Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

The Story:

Evie's always thought of herself as normal, human even. She loves all things pink and spends her time watching reruns of teen drama shows. But Evie isn't normal no matter how hard she tries to mimic being a boring teenager. For one thing, she is the only person in the world who can see through paranormal glamours. For another she lives in a top secret paranormal detainment center and her job is to bad an tag the things that go bump in the night.

       When a mysterious shape-shifter breaks into her home Evie finds herself inexplicably drawn to him. Maybe it's because he's the closest thing to a boy her age that she's got or could it be that he can turn himself into the hottest guy on earth? Then paranormals start dropping like flies and Evie suspects that there is a link between her abilities and the thing that now haunts her dreams.Soon Evie is running for her life and the choices she makes will inevitably shape not only her future but the very existence of paranormals everywhere.

My Thoughts:

The first few lines of this book really grabbed me and at the beginning I found Evie's voice to be very cute. In fact if I could describe Paranormalcy in one word it would be cute. Just cute. The cover appears to have little relevance to the novels plot at all and I wondered throughout the whole book when it would get dark and scary...it never happened. The book just sort of plodded along, jumping between Evie being scared and guilty to Evie descending into high school shallowness.

         To be honest, I was more than a little disappointed with Evie. She really had potential to be another Sophie from Hex Hall, but the author somehow robbed her of the same kind of depth. For one thing, she wasn't particularly bright, which isn't a bad thing, if only SOMEONE else was. Alas, the whole novel seemed to be permeated with characters of sub par intelligence who somehow happened to work with paranormals and managed to not be killed.

         On the other hand, I thought Lend was very sweet and I liked him despite his lack of edge. Even though he was a shape shifter there was something so normal about him and I thought he was a perfect fit for Evie given her obsession with all things normal.

        Wow, it probably sounds like I didn't like Paranormalcy but I did. It was a light read and the mystery of the paranormal killings was intriguing. I just kept getting distracted by how dense everyone was. The premise of the book is great and there were some imaginative concepts that I haven't seen in any other novels. Overall, I have high hopes for this series and I'll probably check out Supernaturally when it comes out. 

Rating:

6.5/10

What the?/Cover your eyes: Spoiler Alert

1. For a supposed international agency IPCA were the dumbest group of people I have ever come across. Their lack of understanding and self imposed ignorance of the true nature of the immortals was almost maddening. 

2. I couldn't tell if Reth was meant to be a secondary romantic character or not but he just struck me as a maniac in a pretty package.

My Image of Evie: 

Thanks to the cover image, I couldn't help but imagine Evie as Scarlett Johansson the whole time.