, this book isn't at all fluffy and girly (unless you want to count Evie's pink heeled boots). In the world of Paranormalcy there are humans who know that paranormals exist these humans have taken it upon themselves to defend the world against these creatures and have created an agency to do this. Evie is part of this agency. After she meets a shape-shifting teenage boy, much like herself, she begins to wonder where she fits into the whole thing. Is she trapped? Is she a pawn? Is she an asset? And, most importantly, what does she want?
This book is told with enough humor and seriousness that I found myself laughing seconds after a sad event and I found myself sharing bits of this book to my student in the hallways and at lunch.
It's another one of those books that makes me wish I could have read it when I was 14 and it's another one of those books that I can't wait for my daughter to find.
No comments:
Post a Comment