PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White

August 31st, 2010 - HarperTeen
Synopsis: 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 one 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 death. 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.

I first heard of Paranormalcy right before it came out-when there was hype over it and the ARC's were first being passed around. I liked the sound of it. I'm a sucker for secret agencies, and especially for magic.

But I kept forgetting about it once it finally hit the shelves. Firstly, I had already planned to read a bunch of other books, and also, I was broke. It would be a few months before it were on my nearest library's thin, cold metal shelves. And then I forgot about it. Last month, perusing the YA section, I stumbled on it, and remembered that it's sequel, Supernaturally, was coming out soon, and so I decided now would be a good time to read it.

Well, I won't linger on my crappy backstory anymore, but dive right in....

The beginning, especially the opening pages and first few chapters immediately grabbed me. I'm typically a snobby and rude critic with very low expectations, and so it's hard to get my attention in the first few pages. But Kiersten White's pulled me in and I was enthralled in Evie's world.

Her humor is really evenly placed throughout the novel. I don't know how, but she was able to effectively make even the most intense of scenes a little funny. (And how can it not be funny? The main character has a pink taser and throwing knives and screams, "Oh, bleep!"-literally-when she's frustrated.)

Her creepo stalker boyfriend, whom I won't name, because if you've read it, you know why I can't say his name, was... well... a creep. He made my skin crawl by how wicked he was. I absolutely adored hating him every bit. Said fearie ex-boyfriend is on my top ten list of villians I love to hate. Also on that list: Peter from Veronica Roth's DIVERGENT, which will be my next review.

Anyway, Evie was really easy to feel sympathy for. I liked how easy it was to cheer for her because of her mix of sassiness and vulnerability. Also, the people and things she faces make it really easy to do so, as well.

I don't know who my favorite character was! So many to choose from! I really loved Lend. He was so sweet, and I really enjoyed how he seemed to posses the same kind of mix of personalities that Evie had, except his were suave and awkward. And, of course, Evie was just a freaking awesome MC that I wouldn't mind spending a day with, talking about vampires and teenage soap-operas. But, still, I think my favorite character was either Evie's mermaid friend, Lish, or her boss, Raquel, who served as such a wonderful role. I think I'm leaning towards Raquel more, just because of her maternal protectiveness over Evie, even if she was a bit overprotective at times.

I couldn't find any writing problems with it. It flowed really well and all the characters had so many dimensions and Ms. White was great at showing all of them to the reader. Several chapters in, I was afraid that the story might be hard to read because it only took place in such a small facility such as that of the IPCA's, but Ms. White did it, and I'm very glad I read it! :)

-Aaron