Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
My rating: 3 of 5 genies
Published: September 1, 2010 by HarperTeen
Pages: 355
Source: Library Loan
Format: Hardcover
Purchase At: The BookDepository.com or Amazon.com

Goodreads Summary

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.

What I liked 

Evie is a likeable protagonist, and extremely easy to follow – a little naive perhaps and at times juvenile – but it is made evident the reason for why this is so. Perhaps the author stressed her locker fetish a bit much and made her childlike almost to a fault, but she is okay by me. Okay enough that I will look into the next book in the series, however not to buy because the ratings for that are floundering at the moment and I am not impressed enough to spend my dollar on something so iffy. It was all so decent. The story was decent, the romance - surprisingly - decent (and kind of cute) also.

You would think that because the protagonist is so new to normalcy things like her first kiss or even holding hands with the guy she likes (Lend is awesome!) would be heavily exaggerated. Luckily though, there is Easton Heights, a very clever invention on White's part to ease much of the differences between Evie and the typical YA protagonist mainly due to her very different background. This fictional high school drama was the perfect educational guide to the world of: Let's Kiss Everything/Everyone/Everywhere, Um, Teenagers.

That helped so much and actually a lot of things in Paranormalcy were innovative. Say, the complete un-attractiveness of other paranormals - vampires in particular - and Evie's ability to see through glamour. Brilliant!! The only thing I kept wishing for was that Edward could kind of superimpose himself into a page but only long enough for her to actually see the pedophilic man lurking underneath! I see you...




Side-note:(And Black people are not the only pedophiles guys, so any trolls trying to bring that up with regards to my gif better get the sitting down! I am black also, and somewhere there is a Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian or even Indian agreeing with me that pedophiles are of all race/color. Need I bring to mind once again Edward? He was white, y'all.)

Speaking of shady characters, Reth was a peculiar one. Reth, Reth just wanted to dance!




And totally creepy-like, but hey! It's all good... I think.

Bottom line though, Reth was evile. EVILE, I say!!! And I loved him. Let me explain: What I mean to say is, Viv wasn't much of a villain, I just ended up feeling bad for her the majority of the time so that completely fell through for me, but Reth was right there to make me hate him without thinking too much about it. Good Old, Reth! As the creepy/over-protective/psychotic/hot-faerie-ex he was the perfect target for my fury.

Raquel was good too, however I'm left unsure how to think of her at this point. Either as a mother-figure to Evie but conflicted by her duties to IPCA? Or A platonic, responsible woman handling best the responsibilities thrust upon her? The unsurity from the protagonist, Evie, only seeped through to me and I suppose only time (and the next book) will tell where things between those two lie.

What Needed Work

With the constant switch between juvenile and then kind of mature, the overall mood of the story was extremely hard to pin-point. Evie's wide-eyed exuberance and kind of clueless behavior was not a selling point for me. I mean: "OOH, A REAL-LIFE LOCKER ANYONE?!"

Yeah, no thanks.

There was a point in my reading when I was like, 'I could be reading something way more exciting,' and this came about because I set my standards way too high. I was expecting WOW and got, IT'S DECENT. So that was a disappointment. I'm dealing with it.

I did love the story and Lend, though. Those things will keep me coming back for the second book! Do not set your expectations too high (it isn't as bad as that sounds) and try it if you're looking for some mild entertainment/an easy read.