Paranormalcy

This post first published July 6, 2011.

Author: Kiersten White
Published: August 2010
Publisher: HarperTeen
Series: Paranormalcy #1
335 pages (hardcover)
 
The cover of this book is really misleading, in my opinion. We have a serious looking girl standing in what seems like a field with pussywillows, under a dark and foreboding sky. My initial thoughts about what the book was about was, you know, a paranormal story possibly involving lots of angst and a love triangle. Not that there’s anything wrong with that either, I’m just saying that’s the vibes this cover is giving off. The actual story is nothing like what the cover tries to express though. This book is actually very light hearted, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and full of humor. It’s one of those, “Hey, just kick back, relax and read” kind of books.

Sixteen year old Evie works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency. You see, paranormal creatures are actually everywhere in this world, and there are all sorts of paranormal creatures: vampires, faeries, werewolves, banshees, hags, trolls, goblins, and even things with no real names. It’s up the IPCA to track and control the creatures so they don’t get out of hand and wreak havoc on human beings. Evie is the best at her job because she has the unique ability of being able to see through a paranormal’s glamour and identify them for who they really are. Then it’s all a matter of a little tasing, clamping on a tracking anklet and job well done.

Life is pretty lonely for Evie because she’s the only kid working for the IPCA, and she’s an orphan so she has no family. She spends most of her time in her dorm room watching some sort of Gossip Girls-esque TV show and chatting with her best friend, Lish the mermaid. But even Lish doesn’t always have time for her because she’s an IPCA employee as well. Then she starts getting attached to one of the paranormals they captured breaking and entering not too long ago, a shapeshifter, but her boss/mother-figure doesn’t like the two of them spending time together. All Evie wants is to have a regular teenage life, but it’s pretty hard when you’re constantly getting calls to go deal with this vampire or that werewolf.

Evie begins to take her job a little more seriously when the IPCA catches news of paranormals dying all over the place, seemingly from nothing. Something out there is killing paranormal creatures, and Evie is worried about her own paranormal friends. What’s worse is that Evie isn’t all that sure she’s safe herself, not after realizing that she’s been categorized as a paranormal in the IPCA employee files.

I loved Evie. It’s so refreshing to have a YA female lead who isn’t made of cardboard. She’s sassy and funny, and seems so genuine. She actually acts like what I imagine a real sixteen year old would act like. I also really enjoyed her relationship with Lend, the paranormal caught doing some B&E, and is now stuck in a jail cell at the IPCA. A lot of YA paranormal stories these days (or at least, out of the ones I read) just can’t write a natural feeling relationship — they always feel forced and the two characters always decide they are so-in-love-that-their-lives-depend-on-it within a week. Half the time, I don’t even understand why the two characters like one another; it’s usually just full of, “He’s sooo hot!” or something like that.

However, with Evie and Lend, their relationship started off as friendly (albeit a bit wary because Lend did break and enter), then progressed to a real friendship, complete with bonding time and everything, THEN it progressed to the two of them liking one another, as crushes. Yes, just crushes. That’s really as far as it goes in this book. No proclamations of undying love here. And I like this, a lot, because it feels more real and definitely suits the mood of this book, which is light hearted.
The characters are, to me, the strong point of this novel. They are just plain fun. However, the rest of the book isn’t perfect though. The plot is so-so. Overall, I liked the plot but I know it could be much better. I wasn’t really feeling the shocking revelation of what is killing the paranormals and how Evie was related to the killer. It just didn’t feel very exciting, which kind of sucked because I had thought the IPCA was sort of like Interpol so maybe there’d be some awesome conspiracy case they need to crack or some mastermind criminal … Perhaps I had let my assumptions get in the way, but the overall plot felt mediocre, a bit uninspiring.

The writing was also pretty ordinary, nothing special. Sometimes it even felt like fan fiction writing. It’s written in first person from Evie’s point of view, and I get that she’s just a teenager so the way Evie talks isn’t going to be complicated prose or anything, but still, I kind of expected a little more. I think the book could get away with the writing if it was a book for middle-schoolers, but it’s not.
Paranormalcy is a fun book to read if you’re looking for something non-serious to dig into, but don’t expect to be seriously wow’d or anything like that. I, personally, liked the story, but whether or not you will, will depend on your own preferences and interests.

My Rating: 3/5