Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Title: Paranormalcy

Author: Kiersten White

Publication Date: August 31, 2010

hardcover, 335 pages

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. - Summary from Goodreads

Thanks to a VERY friendly librarian, I was able to snag this book a few days before it came out! Unfortunately I didn't actually go to pick it up until the day it was published... :(

Paranormalcy is by all means way past my expectations. With all the tacky, twilight faux out there, my taste for paranormal was at a demise. However, when I picked up this book, my love for this high-demand genre was back. Every part of this book is different from those that I had read before. The best part about Evie, the main character, is that she herself does not know who she actually is. The story was about finding that person inside of her, literally. In the beginning she is just a normal person, which I am still, months after reading this book, loving. For once there is a book where you don't truly know the main character, and since she doesn't know herself either, her curiosity and adventure is in your veins as well.

When Evie meets Lend, it's as if the whole book was merely a rocket just waiting to be launched, finally, when they meet. They bond instantly-at first, just as friends, which is the best part. Neither of them try to take it to fast, but are both content with the ever-so -as well as patient- growing bond between them. Even better, this time, it was Evie who made the first moves rather than Lend. Lend is fantastic, and his power met with Evie's is a perfect match. It's clear that they are meant for each other. Lend's abilities are intriguing and original, and constantly made me curious to know what he would do the next time he shows up.

The idea of Evie's paranormal abilities deserves 5 stars on its own. The rest of the paranormals in the story are also just so differentiated from the average werewolf/vampire scenarios, they too alone could have kept me lured into the story. The antagonist is, well, think of her as an extremely distorted (and by distorted I mean lighter AND distorted) version of Harry Potter and Voldemort. Evie and her share many things in common such as their abilities, but also have feelings for each other that are not mutual. The face-to-face scenes are not as dark and twisted as they are in Harry Potter, but they do have the perfect amount of action and suspense a 14 year old girl is looking for in such a story.

I was amused by how fairies, once their true names are discovered, are forced to do the bidding of whoever speaks their name. Reth, Evie's ex-boyfriend, had a rough, bad-boy touch with a slightly predictable twist in the end. In a more positive statement, I would call the predictable twist more of clever foreshadowing. . . However, all in all this was a very satisfying story that was was very enjoyable. It fits the description of a young adult book perfectly.

4 Beasts

Paper Towns by John Green

Title: Paper Towns

Author: John Green

Publication Date: October 16, 2008

Hardcover, 305 Pages

When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night - dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows her. Margo's always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she's always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they're for Q. - Summary from Goodreads

The prologue was like a temptingly delectable cupcake. It revealed such a mysterious and enticing moment in which two nine year old best friends discovered a bloody, dead man lying under the tree by the town playground. That was so interesting to me because it was so different than any other book prologue I had ever read before. It was nothing remotely close to normal. The beginning was enjoyable because Green's 'set up' was smooth - the lay out of Quentin's life as a senior to introduce the main character was done well. Quentin and his friends, Radar and Ben, were hysterical teenagers who I found easy to relate to.

The beginning was fast paced, as it almost immediately started with Quentin and Margo Roth Spiegelman - his long time crush - going on a crazy, wild adventure on a night they will never forget. This berserk circumstance caused the entire rest of the book to be effected by that night. That was an enjoyable change in a storyline, because most books don't reach the climax until about three quarters of the book. Not only was the climax at the start, but there was also another, more important climax as a result of the first one, so I did not find the rest of the book boring at all. I was expecting that the next few weeks after Margo and Quentin's campaign of revenge, everything would be settled down and life would go on without any nostalgic thoughts from anyone. Instead, Margo Spiegelman disappeared, and her vanishing act was put to investigation by the one and only distressed Quentin.

The mystery that went with Margo and her small lead of "bread crumb" trails that hinted only to Quentin as to where she fled were brilliant! (However, none are to be mentioned here for the protection of not releasing spoilers) I eagerly followed Margo's trail alongside Quentin every step of the way, whenever he found new evidence and got closer to uncovering the whereabouts of his childhood crush. The so called Paper Towns that Quentin discovered were neat, real-yet-not places that I had never heard of until Green introduced them into the story. Paper Towns are some of the coolest, non-existent concepts I have ever come across.

The twenty-one hour car trip with three senior boys and one senior girl was hilarious and amusing. Every hour of the trip was the start of a new chapter, and each chapter added new humor and old jokes from the previous chapters. The unexpected problems that the crew had along the trip were fun-filled and fantastic. I found that at every moment in the trip I could not put the book down, mainly because I was laughing so hard, and that just caused me to keep on reading because I was craving for another supply of stomach-aching laughter. Ben was a favorite character of mine during the road trip, perhaps because he always seemed as if he was in constant need of the restroom at all points along the drive. And when there was not a plan for a rest stop for another four hours, the restroom improvisational skills of the clan were a riot to read about. I also grew to love the character Radar, who was another addition to the calamities of the road trip. Radar was such a comical high-schooler, who had quite the strong personality and the strangest background. He was a strong leader and a great member of the crew.

In the end, after when Quentin ditches his very own high school graduation to find a special someone he is head-over-heels with, I found quite a few philosophical thoughts within him. There were life changing realizations and moments that had accumulated inside of him throughout his experiences that were never released until those moments at the end of the story. Every bit of those deep, psychological grasps that he caught on to made it a truly beautiful novel. The main reason why I am not rating it as high as I may seem to want to is simply because it was, to me, a little bit childish at points with the teenage humor. Some of the humor was a bit crude, and books that deserve higher are ones that aren't so, well, goofy. This was a fun read, but nothing too amazing to consider a high quality young adult book.

