Paranormalcy
Paranormalcyby 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. (goodreads.com)
Woohoo! This is my 100th book for 2010! *happy dance*I am thrilled that the 100th book I read this year was as amazing at it was. I bought it while on my lunch break from work yesterday and just the first sentence hooked me.
"Wait - did you - You just yawned!" The vampire's arms raised over his head in the classic Dracula pose, dropped to his sides. He pulled his exaggerated white fangs back behind his lips. "What, imminent death isn't exciting enough for you?"
That whole "you just yawned!" part? Had me snickering into my food in a very, very, busy mall food court. I read about a chapter while trying to eat and then put the book down because I didn't want to risk dripping tomato sauce or ketchup on the book (pizza and fries - the lunch of champions!). I then spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how I could get out of working the rest of the afternoon and distracting my two best friends (with whom I was having a dinner date) enough so that I could just READ the rest of the book. I was going to fake having to run an errand at work and just curl up with the book, but I got too busy to slack off like I wanted to. I had an elaborate plot to get my two BFFs drunk and distracted while playing Wii after dinner so that I could hide on the corner of the couch and read. But none of that happened (in fact we never even got to play with Wii, which makes the fact that two of us brought a console after a miss-read text message. Two Wiis, one TV and three girls and not a game between us!)When I got up this morning, I checked my email, facebook, twitter and my favourite comic and then closed my laptop and READ until the end.I'll tell you a secret - I had absolutely no desire to ever pick up this book. I was skipping reviews, I was turned off by the cover which to me screamed "Scarlett Johansson does paranormal stuff while brooding in a pink dress". I am so tired of paranormal books right now. They all seem redundant.Then this week I noticed more and more comments on Twitter about how the book was different than the others and how good it was. My goodreads news feed was filling up with rave status updates from people I know are honest and tough critics. So I stopped and read the summary of the book finally and liked what I saw.Until I read that first sentence I still had apprehension about the novel. My plan was to check this book out while at lunch and if I didn't like it right away it would just sit on my TBR shelf and I would question WHY I went and bought the hard cover when I should have waited. What I really wanted to buy was Plain Kate but ever since I picked it up and put it down in another store last weekend it has been avoiding me and no store seems to have it in stock since!That first chapter just lead to more and more awesome chapters. I didn't quite thing the chapter titles were all that wonderful but I devoured every single written line on those pages with a fervour I have not had in a long time. I wanted to know what Evie was and I wanted to know more about the paranormal world that Kiersten White had created. Sure there were faeries but they were utilized in a much different fashion than I have become accustomed to and I liked it. I wanted to know more about Lend because his powers were very interesting and original.The book made me laugh, gasp and even shocked me with sadness which I wasn't expecting. Everything about the book felt real emotion-wise. Evie's obsession with going to real high school and being a normal teenager wasn't at all whiny or bratty in fact her enthusiasm was contagious. She sort of reminded me of Vex the fire elemental from Martin Millar's Curse of the Wolf Girl, only much less ditzy. ;)Evie's curiosity and excitement over Lend's normal teen life caused me to giggle many times. There's a scene where Evie's enthusiasm for mundane teen things like school lockers and driver's licenses that just cracks me up. I was going to transcribe it here but I don't want to ruin it for others. So you'll have to read the book to discover it for yourself!The writing in this book is fast paced and incredibility witty. I mean Joss Whedon's Buffy seasons 1-3 witty (before it got all dark and gloomy.) In no way does this feel like Buffy fanfic! I just think that Kiersten White has mastered the knack of Whedonesque humour. Sharp, intelligent and fun.I am so happy to learn that there will be a sequel. You can be sure that I will be picking up it - even in hard cover - when it arrives in the stores.This was a bloody brilliant debut novel! *throws confetti and blows trumpets* Bravo!Paranormalcy series