4 Beasts

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Linger

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Publication Date: July 13, 2010

hardcover, 362 pages

In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past...and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabel, who already lost her brother to the wolves...and is nonetheless drawn to Cole. At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love-the light and the dark, the warm and the cold-in a way you will never forget.

-Summary from Goodreads

Once again, I just wanted to mention how cool it was that the font of this book is GREEN. Sadly, my copy was an ARC, so it wasn't. But the new, bookstore type are always green. On the cover, there is a green silhouette of a girl in the top right part, and a green silhouetted wolf in the bottom left part. In Shiver, there is a silhouetted blue wolf. I wonder what Forever, the third book in the series will have on the cover? My guess is two people, Sam and Grace? I hope so. And I've been hearing alot of questions about the next color scheme of the book. That would be cool if it was purple, but I really have no idea.

Moving on to the book, once again Stiefvater doesn't disappoint. Linger was filled with the same amount of excitement as in Shiver. The only major con of this book was that it had very slow moments in the first half of the book. My theory behind that is because since the Sam problem was resolved already in the first book, everything had to be calm and settled before Maggie could jump into another conflict. I think that is a smart and reasonable move.

I enjoyed how the point of view in this book added the characters Isabel, Jack's brother, and Cole, one of the new werewolves that Beck brought back with him from Canada. They added more depth and insight to the story. Cole especially, was an intriguing character who I suspected to have been the happiest and most care-free person in the world because of his fame. I was wrong. Cole was quite the opposite of that. I never fully understood why Beck chose Cole to become a werewolf , and it was pretty unclear in the story. Maybe Beck thought he would be useful, but Cole surely could not have expected the ending (sorry for the lack of information but i'm not doing spoilers), so in the end he was great help but his choosing is still a mystery to me.

The beginning of the book was medium-paced, the middle of the book heated up, and there was a major turning point in the story. Then, it got slow again, and then fast, slow, then the ending was just as adrenaline-rushing as the ending in Shiver. Linger's intensity level continuously fluctuated. The character development and each characters voice was absolutely fantastic. Every character had a different personality -finally a book like that!- and Maggie Stiefvater's skill in talent and writing made up more than half of the amazingness (not a word, too bad) of the book. Without the awe-striking characters and the fabulous writing, it wouldn't be anything close to as good as it is now. Maggie really knows exactly how, girls and boys alike, think. She knows how to develop a character, and she knows the person she's writing about more than from the inside-out.

The plot, I have to admit, was not as admirable as Shivers, probably once again noting that the situation of Sam being a werewolf was already resolved in the last part of Shiver. That forced the beginning of Linger to have to slow down the pace and get the storyline set up for the next plot. The Linger plot was just as clever and addicting, but it was spread out differently through the book so thats why I didn't enjoy it as much. I liked the gradual heating up of the story, even though there were many long, slow parts. Slowly the energy built and built, and the ending had so much fervor it wasn't even just like a balloon popping, it was as if the same amount of balloons that lift up the Carl Fredricksen's house in the movie UP popped all as a result of a chain reaction. The ending was similar to Shiver in many ways such as the excitement of it, yet it was also the complete opposite. There were more heart bursting moments. Linger is bewildering, nerve-wrecking and powerful.

WATCH OUT FOR THE THIRD BOOK IN THE SERIES OF THE WOLVES OF MERCY FALLS, CALLED FOREVER. COMING IN JULY 2011!

4 Beasts

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

Title: Sisters Red

Author: Jackson Pearce

Genre: Paranormal Fiction, Romance

hardcover, 328 pages

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris-- the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She's determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts fiercely alongside her. Now Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves and finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax-- but loving him means betraying her sister and has the potential to destroy all they've worked for.

Twenty-five-year-old Jackson Pearce delivers a dark, taut fairy tale with heart-pounding action, fierce sisterly love, and a romance that will leave readers breathless

-Summary from Goodreads

Sisters Red is slightly like a twisted version of Little Red Riding Hood, but with much more action, adventure, romance, suspense and mystery. It was fun how Jackson Pearce made the story told from the two points of view of the March sisters, Scarlett and Rosie. Pearce did a fantastic job depicting the voices of both girls, they had very different personalities, hobbies, and opinions in and on life. Pearce was able to show how the two sisters were similar in so many ways, yet so different in so many as well. For example, the whole thing about them both having "The same heart". I know, it sounds really cheesy, but the way she described it was really neat, like how, when they hunt, their hearts move as one, and they have the feeling of becoming one another.

The writing style was perfect, as the descriptions and details told by them were never overloaded with unnecessary adjectives, yet they were also detailed enough for a good image based on the descriptions to submerge from my thoughts. Scarlett was portrayed well as protective, caring and forgiving as a sister, yet merciless, ruthless, and dangerous as a hunter. Rosie was portrayed well as understanding and loving. She knows that ever since the wolf incident, she owes her life to Scarlett forever by hunt. Yet she also wants to live a life besides wolves and hatchets as well. Rosie's character added to the storyline with a good twist.

To be honest, there was one unnecessary part of the book that I should mention. The art class that Rosie took as part of a community program where they had to draw men nude? That was pretty unnecessary. I know that it is a referral to remind the reader that Rosie is starting to fall in love with Silas because one of the men she has to draw looks like him, but there were many other parts of the book where Rosie talks about how she falls in love with Silas. I found this section of the story confusing, weird and very unnecessary.

However, I liked how Rosie and Silas's relationship was not rushed, and it took about half of the book for things to really pick up between them. I highly dislike books with story lines that go from "I didn't know he/she existed" then five minutes later to "I love you". Overall, this was a great read, and I must say so far it has been the best paranormal book I have read yet.

4 Beasts